For the month of February, I had a profitable campaign. I had a profit of a couple hundred dollars so far but that’s great compared to last month when I had revenues of $1000 but spent about $1800. That was due to a lot of learning and testing in only my second full month of affiliate marketing.
However this one campaign stood out. So I worked on it only and tweaked it. I paused everything else. Things were looking good. Did it all on Adwords. Ad Groups were tight. Got my first 10 QS! Most of my KWs were 7-9. Making a handful of sales everyday.
I had a simple landing page. Just one column. Straight to the point. Large call to action. I had read Google likes to have more content but I thought a simple landing page would do.
Sales I thought could be better. So I created a new landing page from a template I found. Thought it looked nice. Uploaded it. Same format. Same content.
The next morning I wake up to see that my KWs were not triggering ads! I’ve never had that before. I noticed my QS were still high. So I thought it was problem with Adwords. So I just waited.
At night, I noticed that KWs were now showing ads but my QS was down to 1!! All of them. So I did not get many impressions obviously.
So I got on Adwords chat support. They told me that my LP was reviewed recently and it was not acceptable (However i just uploaded the new LP the night before. Did they review it that fast?). They said it needed more content. They said I shouldn’t use a template (however don’t a lot of people use templates to make LPs?) and create a brand new website.
I said my previous LP was doing well and gave me high QS. They suggested I go back to that one. So I did that night.
Next morning I get up and no ads showing and QS still at 1. I chat again and they said the same thing. Gave my old landing page and low QS. Said it wasn’t “navigatable”. I was confused. I said it was a simple one column page. They said I needed to be clear what my page was about. Also I used it for almost a month with no problems till now.
I pointed out there was another user with the same similar style page as mine. I showed it to them. No fresh content. Just a one page sales page like mine. However still showing ads. I forgot what they said.
Later I checked my adgroups and noticed that 3 of my ads, that i had been using for a month, said it was disapproved for copyright violations! Never had seen that before. Again, I did a search and saw a few other ads showing the same copyrighted keywords that they said I couldn’t use.
So it was like a train wreck. I guess I need a new landing page and new domain. It sucks cause this one was running good but I think I can have it back running soon.
So I got the dreaded Google slap. It happens to everyone though. Things I’ve learned from this experience.
- Add more content to the landing page
- Don’t contact Google unless you have to cause they might really slap your account even more. (that’s what others have suggested)
- Add privacy/contact pages
- This probably won’t be the first time
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