Once I heard a radio show about divorced couples hooking up once a week just for some nookie. The two of you can’t have a civil conversation without smashing plates and dishes, but her hips are just irresistible. Hey baby, it’s a lot safer than trawling bars…
Google. Ex Wife.
You Can’t Live With Her. You Can’t Live Without Her.
This morning I saw a post about Google testing display of click counts under ads. In other words, under your ad, Google displays “156,000 clicks for this advertiser.”
Or, if you’re new, “12 clicks for this advertiser.”
Gee, thanks.
Today is as good a day as any to tell you *exactly* what I think about Google.
Most of you know that I’ve made the majority of my dinero for the last 8 years as a Google AdWords evangelist, educator, #1 author, seminar promoter, consultant and gadfly. I’ll be the first to confess that hitching my wagon to the Big G in the spring of 2003 was one of the smartest things I could have possibly done.
Actually I chalk it up more to Providence than smarts. But in any case, it’s been a super great ride.
Google has rightfully become the most desired, most sophisticated, greatest advertising machine in the history of man. I figured that out in about 3 hours back in 2002 and I’ve been addicted ever since.
There is not even a close second. One can only hope that Facebook wakes up from their intoxicated stupor and builds something even remotely as good. (Eventually they will, but they’ll have to get spanked by Wall Street before they do it. Meanwhile if you can hack your way through their circa-1998 user interface you’ll find huge opportunities and cheap clicks. Sheryl Sandberg and Emily White, I have no doubt you’re trying to penetrate your management’s thick skulls. Please, for the sake of all of us, keep trying.)
If you have a geek orientation and you love human psychology, then AdWords is an endless universe of experimental bliss. When you master it, it’s like a video game that spits out 100 dollar bills every hour on the hour. It’s crack cocaine.
The dark side is, Google IS Big Brother. Make no mistake about it. Nameless, faceless people control the world’s information. Drones in India who make $5 an hour decide whether the business you invested $1 million building is legitimate or not. They kill you dead with impunity.
(Their shareholders will have Sergey’s head on a stick when they find out how abysmally they treat most of their customers. Eventually the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times or the Economist will run a big story about it. I’ll be happy to give them a few thousand people they can interview. But I digress.)
Six months ago in the midst of wrangling with their incompetent staff, a Google rep in India concluded her email to me with these words: “. . . and please stop scams.”
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Do not ever, ever, allow yourself to think that sexy technology mitigates human nature. It doesn’t and it never will. Every empire that has ever grown unchecked has become a dictatorship.
It’s true: Ex-spouses sometimes need a hookup. And realistically, most online advertisers need to work with Google. It was true in 2003 and it’s true now: Google is still the best anvil for perfecting your sales funnel.
But I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS told people – as long as I’ve been teaching ANYTHING about Google AdWords – buddy, don’t you dare build a business that DEPENDS on Google because if you do, you’ve got a Glock pointed right at your head. And eventually somebody’s going to pull the trigger and your brains are going to splatter against the wall.
Does Google hate affiliates?
Girl spreads her legs for the first guy she meets at a Rave party. He slips out of her bed at 6am, pulls on his jeans, exits silently and never calls her back.
Is it because he hates her?
Oh, no, not at all. It’s just that he has zero respect for her. She’s easy. Free market research.
If you’re a thin affiliate, you don’t have a business. You have an unpaid market research internship at Google where you take all the risk and they gather all the intelligence. And store it permanently on redundant servers.
If you think Google is your Messiah, you’re just like the guy who thinks they built Vegas so he can make a fast thousand bucks this weekend. He’s gonna get screwed.
If you understand that Google is a TOOL, and only a tool – if you understand that it’s YOUR job to build a business that’s so irresistible that publishers everywhere are going to want to sell you traffic – then you’re going to be just fine.
Funny aside: People often assume that at my 4-Man Intensive and Roundtable meetings, we sit around and analyze Google campaigns. I totally get why people think that. But I’ve had many Roundtable meetings where Google barely got a mention in 2 days of brainstorming.
Why? Because REAL business building is not about the nuances of buying advertising. It’s about:
- Crafting irresistible offers
- Building great relationships with customers
- Gaining a cult following
- Developing groundbreaking products that scratch peoples’ itches in clever ways
- Creating experiences that customers rave about
- Cultivating powerful relationships with other players in your industry
- Making yourself an authority
- Putting yourself in the “Toll Booth” position for whoever wants access to your crowd
- Taking advantage of all forms of profitable advertising media and PR
- Building systems that make you money
- Putting that money in the bank
- Cranking out new, exciting innovations
- Harnessing your dysfunctions and making them productive
- Inspiring a culture where people will climb over brick walls to be on your team
- Being an alchemist
That’s the kind of stuff we talk about behind closed doors. And Google can’t do any of that for you.
If you think they can, you just end up being their whore. Thank you for playing at Harrah’s Casino, please come again soon.
