Thrifty Gambler

Over the last few days, I wrote a couple of articles about PPC advertising with Facebook.

This article is about Google Adwords, and my tales of woe…

Widely regarded as *the* PPC proving ground, Adwords is used by countless affiliates.  Because of the enormous market share enjoyed by Google, and the syndication of Adwords feeds through the in-page integration offered by Adsense, the potential audience is almost unimaginable.  As such, it seemed like the place to start for what I was hoping would be a more fruitful campaign…

To create the campaign, I used links from my affiliate provider to get started.  These pointed to various offers by the same casino, so I created different adverts for each offer, varying the wording and creating the perfect ad copy.  I then set my demographic targeting, my budget limits and attempted submission…

Before going any further, it is worth noting the important features of creating an ad:

The Adwords advert creation box

The first problem that may be encountered is with the “Display URL” and “Destination URL” data:  A lot of affiliate links provided by 3rd party companies do not link directly to the target site.  I found that this can be something of an issue, as Google immediately picks up the difference between the URLs (regardless of the final destination) and disallows the ad.  Furthermore, if one is fortunate enough to get past this hurdle, Google’s advertising terms forbids the use of pages which perform a redirect…

You’ve guessed it, I fell foul of both.  There have been various suggestions about how to get around this, including using a time delay in the redirect to “fool” Google into thinking that the page is a static part of the site – I’m not sure this actually works, or that you would get away with it for very long…

Back to the drawing board then. For my second attempt, I tried a link to a poker site at which I’m a member

Display URL = Check

Destination URL = Check

No problems then? Wrong.  What I’d not realised was that Google’s policy on gambling advertising insists upon having a gambling certificate.  Bearing in mind I wouldn’t wish to do anything illegal, I called the Gambling Commission for advice…

I was told that I didn’t need a gambling license, nor would I be issued one – why? Because I don’t operate a company that takes wagers.

I though that this must be a mistake on Google’s behalf… Get hold of them, let them know what I was told by the Gambling Commission and everthing will be fine, right? No.

Despite all of this, Google’s representative insisted that, even if I was advertising a casino (who held a license), I would need to be individually certified in order to advertise. Game over.

Find out in the next article how I got on with non-gambling advertising – if nothing else, it’s cheap laugh.

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