An AFFront to good marketing

I spent two and a half years educating the world why paid search was relevant. It was a tough battle. I even made a trip to Google. We wanted Google to place GoTo (now Overture) paid listings on its search results pages. The answer was simple: NO WAY! Can you imagine that we would suggest corrupting the purity of search with paid results?!? We must have convinced Google of something because a year later AdWords was launched.

As we all know now, paid search is a huge advertising channel and has supplanted the then-dominant CPM banner advertising as the main advertising vehicle on the Internet.

In my current role, as an advertiser, I have found Overture’s Editorial Guidelines to be overly restrictive. We needed GoTo’s Editorial Guidelines to be strict early on to prove relevance, especially since we were originally selling the entire set of search results instead of just the top 3 to 5 above the nature search results.

On the other hand, Google has taken a different view of paid search. Google does not seem to place any restrictions on AdWords. There are two guidelines that stick (along with a few against certain content). While one may make some sense, the other is just plain bizarre.

The first is that advertisers are forbidden to use superlatives in any way — so much for a good marketing tool. However, if the titles and descriptions contain only superlatives, what’s a poor user to think.

The other relates to affiliate marketing. Affiliates must identify themselves in the title or description with one of the following: aff, affil, or affiliate. Most affiliate advertisers opt for aff or AFF which means using only 4 (including a space before aff) to use as few characters of the extremely limited title and description in AdWords.

This must be for transparency so the user understands that this is an ad placed by someone who is an affiliate of another site. Knowing this and knowing that Google Labs strives for the best user experience, I set out to verify with typical users (not those of us who work in affiliate marketing) that they were able to fairly judge an ad and the resultant site by seeing AFF in the description.

DL (pointing to screen with Google search results): What do you think “AFF” means in the ad.
Friend: [Blank stare]
DL: OK, I’ll give you a hint. It is an abbreviation for affiliate. Now you know what it means, right?
Friend: [Blank stare]
DL: This isn’t rocket science.
Friend: I am a rocket scientist. I don’t get this marketing [expletive deleted] that you work with.

I asked my parents. They had no idea what it meant. I asked parents at my kids’ school. No one could answer. I asked my doctor. He told me that I should consider Prozac. A waitress asked me if I needed anything else so I asked her. She had no idea. The list goes on. All of these people use Google and none of them had any idea.

So if it about transparency and the users don’t know it means, why is it still there? Google must have usability labs. They must ask users about these things.

I’m not asking Google to force us to add more to the listing. I don’t think that there is a way to explain this concept in 70 characters.

Google doesn’t seem to require middlemen (yes, and middlewomen) in other businesses to add any attribution of their status. Why this one area? I can go on but I think that this requirement is dAFFy, it AFFects all of us in AFFiliate marketing and it seems that Google is using it as a gAFF.

• We Support New York Affiliates

  

• Subscribe to ReveNews

  • Get ReveNews Updates in Your Reader
  • Get ReveNews Updates in Your Email

• The Latest Comments

  • world poker online on Why Sprockets Will Change Advertising on the Internet Forever
  • Rod Thomson on McAfee SiteAdvisor
  • Dave on McAfee SiteAdvisor
  • Linda Buquet on Performics Becomes Google Affiliate Network
  • Julian Moss on McAfee SiteAdvisor
  • juegos flash casino on Revenue Share & Lead Tracking in Affiliate Marketing
  • jugar a poquer on Why Sprockets Will Change Advertising on the Internet Forever
  • Merryrose31 on All Coupon Sites Are Not Created Equal
  • George Reedy on How To Recruit Your 1st Affiliates…
  • Nick James on Should MyPoints Award Points for Political Action?

• ReveNews Readers

• Archives

  Select Month June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004

• ScratchBack Widget