Google has done their job. Very competently, thank you very much. YOUR mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring a LOT more value to your niche than Google does.
Become the alchemist that everybody in your corner of the world can’t stop talking about. Then and only then are you in charge of your future.
Perry Marshall
P.S.: Google your ex-wife. I bet you’ll find out something you didn’t know before.
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
78 Comments on “Google & the Ex-Wife Nookie Hookup”
Looks like the Google police have moved beyond AdWords and onto their YouTube property.
Just got an email from Peter Koning. Many of you know him from his affiliate review site (Affiliate-Software-Review.com).
Here’s his warning about hosting videos on YouTube and his move over to Amazon:
http://www.affiliate-software-review.com/asrblog/this-youtube-break-up-hurts
This is the best post I’ve ever gotten from you (out of MANY contenders.)
My friends and I were riding high, making $30K-$60K/mo. from thin affiliate sales for most of 2010. You’d think it was awesome (and it was, in some ways) but I honestly felt uneasy the entire time. In the pit of my stomach was exactly what you alluded to in your email: it wasn’t a real businesses. It was, at best, a market inefficiency. Kudos to us for being the guys who capitalized on it, but it was never going to be a sustainable, life-long moneymaker.
Fortunately, we wised up in time to get out and use our cash on more sustainable activities.
Great job speaking truth to power on this!
Fuck! This was SO good post! Really enjoyed reading your email.
Hi Perry,
Your article hits the nail right on the head.
I’ve just had my experience of being permanently suspended by Google.
Reason for the suspension:
* 5 or 6 years ago I tried the Googlecash strategy, and, admittedly, this also has included some lower quality websites. (Back then, those websites didn’t violate any Google-policy, and Google happily took the money from lots of Googlecash advertisers and used it to build their business.)
* I have paused those campaigns 5 years ago and completely forgot about them.
(My standard-view has filtered away paused campaigns)
I have explained this to the Google-rep by email. The Google-rep was friendly, and explained everything in detail. But he/she apparently had no power to decide anything. My impression is that he/she rather had to blindly follow corporate policy.
So, be it this way.
Of course I have then followed my own policy which I apply when some company terminates the business relationship with me without good reason: I also terminate the relationship from my side. I.e. I have closed all of my Google-accounts. I will not use any of their services and products etc, as long as they refuse to work with me.
And I have let the rep know that I’ll do that. ( After it was clear to me that they won’t move. )
***
For me it’s probably more an opportunity than a real problem.
First, it’s not a real problem because my primary source of income is still a pretty stable employee job with good work climate and a salary which pays for my cost of living.
Second, my business still gets some free traffic, and I’ll give other paid advertising possibilities more attention now. First move of course: Using Microsoft Adcenter. It has gotten a nice user interface in the meantime.
And I can apply all my PPC knowledge there as well.
Yes, it’ll probably be a smaller amount of traffic, but probably still enough for testing and optimizing.
And, when I have optimized enough, I can go to print advertizing in journals etc.
***
I also got the impression that Google is about to shut down advertizing for products which have anything to do with alternative medicine and for other info-products that help you to live a healthy and happy life.
This impression may be wrong, but if it is right, then a possible explanation is that Google does not want to offend big pharma corporations because they have a huge advertizing budget. ( selling anti-depressants etc to people as a life-long medication is way easier if all alternatives are filtered away. )
This may be a smart 80/20 business move by Google, at least short term.
***
All of this also shows how much Google is into Big-Brother and/or enforcing their version of political correctness with their policies.
So we should be alert, not only what this does to many small businesses, but also to society at large. Most people are completely unconscious about how information is filtered even by systems like a search engine which is usually viewed as a neutral thing. This unconsciousness makes it more dangerous.
Hi Perry:
Well said man, well said.
I am with you all the way on this one.
Facebook should stop pretending they are something else and put up their fist and getting in the ring with Google.
Google needs to be humbled just a little bit. Some needs to spank them just to remind them they are not LORDS of the internet, remind them they are only SEARCH engine on the internet.
Kudos to you for writing such a gutsy letter. I imagine it is not going to improve your relationship with Google but it had to be said.
Hi
I read your guide about five years ago and we’ve parlayed that into a nice Google Service Bureau business. We even nailed odwn the Certified Partner Designation, making us a little Google Toadie I guess. Thanks! I feel like I should give you some more money or something…
Anyway…I think what you are landing on is about vulnerability. We live in an overcommunicated world and I believe more than ever, the key to making a go of it in business is to focus on scrubbing ones offering to such perfection, it is an honour for someone to buy. Combine a great product with a great risk reversal and issues like lead traffic generation become a secondary issue.
So lets not let the lead traffic tail wag the leadership/ offering dog…lets dial into improving peoples lives through our efforts and making it easy to buy, the rest gets easier….
namaste
Actually, one could make a great feature article on how Google reflects the current impersonal police state of the US.
