PPC

Can You Scale With Your Internet Marketer?

by admin on October 3, 2011

I had an interesting conversation the other day with the CMO of a local company over lunch and they were raving to me about a new online marketing company they picked up to handle their web advertising.

Since I know just about everyone in the local Internet marketing space ( this is what happens when you pioneer a service in your hometown for well over a decade ), I inquired about the company they picked up and to my surprise, their name didn’t ring any bells with me. As I dug deeper into the conversation, what alarmed me was that this “new company” might actually be some kind of fly by night service about to pull the wool over my potential client.

I asked questions about this company:

1. What kind of clients do they handle now?

2. What kind of budgets do they handle for those clients?

3. Did they provide you references?

4. How qualified do you think they are to actually handle your account?

The CMO didn’t have what I would call “great” answers to those questions and a little more background checking should have been in order to find out more. It never ceases to amaze me how companies can jump head first into a partnership without doing their due diligence just because they got a “hot tip” or because someone at their office knows someone who knows someone.

What happens when you partner with someone that you barely know anything about and you want to grow past their limitations? Are you going to let them “learn” or educate themselves on your dime when that hurdle comes up? Wouldn’t you rather partner up with someone that not only has years of direct experience, but routinely handles clients that have million dollar budgets in the field you need help in?

The CMO was looking for help with Facebook advertising, something I have been doing since Facebook first opened their doors with their self serve system. If I were him, I would much rather take advice and get help from someone who can prove what they do with million dollar budgets and can help me scale my success, then hire someone that barely has a couple hundred dollars in unproven experience.

Small sample of a few of my Facebook Adverting accounts:

Account #1

Account #2

Account #3

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Adwords Account Banned? How To Get It Back

by admin on July 25, 2011

Tons of online marketers have found themselves at the mercy of Google AdWords and have either received a warning email about their account or had their account entirely banned for a multitude of reasons.

These same guys want to mull over and spend countless hours going back and forth with the AdWords reps to find out why they got banned and how to get reinstated. However, you’re just wasting your time if you are doing this! Why waste time going back and forth for weeks to not get reinstated, whatever the reason, when you could be setting up and future proofing more AdWords accounts?

Here is the easiest and simplest solution I have found:

Purchase a VPS (Virtual Private Server) that runs Windows.

Get a new credit or debit card.

Get a new email and AdWords account.

Make a new campaign. Never use the old one you got banned for.

Potentially cloak the new campaign.

Let me break this down a little bit more for you…

Purchase a VPS (Virtual Private Server) that runs Windows. (It should be around 20 to 50 dollars a month and less than 30 minutes time.)

There is much talk that Google can see your machine ID/Mac address and can also see that you’re using the same IP as your old banned account and use that information to ban you again. The solutions to this range from formatting your old computer, replacing the Ethernet card, or getting a new router, to just buying a new computer, getting a new ISP, etc… Do you realize how much money and how long that takes to do all of that? What if it doesn’t work? Fix the IP and Mac address problem by just renting a server for a couple of months from a hosting company that sells Windows VPSs. You will end up getting a server that you can connect to and it will look just like a Windows desktop where you can then get back into AdWords or AdWords Editor just like you did before.

Get a new credit or debit card. (Less than a few minutes’ time to call the bank and reissue.)

This is rather easy too. If you are banking so hard on AdWords that you want to go back to it after being banned, then call up your bank and tell them your card got stolen and you need a new one. The bank will then reissue you a new card with a new number. If you can, try to change the address on the account to your business address, your mom’s address, your GF’s address, etc. Why? Because there is some talk that Google will see the same name and address on the new card and try to ban you with that information. This is up in the air, but one sure-fire way to avoid this is to get a “business account” and have the bank issue the card to your “employee”, so now you have a new name and new number/card. Those of us with more than one home, have moved a lot, or own a business address, can also change the billing address as well.

Get a new email and AdWords account (less than 10 minutes.)

Resign up to Gmail, Hotmail, whoever, and get a new email. Then sign up to AdWords with the new email and new card from your bank through the VPS or new computer/IP you got. Let me make this clear…. NEVER use your new AdWords/credit card/email address on the old computer you got banned on and never use the old login/old card on the new VPS/account. Keep these separate at all times. Screwing up and cross posting will end up getting you banned.

Make a new campaign; never use the old one you got banned for. (It could take you a solid day to find a new host, grab a new domain, and make a new campaign structure.)
Google can detect if you’re uploading the same keywords/URLs/AdGroups/format from an account it banned. They can do this multiple ways, but the theory right now is, they can do hashes on your ad structure format and tell when someone is trying to bulk upload the same stuff again from a banned account. Do not use the same format structure. You are going to want to replicate the campaign, of course, but you are going to have to use:

A new domain and new URLs on a new hosting provider for tracking or landing pages.

New AdGroup and campaign names.

Reformat how you place KWs into the AdGroups and campaigns.

New ads and new wording in those ads.

Potentially cloak the new campaign.

I cannot get into too much information here, but there are ways to hide your true intentions from Google or any ad network if you think outside the box a little. I have a script I built myself that can help deter Google/Facebook/random ad networks from seeing your landing pages and even help deter other marketers from seeing them and ratting you out! I have not released it to the public, but I might one day. There are similar scripts on the market as well. No script can 100 percent protect you from being banned, but with the above information PLUS a cloaker, you can extend the life of your campaigns and also make new ones easily if you do get banned again.

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