While doing a Google search for my company - RedBoots Consulting - I noticed a PPC ad over on the right hand side for a Nick Stamoulis.
For some reason his name sounded familiar to me, so I did a search on my old company - Innovectra - and, lo and behold, there was the same ad, once again… the only ad. This got me thinking, apart from me, what was the connection between the two companies? My first thought was that both were SEMPO members, so to test this theory I went over to the SEMPO membership list and did some more searches - Bruce Clay, Fathom SEO, Ingenio, 360i, Flying Point Media, G3 Group, Kinetic Results, JumpFly, Performics, Sitelab International, The Search Agency, TopRank Online Marketing - each one had the exact same ad from Mr. Stamoulis displayed. Now admittedly, while virtually every SEMPO member company that I tried had the ad, I did find one that didn’t - Keller Williams Realty- but that is most likely because he scrubbed the list, or those ads were taken down. Why could they have been taken down? Well for starters that display URL contravenes the Google AdWords guidelines.
Your display URL must accurately reflect the URL of the website you’re advertising… The display URL field cannot be used as another line of ad text…Avoid gimmicky repetition
So by repeating that phone number in the display URL, it becomes invalid as attempting to go to that page pushes you to his custom 404 page (the destination URL behind it is fine, it’s the display URL that is invalid).
As for non SEMPO members, I tried a few, and he didn’t show for any of them - Commerce360, Calafia, Marketing Pilgrim, Small Business SEM, Marchex, Search Marketing Gurus - which leads me to think that my original hypothesis is correct, and this guy sourced his PPC keyword list directly from the SEMPO member list. Yes, it’s an open list that anyone can access and get, and he is a paid up member of SEMPO, but it just doesn’t feel right to me.
August 8th, 2007 - 6:15 pm
Thanks for pointing out my strategy :o)
You are the first person to point this out in a negative way, take a look at what another person said about this in their blog:
http://www.promediacorp.com/nick-stamoulis-loves-the-tail/
Feel free to bid on my name: “Nick Stamoulis”, I won’t be offended. Fair’s Fair.
August 8th, 2007 - 10:05 pm
If you fix that display url, I wouldn’t have so much of a problem, it just makes it feel spammy.
While I agree with the guy in the link there, that it’s a valid strategy, it does seem as though you’ve just targeted SEMPO members, ignoring other firms out there, which just feels a bit off. Great, you’re a member, but then you’re only targeting the names of other members.
August 9th, 2007 - 1:46 am
At first I was gonna be upset, Simon, that you’re just giving Nick new ideas for keywords to sponsor. Then it occurred to me that anyone who bids on the phrase “Small Business SEM” is just asking to be outed as a clueless marketer.
August 9th, 2007 - 6:52 am
I have corrected my AD creative. If an AD passes editorial review then I would say then it is merely an opinion that is it spammy. Also, how would you know I only selected SEMPO companies?
August 9th, 2007 - 8:43 am
Yahoo and MSN ads go through editorial review before they go live. Google ads go live before they go through editorial review. It’s quite possible for a Google ad to be up for months before anyone reviews it, so I have no idea how you assume that your Google Ad has passed editorial review. I haven’t looked at your Yahoo ads, but I know that you won’t have the phone number in there, as that isn’t allowed under their guidelines, and will be caught during editorial review.
If you read the article, I said that I was only able to find your ad against SEMPO companies, not against any of the other search firms, search websites, and general marketing firms (not all of which I listed) that I tried. I fully concede the possibility that you have your ad against other firms, I just couldn’t find it.
August 9th, 2007 - 8:57 am
Matt,
you actually have quite a few ads that show up for Small Business SEM already…including one for Google themselves… ooh, what did you just call Google?
August 9th, 2007 - 10:56 am
In my experience, if the Google ad had been up there for some time obviously violating editorial guidelines, then the ad probably didn’t receive very much exposure or traffic. I’ve had ads for very small clients sitting in editorial review on Google for months, whereas the larger (read higher spending) client’s ads are reviewed within minutes of posting.