Both have disdain for the working people, but will make exceptions for the rich and connected. (I had a few sites banned for no particular reason I could see. Meanwhile, I saw pictures of another webmaster with an identical series of sites on the same framework being treated to a baseball game in Google’s luxury box.)
Both claim to being doing what they do for some greater good.
Both are highly impersonal, and almost impossible to reason with.
Both have the power to destroy lives, and often do.
Both are arrogant, and resentful and any questioning of their authority or moral standards.
Both put a happy face on their oppression, whether that be Matt Cutts or Smokey the Bear.
Both enforce their laws arbitrarily, as Adwords does when it suddenly bans people for a few minor (and legal) ads that have been deleted for years.
Both have staff that will sign off with “have a nice day” after telling you they’ve decided to decimate your ability to feed your family and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Frankly, Perry, I think you are quite brave to run this article. Google, as busy and impersonal as they are, still seem to find time for personal malice.
As much as I would like to see Bing bite into Google, they have their issues as well. What we need is transparency, a free market, and finally, a way to make search completely open source. Otherwise, the flow of the world’s information is in the hands a few morally challenged children.
Don’t you love it when engineers get feisty?
Well Perry an entertaining article today especially since it is sadly quite true. You as well as many that read your blog are obviously somewhat tied to Google however I as a newcomer have observed what goes on in the world of Google hence have forgone dealing with this bunch of really bad actors. I happen to think that these jerks are going to rue the day that they adopted their offensive policies and tactics. Their boardroom seems to be very disconnected from the real world where you do not get to crap on your customers not to mention bite the hands that feed you. Hence they have adopted this attitude of the 800 pound gorilla when they are really more an annoying little chimp. As I have looked at this whole industry media buying is just sooo huge outside of Google that for the life of me I cannot imagine anyone wanting to do business with such a collective group of assholes.
Now yes there is time that cleanup of certain areas of online business have been warranted but how they do it is so offensive to anyone in business. What ever happened to the concept of talking to your customers if you don’t like what they are doing? What about giving them a chance to make amends but to just throw someone out with the garbage with no explanation and usually no real rules defined to begin with is just soooo arrogant. I believe a day of reckoning will come when big G finds out it just can’t get away with its temper tantrums before the results start showing up in shares, earnings and the boardroom. This has got to start happening as of all the heavy hitters that have discussed this issue state that they have drastically reduced or eliminated their Google budgets as they have gone elsewhere in that huge market with way less rules and few autocratic or no un-challengable arrogant decisions.
AS far as this user experience is concerned that is an inflated bunch of crap where one critical issues is forgotten by fools in ivory towers… The users are not paying the bills the advertisers are hence one needs to be more concerned with effectiveness for who pays you rather than this warm and fuzzy nebulous user experience garbage that Google dishes out like it was gospel rather than swill.
This can and will come to bite them in the ass as those of us who happen to know this attitude won’t deal with them or transfer a good portion of our budgets to those with better attitudes. Eg. someone asked me if I was going to switch to an Android phone to which my response was “over my dead body I have an iPhone why would I do such a stupid thing.” I may be biased but comparing the corporate boardroom attitude of Google to Apple would be like comparing a street hooker to Lady Di. Now whether anyone cares to agree with me or not is not the point the point is Google is pissing off tens of thousands of customers with no let up in site. No dawning on them that you just can’t continue this forever. They may be brilliant at search engine engineering but at delivery of customer service they are absolute buffoons. At some point you get to pay the price for arrogance dished out in such large quantities especially when it is to those who feed you. There is no if in this formula only a when. Just ask any major corp. that has fallen from the graces of the public to being a part of its former self or has been eliminated. Eg. GM, Enron, Lehman Brothers etc.
Can you imagine what our businesses would be like if we adopted the same attitudes towards our customers? I can just imagine it a Google designed squeeze page how would it read? Something like this…
Perspective customer..
What are
Perry,
Okay, so I’m not sure I love all the metaphors in your latest missive. Are they a little crude? Possibly. A bit misogynistic? Probably. But when it comes to internet marketing, you’re one of the few people that really speaks to me.
Also, being based in Oak Park doesn’t hurt. When I attended Northwestern, about a hundred years ago, my best friend lived in Oak Park. Plus, I love Frank Lloyd Wright.
Keep up the good work.
-Tim
[Hang out with kids and sexual innuendo is the order of the day…all day ]
I’ve been the proud user of sexual innuendo since the 4th grade.
It cuts through the clutter, gets the message heard (and understood), and in a lot of cases, gets a lot of laughs.
[People often assume that at my 4-Man Intensive and Roundtable meetings, we sit around and analyze Google campaigns.]
Why did you wait so long to say this?
That’s probably the ONLY reason I’ve never attended!
I divorced Google almost two years ago…at least, I quit advertising there. She was too complicated, too expensive, and caused too many problems. But, you know what, I can’t forget about her!
