If you were to click on the Google logo on New Years day it would have taken you to the search results for the phrase “New Year’s Day” as shown in the screenshot below. When I looked at this the dailymail.co.uk advert stood out to me because although the Daily Mail isn’t noted for high level journalism I very much doubt they use PPC to promote stories.
Sure enough when I clicked on the ad it took me straight to a really really clever site about some kind of wrinkle treatment. The clever bit about this page is that it uses a geotargeting script to automatically insert the location of the reader into the paragraph so it looks like a local lady has reviewed it – try visiting via a proxy and watch the location change in the page. The page also has social proof with fake facebook buttons and logos of other reputable sites too.
The site is so clever that it took me quite a while to figure out whether it was real or not. The proof is that if you search via the image URL in Google images for “Emily” on the right of the page it comes up with an article on photoshopping showing the same before & after shots for a lady with a different name.
The really interesting thing for me is that they managed to trick Google into using dailymail.co.uk as a display URL. The target URL wasn’t a dailymail.co.uk one so it’s not some kind of XSS hack. I assume they are redirecting Googlebot to the dailymail.co.uk page and cloaking everybody else.
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising is advising members to exercise caution before carrying out competitor brand & trademark bidding on search engines.
The statement comes after the Interflora vs Marks & Spencers case earlier this week.
Advertisers and their agencies are advised to exercise caution before purchasing and using competitors’ trademarks as advertising key words via internet search engines. This follows a recommendation that was made by the Advocate General to the European Court of Justice last week in the Interflora v Marks & Spencer case, which details two ways in which use of a trade mark as a key word by an advertiser, may constitute trade mark infringement.
This shows just how seriously people are taking the opinion. The future of brand bidding could be limited.
Way back in December 2008 a story broke about how Interflora was taking legal action against Marks & Spencer for bidding on the keyword “interflora” using Google AdWords.
The story has received lots of mainstream coverage over the last two years with even the BBC picking up on the story last October.
Today the Advocate General has issued his Opinion on the matter and found in favour of Interflora. If the Court of Justice of European Union follows the recommendation of the Advocate General (which happens in the majority of cases) then this case could well result in the end of trademark bidding across the EU.
In view of above analysis I propose the following replies to the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Chancery Division:
(1) Article 5(1)(a) of First Council Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1988 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks and Article 9(1)(a) of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark must be interpreted as follows:
– A sign identical with a trade mark is used ‘in relation to goods or services’ within the meaning of these provisions when it has been selected as a keyword in connection with an internet referencing service without the consent of the trade mark proprietor, and the display of ads is organised on the basis of the keyword.
– The proprietor of a trade mark is entitled to prohibit such conduct under abovementioned circumstances, in the case where that ad does not enable an average internet user, or enables the said user only with difficulty, to ascertain whether the goods or services referred to in the ad originate from the proprietor of the trade mark or an undertaking economically connected to it or from a third party.
– An error concerning the origin of goods or services arises when the competitor’s sponsored link is liable to lead some members of the public to believe that the competitor is a member of the trade mark proprietor’s commercial network when it is not. As a result of this the trade mark proprietor has the right to prohibit the use of the keyword in advertising by the competitor in question.
(2) Article 5(2) of Directive 89/104 and Article 9(1)(c) of Regulation No 40/94 must be interpreted as meaning that the use of a sign as a keyword in an internet referencing service in relation to goods or services identical to those covered by an identical trade mark with a reputation also falls within the scope of application of those provisions and it can be forbidden by the trade mark owner when
(a) the ad shown as a result of the internet user having typed as a search term the keyword identical with a trade mark with a reputation mentions or displays that trade mark; and
(b) the trade mark
– is either used therein as a generic term covering a class or category of goods or services;
– or the advertiser attempts thereby to benefit from its power of attraction, its reputation or its prestige, and to exploit the marketing effort expended by the proprietor of that mark in order to create and maintain the image of that mark.
(3) The fact that the internet search engine operator does not permit trade mark proprietors in the relevant geographical area to block the selection of signs identical to their trade marks as keywords by other parties is as such immaterial in so far as the liability of the advertiser using of the keywords is concerned.
In my opinion this is a win for common sense. Loads of people bid on competitors trademarks but nobody in the industry really likes it. Most brands get upset not by the leakage of traffic (although this is a big problem) but by the increase in AdWords bid prices caused by multiple competitors bidding on your own brand name.
The combination of increased bids for the brand and customer leakage to competitors means that the brand is always the loser and Google is the only real winner.
Both Marks & Spencer and ASDA are still bidding on the keyword as you can see in the screenshot below.
Google seems to be rolling out seller ratings to the UK AdWords results today, just in time to take advantage of increased Christmas marketing budgets.
This feature has been in existence for a few months on Google.com but today is the first time I’ve seen it on Google.co.uk. Last week Google was still telling people on forums that this was only for US campaigns.
Google AdWords just got a lot more complicated thanks to a new feature called Search Funnels.
Currently, conversions in AdWords are attributed to the last ad someone clicks before making a conversion, masking the fact that many customers perform multiple searches before finally converting. AdWords Search Funnels help you see the full picture by giving you insight into the ads your customers interact with during their shopping process.
