Unacceptable Business Models

I am not a supporter of contextual advertising. Many may argue: "Yes, you just do not know how to cook it!". Perhaps they are right that I cook it without GMOs. The whole point of the problem may not even be in the context, but simply in the “unacceptable” business model.

In one beautiful summer evening, I received a letter from the Google AdWord service in which I was informed:

"Your AdWords account has been suspended and it is not subject to our AdWords Terms and Conditions."

There is good, there is evil, but there is statistics.

I want to start with statistical information about the Russian contextual advertising market in 2012. According to unofficial statistics, this market in 2012 looked like this:

A letter from the center of good.

In one beautiful summer evening, I received a letter from the Google AdWord service in which I was informed:

Your AdWords Account Terms and Conditions.

All anything, but the most interesting thing is that for the first time I decided to try Google AdWord and evaluate it in my work to advertise my personal website. At the time of receiving the message from Google AdWord, I have not had any active advertising campaigns taking into account the configured parameters, since the campaign budget was severely limited (about 40 rubles), and also the “Start date” values ​​(for example: 04/27/2013) and The “end date” (for example: 04/28/2013) was rigidly set. Moreover, under the terms of targeting, advertising was conducted only on mobile devices and only in the Russian region. The advertising campaign was successful and ended as it was supposed to be - 04/28/2013. After this date, Google AdWord should not display advertisements for two reasons:

1. The end date of the show was less than the current date;

2. The budget of the advertising campaign has been exhausted.

However, these reasons did not prevent Google AdWord from unilaterally blocking my account without an explanation:



After contacting technical support, I immediately received a letter with the following content:

*** This email is automatically generated. Answer it is not necessary. ***

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As we mentioned in the previous letter, you served ads that violate AdWords rules in this or another account associated with it. Unfortunately, as a result, your account has been blocked and your ads have stopped on Google. Learn more about blocked accounts on goo.gl/Gr0P4 .

What to do if the account is blocked?

On the “ Blocked accounts ” page in the “What if the account is blocked?” Section I read the following:

If your account is blocked for violating our advertising policies, then you are forever forbidden to place AdWords ads.

Of course, there is not much information, but there is a reference to the rules , which I, of course, read before placing advertisements of a personal resource. So, nothing of what is written there can not be, because officially the international webmoney payment system in Russia is not prohibited and on my resource there is no information about the E-Gold payment system, as well as advertising of illegal goods and services.

Check maybe you also have an “unacceptable business model”?

“ Ponigmyth ”, I learned that there are many sites on which an algorithm for writing complaints against Google advertisers is very detailed. In most cases, all the recommendations for some reason are in the “Webmasters' Help” category, and not in the “Consumer Rights Protection” category. Under the pretext of protecting against theft of content without backlinks, protection against spam promotion, as well as non-compliance of the content with the site name, instructions are placed to combat the allegedly “unacceptable business models.” At the same time, it doesn’t matter to Google Corporation how you have been targeting an advertising campaign, what was its duration and from which country a complaint was filed to the site.

Roughly speaking, if Russia still prohibits the circulation and storage of US dollars (for details, see the publication in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta on May 13, 2012 at: www.rg.ru/2013/05/13/dollar-site-anons.html ), with peace of mind, I can complain about the following advertisements:





However, it will be possible to complain at all then to anyone if there are prices in US dollars on its website and I, as a resident of Russia, will not be able to see prices in Russian currency. I am sure that there will be plenty of such sites abroad, and in Russia there will also be those who, in my opinion, will have an “unacceptable business model”. I will be able to send complaints not only to my direct competitors, but also to potential ones who work in another market segment, all because we have the same user, Vasya Pupkin . And if Vasya Pupkin will only go to my site, then my sales should grow from this, because:

1. Vasya Pupkin has a limited budget, and it is important for me that he invested his own crumbs in my project, and not bought goods or services on another site.

2. It’s not good if he prints this product on a 3D printer or gets the service for free (for free), for example, downloading something from a torrent or visiting a competitor’s website from another market segment that attracts its customers with a stock with a product competitor: “Open the deposit and get a year’s supply of condoms for FREE”.

3. Vasya Pupkin has little free time and he should spend all his free time on my resource and not even be aware of the existence of alternative possibilities (blocking sites in search results).

Excellent remedy for headaches.

That's basically all search engine optimization for an acceptable business model of a modern Internet company. Thus, under the guise of content theft protection, in fact, she fights for Vasya Pupkin’s free time. As for AdWords, for such categories of companies the contextual advertising system is rather a means of achieving an advantage in the market in order to gain a monopoly position. Rospotrebnadzor, as well as simply a corrupt Internet provider or hoster, can be the same means of achieving goals.

However, some webmasters are already ready to send hundreds of reports on violation of the rules to Google, and it doesn’t matter that the violations were noticed on the website for desktop platforms and not on platforms on mobile devices where the advertising campaign was conducted. A modern webmaster can simply tick off the item “I have seen on this site inappropriate ads or incorrect targeting” just to get rid of a competitor in the AdWords advertising network.



In the end I would like to say that thanks to the efforts of some webmasters I was even more disillusioned with contextual advertising.