Thanks for this article.
The only difference between playing at Harrah’s Casino and playing at Google is that Harrah’s calls it entertainment.
At Harrah’s, you KNOW you’ll probably lose everything in your wallet, but you tell yourself (and your wife), “That’s my entertainment for the week.”
At Google… well… maybe it IS time to admit: “It’s your entertainment for the week” (and NOT tell your wife).
Perry,
This is probably one of the best articles I’ve ever read from you, which is saying a LOT! Your point about G as a tool only, is well taken – I think it’s easy to load them up with our expectations instead of doing all the work you point out we need to do.
Thanks.
Perry,
Just found your site today. This was a great read! Will have to find time to digest your previous posts, but intend to follow you now that I have found your site. Great work!
People can bitch about Google all they want – but no company, today, has anything close to Google’s competitive strength on the internet – Facebook may pose a challenge but that’s just speculation. It seems like internet advertisers are caught between a rock and a hard place and – in my view – it’s more sensible to put up and get on with it rather than complain. If not, speak to your Senator to enforce your desired restrictions on Google.
Way to fight for your power Anon. So you are saying that you are type that would let me bully you around and you would just deal with it because I am bigger than you?
What would you do if you walked in to a store to buy something and they treated you like crap – would you keep going back to that store? I would hope not.
Google has fooled a lot of people into thinking that we need to use them – no matter how they treat us. This is their greatest power.
The reality is that we as the consumers have the real power. Unfortunately not many people realize this. If we all stopped using Google tomorrow, they would eventually fold. You don’t need to support vendors that you don’t like. It is partially our fault for letting Google become as it is because without their users and advertisers they would be nothing.
You might not be able to just stop advertising with them because it would effect your income too much, but you could start making moves to build up other traffic channels. You could also stop using Google as a search engine and start teaching and showing others to stop using Google too.
I am an avid Google user and I wouldn’t think about using another search engine for my queries – it’s not even a possibility.
I can look at this issue dispassionately because I don’t make my living off internet marketing anymore (I’ve kept the subscription to Perry’s emails because I still find some of them interesting).
I can understand the frustrations of dealing with a monopoly – but unless you can make a better search engine, the harsh reality is that internet advertisers have to put up with it or get out of the business.
Sometimes we need to step out from our little worlds and get a broader perspective of economic reality to make intelligent decisions.
Best Wishes to all of you.
Wow, great post!
In investing they say we should never put all our eggs in one basket, yet in any business it’s easy to do this all the time…if we rely on Google (or any other single company, or employee, or customer, or …) then the day that thing ceases to perform the way we expect, our business can easily be impacted in a negative way.
A recent lesson I learned was I had posted 35 articles to a particular article site from August 2010 through March 2011, and some of them were ranking in the top 5 on Google. Had 15,000 pageviews through April 2011. Then the Google Panda update hit and all the article site page ranking dropped. So this company changed their editorial guidelines and no longer allows any articles with backlinks in them. None. They summarily deleted all 35 articles without notification asking me to remove the links if I wanted to keep the articles live. In the mean time, people have scraped those articles for content and now duplicate content exists on the web for them, so I can’t simply post them as-is to any other site without them getting flagged as duplicate content. So now I have to rewrite my own articles just to be able to use them on the web. Who would have thought that? Needless to say, I am now spreading the articles out over a much wider distribution. This was a great lesson to learn when I only had 35 articles posted to that site. In restrospect, shame on me for putting so many eggs in that basket. Looking on the bright side though, it’s certainly better to learn that lesson with 35 articles than 350 or even 3,500!
Thanks for the reminder!
That article hit me right between the eyes because I was recently banned from Google Adwords. I was with them since 2003, spending hundreds every month and then they put me through the ringer…
Out of the blue 4 weeks ago, I got a ‘warning’ about three sites. I called them to find out the problem.
Long story short the said they were wrong about two of them, but the third had to change.
So the reactivated my account. Thank God!
A week later I got another warning. I called to find out what the problem was. They said two sites (two of the same described above) were not in compliance.
One of the sites I did not own, and I ran an ad directing a total of 1 click to it over a one day period two years ago and then deleted the ad.
But they said I was responsible for it. What? However, they were going to keep my account open until they went through my account again. What?
In the mean time I was scrambling to make changes to the site I did own: http://www.renegadesalonmarketing.com
I spent days and hours making changes, going back and forth with them. And I would ask them what exactly the problem is with it, and each time they said, “make the messaging more holistic”.
And after a week I got a permanent ban. No reasons. No second chances. Just a cold shoulder. No respect for my business over the years, no respect for my efforts. Nothing. I wish Yahoo and Bing and Facebook would crush them now.