Plus, you can always point out these violations to Google. I’ve found this to be a really effective strategy in eliminating spammy competition in AdWords.
August 9th, 2007 - 12:51 pm
Great post! It’s funny, because when I first saw that Nick was bidding on my company (KoMarketing Associates), I was flattered because I thought our PPC excellence was being recognized! Of course, I then looked deeper and saw that we were not the only company. I did not take it as far as looking at the SEMPO list - so thanks for going that extra step. I personally am not offended. We bid on competitors’ brand on behalf of our clients very frequently. I do not view this as spam myself. We are just pointing out that there are other alternatives out there for a particular service. Not only do we get some traffic for our clients, more importantly we can compare brand recognition between our clients and their competitors.
August 10th, 2007 - 10:31 am
[...] on Nick Stamoulis, but this time it’s not really about him. In the comments on my post on Scraping SEMPO for keywords he pointed me to a positive article on his bidding strategy, and invited me, and everyone else to [...]
August 10th, 2007 - 12:25 pm
A question for Simon and/or Nick.
How much do you think it cost Nick whilst you and the rest of SEMPO did their research?
August 10th, 2007 - 1:12 pm
Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but given that I didn’t click on it, I didn’t cost him a penny. I grabbed the destination URL from the first one I found, to check out his site, then for the other searches that I conducted I just verified whether or not his ad was on the page, and that it was the same copy each time.
August 10th, 2007 - 7:21 pm
Very interesting discussion. Frequent reader; first post. I should first say that I have and continue to employ similar competitive PPC strategies with many of my clients. I don’t think that the strategy that Nick Stamoulis is using lends to an ethical issue here and/or is a sleazy tactic. This strategy can essentially be seen in any vertical where there is legitimate competition - SEM or brick & mortar. It’s rampant in so many verticals; travel, car insurance, you name it. Granted, when you start bidding on Fortune 500 brand keywords, their corporate deep pockets & lawyers quickly make themselves visible.
Any opportunity that you are given/can create to position your brand in the same line of eyesight as your competitors, it’s certainly to your advantage. At a busy intersection off the interstate, would you not position your restaurant with a McDonalds, Papa Johns and Burger King? - If nothing else just to give the customer a choice. It’s entirely possible that a visitor obviously recognizes Brand A but they’re simply looking for a less expensive alternative in Brand B, C, D or E. There’s nothing deceptive or unethical here; this PPC strategy is available to everyone in the marketplace. It seems to be Business 101 to me.
August 10th, 2007 - 9:44 pm
Tim,
Thanks for the comment. I guess I should apologize, as it seems like a lot of people aren’t getting the point that I was driving at. Frankly I don’t care that he was running his ads against competing brands, as a few have pointed out, that’s a valid strategy that quite a few people employ in many different industries (including search engines themselves). What did get me was that he’s a member of an organization that was created to further the aims of search marketers, and he’s used that organization to further his aims at the expense of the other members. That’s why I was looking for non-SEMPO members to see if he had expanded beyond just the SEMPO members. Had I found some non-SEMPO members, I may have done a post on his display URL, but probably not.
For the record, the big tip-off for me was Innovectra. They don’t offer SEM services, so he wouldn’t have got their name anywhere else.
August 11th, 2007 - 10:04 am
Simon,
No need to apologize. Everyone has their opinion and not everyone will agree on topics such as this. That is why blogs are such a great marketing vehicle.
The bottom line is that we are in the exciting era of web 2.0+. Discussions such as this amongst leaders in the industry are what will make us all better marketers.
Thank you all for your feedback.
Nick
August 14th, 2007 - 11:46 am
[...] We were bidding on a series of brand names in order to drive people to a site to learn more about the brands in question (this was not a bid-against-the-competitor campaign). [...]
August 14th, 2007 - 2:01 pm
This could be one of the reasons my firm is not (yet) a SEMPO member .
When you are amongst a very vocal community, flying below the radar can have it’s benefits. Oh and running an ethical business always helps.
My clients on the other hand, sometimes they have their own opinions on these matters, and the ‘customer is always right’.
:).
-Ryan