The process of tracking only takes into account AdWords ads so it’s far from an ideal solution (ideally this would be done in Analytics, not AdWords) however it’s certainly a big step forwards. Basically when somebody clicks on an advert Google monitors the other searches they perform for 30 days and, in the even that they end up converting on your site, all their searches and clicks where they either saw your advert or clicked on the advert will be reported to you.
Good news today for those of you who own shares in Google, the European Court has ruled that Google isn’t infringing trademark law by allowing brand bidding.
The case, which is bad news for brands that are in a continual battle with sites selling counterfeit goods, has been going on for quite some time and I don’t think many people really though Google would lose.
“Google has not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks,” the ruling found.
LVMH said that the ruling clarified the rules of online advertising.
“We want to work with all the players, including Google, to eradicate illegal practices online,” said LVMH vice-president Pierre Code.
We believe that user interest is best served by maximizing the choice of keywords, ensuring relevant and informative advertising for a wide variety of different contexts. For instance, if a user is searching for information about a particular car, he or she will want more than just that car’s website. They might be looking for different dealers that sell that car, second hand cars, reviews about the car or looking for information about other cars in the same category.
And, contrary to what some are intimating, this case is not about us arguing for a right to advertise counterfeit goods. We have strict policies that forbid the advertising of counterfeit goods; it’s a bad user experience. We work collaboratively with brand owners to better identify and deal with counterfeiters.
Facebook is probably the webs most fascinating advertising platform and they are investing heavily in making it easier for advertisers to measure ROI. The latest change is a new conversion tracking system similar to Google AdWords as well as a feature that allows you to track customers who see your ad on Facebook (but don’t click on it) and then buy a product from you later.
This feature is likely to be a bit controversial because it’s very easy to get a lot of impressions on Facebook and just because an ad loaded on a page doesn’t mean somebody actually looked at it. We did a campaign last week on a CPC basis and got about 3 million impressions in one day for £150. If we were selling a mainstream product then quite a few people who saw the advert would buy a product in the future and Facebook could look like a very high ROI source.
I’m convinced that Facebook will one day merge their ads more into the content and suddenly everybody will be advertising on there just like with AdWords.
Depending on whether you believe Google or the fake click detection companies click fraud is big business. Detecting it is impossible for small advertisiers and it’s now being made even harder for even larger companies thanks to a new scam involving spyware.
Traditionally fake clicks were very costly to the merchant because the traffic wasn’t real and therefore didn’t convert. The new spyware scam infects a persons PC and when they are about to visit a popular ecommerce site the system triggers a fake click and sends the user though the tracking link to the site where they carry on and make a purchase. Clever stuff.
Below are the details via Ben Edelman who uncovered the system.
I’ve repeatedly reported improper placements of Google ads. In most of my write-ups, the impropriety occurs in ad placement — Google PPC ads shown in spyware popups), in typosquatting sites, or in improperly-installed and/or deceptive toolbars. This article is different: Here, the impropriety includes a fake click — click fraud — charging an advertiser for a PPC click, when in fact the user never actually clicked.
But this is no ordinary click fraud. Here, spyware on a user’s PC monitors the user’s browsing to determine the user’s likely purchase intent. Then the spyware fakes a click on a Google PPC ad promoting the exact merchant the user was already visiting. If the user proceeds to make a purchase — reasonably likely for a user already intentionally requesting the merchant’s site — the merchant will naturally credit Google for the sale. Furthermore, a standard ad optimization strategy will lead the merchant to increase its Google PPC bid for this keyword on the reasonable (albeit mistaken) view that Google is successfully finding new customers. But in fact Google and its partners are merely taking credit for customers the merchant had already reached by other methods.
Internet marketing firm Conductor has carried out some research (using Spyfu) to see what proportion of traffic to the top 10 big-box US retailers is coming from paid search compared to natural search.
Google have unleashed a nifty feature for content network campaigns today and I’m pretty excited. You can now track conversions, without anyone actually clicking on your adverts.
What?
It’s called ‘View-Through Conversions’. Basically, Google will track not only when someone clicks your advert, but also when someone sees your advert. If that person visits your website in the next 30 days and performs an action you’re tracking, it counts as a view-through conversion. As far as I can tell, they don’t actually have to click on your ad at all.
Is this good?
Well, it’s good if you’re using the content network as a branding exercise and want to find out how effective it is. Text ads, being so easily overlooked, aren’t exactly good for branding so if you’re just using those you might not get a lot of useful info out of this new feature. Anyone using banner ads on the other hand – where the whole idea is to push your brand across – will be very interested to see how memorable those ads are.
It’s definitely a positive development by the Adwords folk. After all, people don’t always click the adverts on websites but they might remember them for later. Even if there’s no direct link between someone seeing your ad and a sale, you can still prove your ad was seen before that sale which is a great argument for pushing your brand.
I’m really looking forward to seeing the new report info, especially if it’s integrated with all the other reporting features like networks, demographics etc. Good work Adwords!