OH, and by the way…while all that was going on they delisted one of my best sites. I asked what was wrong with it. I wrote all the content, and made sure every page was good. All they gave was vague reasoning, nothing for me to work with. So I asked the Google webmaster forums and got several ideas which I acted upon, and Google still will not get it back into their search engine. It had been up and running well for 6 years.
I used to Love Google.
AMEN to that!
It was pure bliss reading this post. Brilliant. Thank you!
Perry,
I have been a devoted reader for 7 years. This is a good one.
If I ever can find the time, I’ll be at a 4 man intensive.
Thanks for your continued inspiration. It gets lonely out here.
Happy day,
Jake
Intensive is “online marketers’ lonely hearts club’ (among other things of course!)
Can’t wait to meet ya.
Hi Perry,
Thanks for a great post! To be completely honest, this is probably the only e-mail post I’ve received from you that I read cover to cover.
Hearing you voice my own thoughts means a lot! I am just strating to experiment with google adwords and SEO and having exact same experience you’re describing.
I believe many people missed the main point of your wonderful piece:
“..If you think Google is your Messiah, you’re just like the guy who thinks they built Vegas so he can make a fast thousand bucks this weekend. He’s gonna get screwed.
If you understand that Google is a TOOL, and only a tool – if you understand that it’s YOUR job to build a business that’s so irresistible that publishers everywhere are going to want to sell you traffic – then you’re going to be just fine…”
This is great advice, which I intent to follow throughout my Internet career. Thanks!
Amen Perry. ‘Nough said.
Hi Perry,
I’ve always appreciated your insight and input on the online marketing world, however I received an email today with this post and I was deeply disappointed.
This post is just crude. The inapproiate nature of the post caused me to unsubscribe from all your future communication. I’m deeply saddened because in the past it seemed that you had a solid moral foundation and were interested in being a light in a dark world, but this post leaves me with the distinct impression that sucess and a desire to increase your click count have eclipsed moral values.
Thank you for your past input, and goodbye.
See above comments in this thread, for discussion of the moral aspect of this email.
About displaying number of clicks below ads . . .
Isn’t this just a prelude to displaying the number of visitors who clicked, then didn’t come back to the search results?
To me this looks like the comments section on Amazon “147 out of 158 found this review helpful.”
Maybe Google does something like . . .
“148,000 out of 150,000 found that this ad answered their search query.”
Wow Perry!
That was an amazing and illuminating article!
Adwords is a great tool for my business, but I sometimes get frustrated by them moving the goal posts all the time.
Keep up the good work!
First, hilarious post. Still laughing.
Second, I want to check my thinking about the role of Google in a business in the future. All feedback welcome.
My assumptions about Google:
1. They want to make as much money as they can, as to their shareholders.
2. Most of their money comes from a few sources statistically. 80/20 or rather 95/5 or maybe even 99/1 rule.
3. In order to draw eyeballs, they must be relevant to online organic information seekers. So SEO, as long as its relevant, should continue to “work”… granted its a long haul depending on your keywords. Google will continue to let the best, most relevant information rise to the top of the search rankings as this is what their consumer is demanding. I see no real end to this part of the Google equation unless Google itself is unseated as a search engine.
4. Because of #1 and #2, Google it seems to me is incented to find ways to do less and less business with “average folk”…even not so average folk…when it comes to Adwords in particular (Content network due to the huge amount of inventory for them to sell might be different?).
5. Heat maps I’ve seen seem to show that consumers are clicking less and less on ppc stuff,,,that ppc is more like TV ads increasingly and consumers are tuning them out…and the majority of the clicks seem to go to the top couple positions. This seems to motivate Google to funnel us via search ‘suggestions’ to fewer and fewer keywords…to bid up the price of keywords so that the $2 a click “foreclosure real estate” click of today becomes the $4 click next year. This will keep their ppc revenue from eroding even if consumers spend less time clicking on ppc ads.
Therefore my conclusions if the above is reasonably correct:
1. PPC will only continue to get more expensive
2. Google will only become more difficult to work with for the ‘little guy’. They truly don’t care and never will.
3. I would not be stunned to find that Google someday required a minimum spend per month…like some other mediums…to weed out the average guy who doesn’t make them any real long term money. I just got a promotion for example that allowed me to get $500 in free adwords clicks if I spent $500. I asked myself “why”? And my answer was “to get me to raise my hand so they have a list of people willing to spend $500 a month on Adwords and target them in the future. (funny story: Google offered to manage this campaign, so I let them…for 4 days. We told them what we wanted…and 15 days later (good thing we didn’t have a business to run or anything) they came to us with the Plan. So we ran it just like they suggested. And how did it turn out? Surprise…it burned through money like water but zero opt ins…who would have thunk it? :-). I could only afford to be amused by this for so long as it was an expensive hobby to watch them spend my money recklessly. So my son with his minimal Perry Marshall taught knowledge came up with a competitive campaign in one day and we had 10 opt ins at half the price in no time. So if any of you are ppc consultants out there, it appears your jobs are very safe. Google wants to hire kids for $15 an hour apparently to set up Adwords campaigns, but even with insider knowledge they can’t make their own beast obey)
3. If you build a great back end, and have sophisticated help, you can be one of the few that does well on Google with your business. However without a great back end (not the kind Perry alludes to on todays post) its seems to me that Google will simply be a place for the average business to piss away hundreds and thousands of dollars, mystified at what happened. Google to me is increasingly like turning your hose on at home, and sitting there watching the water go down the street to someone elses lawn…while your meter spins like a top.
