Overture-Ethics-Oxymoron!!

[thor]

I can see how some might be crafty enough to slip mirror sites in without detection, but when they are pointed out to Overture (repeatedly by email and phone), when they are blatantly obvious even to most the inexperienced eye, and those listings are allowed to remain, then it is equally as obvious that Overture has no ethics and their morality is for sale, 40c a click. The two sites (selling the same oils under slightly different names) bidding for 'hemorrhoids' are as plain as it gets. Overture: Your attempts to appear credible are shameful hypocrisy. Calling your customer reps 'account advocates' and publicly professing to aspire to alleged 'guidelines of quality control' highlight the duplicity between what you say and what you do. You're just another Internet scammer in it for the buck. Spare us the rhetoric. You're embarrassing yourself.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums thor! :hi:

Well, I have zero hands-on experience with PPC in general so what I may say is only my opinion.

I do disagree with the business model of PPC and have so from the very start as You can clearly see from my posts. Actually, you can see that whenever a site does ANYthing I don't think is right, I will be very direct and post it as so, NO MATTER who it is.

I also know Overture is going through many problems right, maybe they will get things straightened out and maybe they will not. Remains to be seen.

I don't think they are singling out any particular site or email or anything like that, as I just think they don't have enough help and enough people who truly know what the company's mission statement is, and who know how to implement it. I think there are major communication problems within OVerture.

That is my take on things and it will be interesting to see if and when they work things out.

[beachrd]

You are so correct about this. When it comes to Overture deciding between Ethics and $$$$$, the $$$$ seem to prevail, although they claim otherwise.

It's about time Overture backs up what they are saying about how they operate, trying to weed out the noncomplyers to their terms, instead of taking their money!

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums beachrd! :hi:

I'm don't think one can say anything about their ethics, it's just that some employees may not know things or how to implement what upper management wishes to do.

[dvduval]

Hear is the standard message they send you when you complain:

Hello David,

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

We will forward these listings to our Search Quality team for a full
review. Please understand that due to privacy concerns regarding another
advertiser's account, we will not inform you of the decision made
regarding the listing(s) you have indicated. Please be assured, however
that these listings will receive a full review and we will take
appropriate action as necessary.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Daniel Storm
Client Services
Overture

[dvduval]

Here is my standard reply:

Dear Daniel,

Regardless of the other account's privacy concerns, I would appreciate a review
of my account. There was no answer to the below message so let me repeat it:

Because this has been an ongoing problem and because I have had to either:
1. bid higher to compete against a term that fails to follow your
guidelines or
2. be in a lower position resulting in lost clicks and revenue because of
a term that fails to be edited by your staff,
I request that you immediately reimburse my account $500. This is probably
not enough to cover the orders that I lost, but would be satisfactory and
would show that an effort has been made on your part.

Thanks,
David DuVal
Showtime

[Kal]

You know, it's funny because I am having a completely opposite problem with Overture right now. One of my clients (a Fortune 500 firm at that) is having difficulty passing the new "editorial guidelines" for their bids, even though:

1) the listings are accurate
2) the search terms are relevant
3) the URL is the most logical

What seems to be the sticking point is Overture's new "Direct Path Guideline" that determines a link MUST go to the exact page on the site that contains the content directly relating to the search term.

Problem is, the way my client's site is constructed (dynamic self serve), the pages that contain the specific content are served up on the fly according to what the user types in to the search field on the supply page (choose your model, location etc).

Overture is rejecting all but very general terms because of this. So while the generic parts page is fine for bids such as "parts for widgets" the same page is being rejected for "parts for yellow widgets" because it's not specific enough (even though there is really no other page more relevant).

Now another of my client is having similar difficulties, this time with relevance, even though all the search terms were approved by editorial just a week ago. Now Overture has send an email saying they've reconsidered the relevance of such terms and will remove them in 72 hours unless "changes" :confused: are made to meet "relevancy guidelines". HUH?

All this extra work for no extra $ is making me wonder if Overture campaigns are worthwhile promoting. I sure wish they'd get their act together. :mad: