You gotta love the way some companies advertise their business online. I love seeing a quirky ad that urges people to visit a website that promotes a brand or product. But there is one thing that we’d always recommend steering clear of when promoting a business online, that is relying on search results. Whether it’s the organic search results or even paid listings, basing an advertising campaign on the search results is such a bad idea.
Not so long ago I wrote about how Imagine were playing a dangerous and costly game with their ad ” WiMax, Google It”. The fact that Google Adwords is a pay per click system, means that you are ultimately paying for traffic that is pretty much useless. I guess you could easily say the same about TV adverts, but this is the web and one of the major benefits of it is that it’s quantifiable.
On my way home in the car this evening, I heard another advert that uses the Google verb. Yes, a company called “First Advertising” are running adverts on TodayFM and Newstalk in which the great employee suggests his boss should Google ‘Advertising’ and choose the first company that appears on the list.
Now for me, that is just suicidal! Nevermind that fact that no-one is in control of the search results other than Google, if I were in direct competition with First Advertising, I could easily turn on a Google Advertisement and be number 1 within minutes.
The other obvious scenario that they have clearly overlooked is the fact that if you do perform a search in Google (.ie) – it is Wikipedia that is actually the first result, in fact it’s not even in second place. Not until you choose “pages from Ireland” on the left hand side of the screen (which is harder to see with the new Google layout) do you actually see this company’s listing. Worse still, if you search on Google.com, they don’t appear on the first page at all!
On their website they state they are running these ads to celebrate their “clear dominance” of the Google search results. Dominance in a search results page that has no more than 2 other real competitors (pages from Ireland search).
I’m sure First Advertising are a great company, but they are just leaving so much open to chance that for me it’s a complete waste of money. I wish them great success with the campaign and I really can’t wait to see how many of the top SEOs will try knock them from their perch!
Oh and of course…. If you want someone to look after your Google Advertising campaign, you could always contact me! 😛
#1 by Barry Hand at May 13th, 2010
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I heard that ad as well and it shows a real naivety when it comes to how search engines work and with more personalised search you can’t guarantee that even a high percentage of people will see the same as you.
Previously when working with a very small budget, I would use paid ads on competitors brand search terms (non trademarked/copyrighted of course) from their advertising with a optimised landing page showing comparisons- this was highly successful as consumers will generally search for the company if they see an ad. Some companies go one step further like Imagine did with Wimax.
If I was a competitor to First Advertising, I’d run some PPC ads around their brand and brand+generic keyphrases as well as utilise Google Map listing just to see what kind of traction their radio ads are getting. Nice easy way to evaluate a competitors advertising and channel choice
#2 by Tom Doyle at May 14th, 2010
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@Barry – for sure and what a great way to get someone to pay for radio adverts for you!
@Cormac – agreed!!
#3 by Cormac Moylan at May 13th, 2010
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As much as that advert grinds my gears, what grinds my gears even more is their failure to maximise on the advertising campaign by referencing “Google Advertising” in their page title, meta description, or on their homepage.
A title featuring “As heard on Today FM/Newstalk” or a “as heard” badge on their site would most certainly increase the CTR / bounce from a Google.ie (web) result where they only rank 3rd.
They may have “dominated” Google but they need to start looking at dominating landing page and conversion optimisation next!
#4 by Steve at May 28th, 2010
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I heard that ad as well and it shows a real naivety when it comes to how search engines work and with more personalised search you can’t guarantee that even a high percentage of people will see the same as you.
Previously when working with a very small budget, I would use paid ads on competitors brand search terms (non trademarked/copyrighted of course) from their advertising with a optimised landing page showing comparisons- this was highly successful as consumers will generally search for the company if they see an ad. Some companies go one step further like Imagine did with Wimax.
If I was a competitor to First Advertising, I’d run some PPC ads around their brand and brand+generic keyphrases as well as utilise Google Map listing just to see what kind of traction their radio ads are getting. Nice easy way to evaluate a competitors advertising and channel choice