Ok, so is my view ‘reality’? If I’m wrong, please correct me. I’m trying to understand this more accurately.
Mike
“So if any of you are ppc consultants out there, it appears your jobs are very safe.” Amen!
Perry,
This will go in history as an key example of how to attract readers and…
the exposure of a marketing giant/monpolist that does not care about their costumers. In the end Google will lose out because somewhere in the future there will come an alternative for AdWords. Maybe it is Facebook, but most likely the David that will bring down Googleiath will be a 14 year old brilliant Indian/Chinese boy that yet has to get his best idea ever…
Greetings from Holland, keep up the good work.
Dear Perry,
you have in the past mentioned that people like Dan Kennedy only take phone calls at one time in the week – but this is at least clear and with good reason.
Google on the other hand has an interface which is both badly designed and difficult to use – and when you get it wrong, which you will as a newbie – they send you the most threatening letters.
Do you want to know the truth? They should get your team in to sort them all out. When you deal with customers in the hot seat with your online pull-aparts for the Swiss Army Knife, even telling them that they have gotten it completely wrong comes out as a positive and encouraging statement. THAT is how to deal with people.
You do not slap your customers across the face!
They had me in tears with one of their letters. If Facebook get their act together, Google is going to find themselves where Nokia find themselves now.
Come on, Perry! You can show them how, can’t you?
Perry, good article…but anyone that has used google ppc to promote legitimate business opportunities let’s call it as it is…google’s ppc is dead for that application. Almost any ad now that promotes helping folks make money they make the assumption it is a ‘scam’. They now have the same viewpoint on youtube videos and pull your videos and tell the whole world your a scam where your video use to sit. Done with Big Brother have been for a while. As soon as I explored and implemented other lead generation methods and not depend on google ppc my business has thrived. Now you may have to spin 3 or 4 mediums and go offline to replace google traffic but in the long run it will be a more stable business.
Awesome post and so very true.
The longer I’m in this business, the more I realize the value of list and relationship building.
Fortunately I did that before getting booted from Google over a year ago (1st time)
IMO the key is providing good info with attention grabbing hooks and irresistible offers. (kind of what Perry does ;)
If your headline for this post was submitted to Google as an ad, they would have rejected it for being irrelevant and misleading.
Human curiosity led me to open it, though, and I’m glad I did.
Good one, Perry!
Good stuff!
I have never used Google for ads and even considered it last night, only because of YOUR Google ad-Words Tout that I came across Last year. I have Google Email, which I find is geared to Advertizing and could be utilized as a great Tool. Yes. I only See Google as Great Tool to use, but based on this “seriously funny” letter of yours, it is easy to fall into a trap of letting them control all the way. Yout Drama is hilarious and has good cautioning.
Thanks.
Gerald.
I’ve finally gotten scared enough to try to wean myself off my 95% Google Content network diet and get some other traffic (SEO the last few weeks).
Man, that’s hard work. Going to have to take a look at Facebook and media buys again, a lot easier to write a check!
Superb stuff, Perry.
Having managed AdWords campaigns for clients for several years with varying success, I have found that those who fail don’t look at those important areas you mentioned.
Those that succeed do so big time and then focus on the important task of serving – keeping and reselling to raving fans.
Thanks again Perry another BRILLIANT insight!
Great camparison Perry. I also see in your post something interesting. Like an ex-wife (thank God I don’t have one) Google will leave many unprepared and inexperienced people with a lot of baggage. Because of this they will never try another marriage or marketing strategy for the rest of their lives. Or worse, stay in an abusive relationship (including Google) never realizing they need to reach out and ask for help. Like you, I am also grateful for the Providence that has lead me to the right people
BRAVO!!! Totally true. Not only that, a lot of people just get themselves into a series of one-night stands. Welcome to the world of Biz-Op.
Good advice on Google, but it’s worth mentioning IMO that mention of hookups and “leg-spreading’ one-night stands are probably not what teens in IM and their parents are expecting in your content. Huge segment of the burgeoning Internet Marketing population (both male and female). I’ve been a subscriber for years, bought your book etc so I’m not new by any means. I just think your content stands on it’s own with out the “extras”.
