Some of you may have found out the hard way that Google (GOOG) has been making some extraordinary changes in its Adwords system. Word is that they are manually checking out the landing pages of their advertisers and in some situations indirectly forcing them out of their system.
Now when I say that they are forcing them out of their system, I don't mean in the sense of ending the account. Rather they are making the minimum click rate so high, that they are forcing marketers not to use the system.
Some of my marketing colleagues have told me that some that have been spending $10,000 a month are essentially being told to go advertise with another company. If this hasn't happened yet, be aware for it and prepare for the possible news and actions.
I've been hitting up my partners to find out what is really happening here. It seems that Google is attacking what we refer to as Squeeze Pages. What they are is landing pages that appear for opt-in purposes before a Web site's content or a sales page is shown.
The overall sentiment that I've been hearing is that it is thought to be related to the upcoming CPA offering coming from Google in the near future. What it will do is allow advertisers to pay Google on a cost-per-action. What is one cost-per-action that can be included? Receiving a payment for each opt-in subscriber. Google may possibly be thinking about receiving payment for this action itself.
One reason this is probably happening is the click fraud fiasco that is turning against them in the public sentiment.
The bottom line in all of this, no matter how it turns out, is to make sure you don't rely upon one source concerning anything that is involved with your marketing efforts. Your success or failure can be in the hands of one company; this is a case in point.
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