AdWords Account Suspended? Do The Google Grovel

In a recent seminar, I came across a guy struggling to get his advertising out there. He had opened an AdWords account and started to set up an advertisement for his own product. While the ad was ‘paused’, i.e., the campaign had never actually started, he was informed by email the next day that his account was canceled. In fact it was suspended ‘citing repeated violations’. What did this mean?

He sent a couple of emails complaining about the action taken on him by what many see as Big Brother (Google is ‘Evil’) for simply trying to make some money for his product. No explanation was given to him, only a form style email repeating the offenses without the reason.

Now we all know Google has some great stuff out there, so it baffles me why this sort of action has occurred without ‘customer support’ from an entity being paid to advertise. I looked at his product and it seemed pretty innocuous though I am no expert at the varying policies that Google implement into something that may have once been okay to do, but is not now.

The AdWords setup is pretty complicated; one needs to have sufficient copywriting skills and market savvy to have a successful running campaign. It is simply not enough to create an ad and check if the ad is ‘valid’ as it may be valid one day and not the next.

If this happens to you, my advice is to do the following;

• Read carefully all the AdWords policies. It is lengthy but worth it!
• Watch for news announcements and policy changes (these may appear on a different announcement page).
• Write several emails (not just one), explaining what you were doing, or planning to do, your market intent and that you are SORRY. Yes, doing the Google Grovel is a good thing.

I have been informed that many can restore their accounts if they send enough emails genuinely admitting that they may have made an innocent mistake or are new to the system. Often five emails will do the trick (‘the magic five’) – but not always.

Others have said how Google gets most of their funding from giant drug companies and other corporate monsters (ahem, referring to ‘big’ players) so small players (even those earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year are seen as ‘small’ by Google standards) have to be really careful when creating AdWords campaigns.

Three years ago things may have been different and more flexible for AdWords advertisers, but in this increasingly litigious world, things do change and rules do tighten. Still, many make a good living from selling products via AdWords, provided the products are sound and have plenty of keyword relevance.

Finally, there are other ways to promote your products:

• Facebook also has Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and this can be uniquely targeted to age groups and so on.
• Try an AdWords campaign management company. There are many out there who can create your campaigns for you. Some cost a little more while others have free offer periods to get your toes wet. Be careful though and do thorough background checks on campaign providers before you take the leap. Generally they are professionals who specialize in all the ins and outs of good AdWord policy and can also provide recommended target keywords for your campaigns.

In the mean time, if you have been struck off for bad behavior, email email email! And do it nicely.

Karin