Your advice, on Google, as always is spot-on of course. It always is which is why I’ve been following you for years and recommending you to everyone (including kids). Don’t get me in trouble with their parents, Perry. ;)
Jen,
Teens need to really ‘get’ the content of THIS analogy more than the rest of us. If some parent thinks their teen is too young to hear this, they’re stupidly naive. Hopefully in this case, the analogy runs the other way and the teen learns how to discern their personal relationships, based on their experience with Google.
I knew commenting about this was a risk and that it would open me up to criticism and getting blasted by the other readers. Mention of parents being stupidly naive from you wasn’t expected.
I respect your experience with Google more than you could know and have recommended you to literally dozens of people personally and by extension probably hundreds indirectly.
I’ll say it again: Your content about Google is unmatched in this space. Completely above and beyond what anyone else could possibly write and every person using Google in any way in their business should be a subscriber and rush to open your emails. I do, I should know. That’s why I think the “extras” aren’t needed. The new guy with a 5% open rate needs this. =) You clearly don’t.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one aspect of the message, I suppose.
Jen,
I’m sorry that my comment sounded harsh and I mean no insult to you. Maybe we have to agree to disagree, and that’s OK. Some people think that being conservative means never bringing up stuff like this. I think being conservative means talking openly and truthfully about the consequences of a promiscuous lifestyle.
Seriously, I see very direct parallels here. We live in a one-night-stand culture and that mentality translates DIRECTLY to how people run their businesses. I sell in a world where what sells easily is cheap fast hookups. Which almost always fail. I am constantly swimming against the stream (in the short term, anyway) in giving out real business-building advice. Just as you are when you tell your teenager to be modest. It’s the same principle, and I really do think it needs to be talked about. I believe that anyone who is old enough to run a Google AdWords campaign is also old enough to hear about how one night stands usually turn out.
To put it another way, I did not write this merely to attract attention but to drive home a point.
In any case I mean you no disrespect and I appreciate you SAYING SOMETHING even though we disagree! Dissent is welcome here.
Perry
The fact that dissent is welcome here drives home my point about your reputation as being one of the good, smart guys out there. ;) Thanks for the reply and we’ll have to agree to disagree, yes.
No teens here (yet!) but I have a kiddo who is already showing interest in what I do and like any parent, I hope to have him join me in it someday, hopefully at a young age when his mind is open to all possibilities.
We entrepreneurs tend to pass this affliction on, and since becoming a parent, my sensitivities have changed somewhat. The ability to have a dissenting opinion here and respectful discourse is something I would expect from you. Thanks for the opportunity!
Heya Perry, and Jen.
I’m 17, heh. First of all, I’m pretty sure most people my age don’t read Perry Marshall. Being an entrepreneur-to-the-bone kinda guy, I often find myself staring at my real-life friends wondering what the hell is going on inside those skulls, and saddened to see the majority marching down the paths their parents and their teachers tell them are good ideas. You know, the same paths that kinda-sort-of worked 50 years ago.
Second, this is the exact kind of content we need.
It’s a top-notch analogy and a thundering content hook at the same time. Aside from the eerie similarities between one-night stands and Google biz, this is the exact kind of controversial content that’s needed to pierce through in today’s clusterfuck of web content…
All of us peddlers of harsh truths are certainly swimming upstream, but thank the Big Guy upstairs that they do exist.
Brilliant piece Perry.
Cheers,
Linus
Linus, YOU are a great copywriter! Can’t wait to read what wicked words you’re kicking out by the time you’re 37.
Jen,
for what its worth, I am a conservative Christian parent…with two now college students in my house…and work with high school and college students fairly consistently. I have been a pastor at the University of Washington in the past. I do respect your speaking up and your conscience can be your guide re: what you expose those whom you influence.
that said, most teens (ie 99.9%) would really get what Perry is talking about BECAUSE he said it that way. Hang out with kids and sexual innuendo is the order of the day…all day (just say “that’s what she said” in a group of kids and you will see what I mean). No attention, no communication. Its not just a cheap trick in my view…its communicating. Jesus told stories because people like stories. And this happens to be a story that might actually get noticed by a teen strictly because of the analogy Perry makes.
I’m not criticizing you for disagreeing and your point has a point…appealing to sex for no reason may work, but at a price. But in my view, his analogy has a reason for using that analogy…and that made it memorable…which gives it a chance of being acted upon…which means it can change lives…which I think you would likely agree that we as humans should all be in the business of doing…helping change lives.
I guess I wanted to speak for another viewpoint…
Mike
Jen,
Perry’s customers aren’t teenagers. They are grown up adult entrepreneurs.
A teen entrepreneur group was reading his content as a case-study. I know, because I gave it to them. ;) His Google Adwords book is the gold standard for learning about PPC.
Thanks for your concern, but Perry and I have already discussed this here and yes, there are plenty of readers of his that are all different ages and at different stages in their life.
Great business advice Perry! I HAD to copy that list for a constant reminder of “wise” direction for building business and that Google can “slap” you like a mean sassy nun!
