That clumsy accidental release of Google’s third-quarter earnings report (which showed a sizable falloff in revenue and profit) will force it to be more tolerant on AdWords. So speculates author and Google AdWords expert Perry Marshall, who explains why Google will have to reconsider its scorched-earth policy toward advertisers in health, diet and business opportunity niches.
Google saw its stock price decline 9% (about $20 billion) after that accidental release. Marshall believes the effects of that gaffe will ripple beyond short-term share prices; Google will likely have to be less restrictive in its advertiser vetting process, maybe offering incentives for previously banned advertisers to return to the platform. As Marshall describes it, “If Google dumped you for a handsomer boyfriend in the past, I betcha sometime in the next 3 months she sends you a ‘I’m sorry for my past sins, maybe we could meet for coffee’ note.”
Marshall’s books include The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords (Entrepreneur Press) and The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising (Entrepreneur Press, 2011). Entrepreneur Magazine said of Marshall “[He] is the #1 author and world’s most-quoted consultant on Google Advertising. He has helped over 100,000 advertisers save literally billions of dollars in AdWords stupidity tax.”
Prior to this latest sour earnings report, Marshall observed, Google had been notoriously cavalier in its banning of “edgy” advertisers. “Google erred on the side of caution in terms of banning questionable AdWords accounts. In the wake of this smack-down from Wall Street, Google has to make tweaks to that philosophy. The system will have to be more discriminating, which means not banning every advertiser in an entire category simply because a few are bogus or fraudulent.”
Marshall cautions that “The Wall Street hurricane is all relative of course.” AdWords revenue is still up 17% over 2011, and that Wall Street habitually overreacts.
But, advises Marshall, the whole point of building an AdWords account is to use its consistent traffic to build a sales machine; then leverage it to buy traffic from “everywhere that sells advertising: Online, offline. Banner ads, affiliates, print, direct mail. When you do that, you dominate your market.
“Time spent mastering AdWords is NEVER a waste of time.”