You crack me up, Perry. I read your posts often and this was THE BEST! Keep up the good work.
Perry I’ve been following you for years and I have great respect for you and now….WOW You put it out there. I love it. I want to share this with clients and prospects to make them understand Google doesn’t care about their success and there are lots of ways to promote your business that will generate more sales.
If you go missing we know who to interrogate.
Too funny! Good stuff throughout, especially the bullet points at the end.
Keep up the great tips and good advice in humorous packages.
A superb article, raw and direct. i think sometimes we all need to take a moment to stop praying at the multi coloured alter that is the Big G..
I whole heartedly agree with everything you said, here. i dont know how many times i have tried to get clients to think about it.. Must just think as you say .. google is the messiah
Good Business is about good marketing, and good marketing is about understanding all the tools at your disposal… In the Midst of the US Open.. try imaging, Tiger Woods going round the course with a putter, or Lee Westwood only having a Sandwedge in his bag.. as we say over this side of the pond.. “horses for courses”
Perry,
Best copy ever! The hook was the train wreck you couldn’t avert your eyes from.
And the glock to your head comment, great! Beats the three legged stool analogy. Keep that one.
-rs
Perry I have been following you for years and I have great respect for your work and now even more! I’m going to share this article with my clients and prospects. We must help people understand that Google is not interested in making you successful and there are many ways to achieve success. Now get out there DO IT! Great list of ideas, too!
AWESOME X AMAZING!! you still craft my favourite info pieces!!
Perry,
While I delete most of your emails, I have to say that this is one of the best I’ve ever received from you! Your points are well made and clearly make a really important point – Google is not your friend and truly doesn’t care. They have become Big Brother and need the market to take them down a couple of notches. Regardless of the size of your business, make sure Google is only a part of your marketing universe… the smaller the better.
That was hysterical, sobering, refreshing, and worth reading again. Thanks for being genuine! Dan
Hence, direct mail prevails…
Immune to slaps and politics (almost, what’s the USPS asking for bailouts this year… $4 billion??)
I hope we see the day free markets prevail, absent central market planning (aka private central banks printing debt based paper + interest)
Eventually the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times or the Economist will run a big story about it. I’ll be happy to give them a few thousand people they can interview.
Hi Perry
While I don’t edit the NYT or WSJ, I edit two national tech magazines. I’d very much enjoy telling the Interweb how badly Google treats its customers.
Until now I always thought everyone was too afraid of the consequences to speak out against what is one of the most evil companies ever. If you’re serious, I’ll write the story.
Hey, Dave! Count me in on the thousands – probably millions by the time you have gone right around the world. Gem
Dave, count me in as well if you intend to do a story. I sell an ebook on managing IBS with some dietary and lifestyle changes.
I offer a 60 money back guarantee.
Clearly state that I am not a doc, this isn’t a magic pill, and that this doesn’t work for everyone, even offer a trial period etc.
Despite the fact that I follow ALL US FTC guidelines, and break no rules… I am somehow violating their policies and got a “permanent suspension”.
Begged them again and again, as to what specifically have I done or what changes should I make. But no avail.
I am not a “small” customer either. Have spent 4 figures on them in the last few months. For that don’t I deserve some help in getting what’s an obviously legitimate biz? I don’t sell any weird coaching, or funny pills, or anything else. Just my ebook.
Absolute power does corrupt…
On another note, if anyone can help me getting my account my back or open a new account… I am happy to pay for the service of course.
While your articles continue to show your immense knowledge of this market, the innuendo to ex-wives, and “girls who spread their legs” to make your point is somewhat uncomfortable. Makes me think like you are another Anthony Wiener type lurking on Twitter.
Hey I use foul language a lot in the poker market, but it is widely accepted in that market. I feel however, some women would not be so impressed with your choice of description.
All the best.
A quick agreement with the comment re: girls spreading their legs, whore, hips irresistable. Sigh. Guys commonly seem to think they’re talking in the men’s locker room. Kinda tired of it myself.
Come on now! It’s all tounge-in-cheek! This post would be like all the rest of the “google is evil and here’s how to beat them” articles out there without it. Good marketing will ALWAYS grab your attention whether you like it or not. Great post Perry.
Most of us don’t care about PC sensibilities. And we like sensible, real world examples.
I admit not being able to get past the ex-wife’s ‘hips’ or the ‘easy’ rave party girl either.
Obscures the message, loses the point, kills any momentum.
I’m a good internet marketer who knows you don’t need Adwords to prosper online. But I’d like to turn hundreds per day into thousands per day. I came here looking for advice on Adwords. But I’m too distracted to keep reading.
I too had a suspension. “landing page policy” on an account that was all on pause waiting for landing pages to be built! Now they ban anything I do. I tried several times to be reinstated, but those people you mentioned in your post refused to tell me anything. I would also love to know how to bypass India and talk to someone in authority the U.S. with an ounce of logic and a half ounce of compassion.