A Google Adwords Bug That Cost Us

http://blog.lawnstarter.com/post/94504758458/the-google-adwords-bug-that-cost-us-1000s

by stevencorcoran • 12 years ago

159 48 12 years ago

blog.lawnstarter.com

rbinv3• 12 years ago

Well this is unfortunate. I would have expected Google to credit your account accordingly, though.

A couple of years ago, we noticed massive automated click fraud that Google's fraud detection algorithms didn't seem to catch (which was kind of strange since all the clicks came from the same IP). However, after sending over some HTTP logs to Google, they removed all the invalid clicks from our account within a day or so.

I would definitely try to get my money back in your case.

hrktb• 12 years ago

This was added at the end of the post:

Edit: Since people keep asking, no my account wasn’t credited.

rbinv3• 12 years ago

It's not clear whether he asked or not.

josealicarte2• 12 years ago

But how much should they be refunded? How should the average Adwords advertiser know how long the error was up there for?

mnw21cam• 12 years ago

Trust, but verify.

joosters• 12 years ago

Yeah yeah, that sounds great. The problem is, how do you verify some of Adwords' metrics and stats? There are so many ways that the service could screw up without you even being aware of it.

Even in the example given (where the OP could see a wrong telephone number), how could they know how often it had been shown wrongly, and how many people had called? Only Google knows (or could know). You have to trust them, but you cannot verify them.

Even if you come up with your own metrics to monitor Adwords, why would Google believe your numbers over theirs?

josealicarte2• 12 years ago

@ joosters you definitely right, sometimes it is hard to believe the figures when you only to look by your own metrics. it should have a proof before you trust while verifying them.

simonbarker872• 12 years ago

Google should really refund the money to you for that - they must be in breach of a terms of service?

simonswords82• 12 years ago

I need to second this, you've done a great job of keeping a level head and focussing on getting the issue sorted. Now it is sorted and they've admitted fault it's time to follow up and ask for your money back.

imdsm2• 12 years ago

I hate when people do this but totally thirding this. If you don't get the money back from them, something is seriously wrong here.

You have admission of fault. Right there.

csbrooks• 12 years ago

Just a guess, I'm betting their terms of service are written so it's almost impossible for them to be in breach of them.

Not to say they won't give a refund, but I'm guessing their lawyers have things setup so they aren't obligated to.

alecco• 12 years ago

How could we know if Google punishes public complaints like this with gradually poorer ad placing?

eli• 12 years ago

Maybe they punish commenters who ask too many questions too!

Cthulhu_2• 12 years ago

It'd show as gradually poorer CTR's and less money billed in the adwords campaign.

spindritf• 12 years ago

Did you ask for a refund and they didn't give you at least a partial one?

wasyl• 12 years ago

I'm curious as well, I don't think author hinted in the article that he did as for any compensation

rcarrigan873• 12 years ago

When I saw the title my initial thought was, "here we go, another person complaining about Adwords who probably just doesn't have the time to fully understand the intricacies of the platform."

But this was a legit bug! Google made a clear mistake. I didn't see it in the post, but did you ever explicitly ask for a refund? If it were me I would certainly be demanding my money back for any clicks associated with the bug.

Note: the nicer you're to customer service agents when you plead your case, the more likely they're to help you out. I'm not suggesting you were mean, just a general tip when trying to get an issue resolved, especially when dealing with big companies.

dmix• 12 years ago

The forwarding number was wrong but the Austin, Texas part was never proven though right? Was he using a Texas IP/VPN/fresh browser when searching results for it?

rcarrigan873• 12 years ago

A good way to check is using the "Ad preview and diagnosis" tool in Adwords. You can set the location and see if your ad comes up. It's also a good way to look at raw search results (before google factors in your personal browsing history to serve up customized results).

Location targetting is a little trickier than just setting geotargetting in Adwords. The targetting issues could be Google or could be their account setup. Hard to say without review. Considering there was definitely a bug with the phone number, they should have Google review their account fully.

golergka• 12 years ago

It really bothers me, how bad the Google's support is, especially for the products that make them money. It's common knowledge that they can close your advertiser's profile, lock the money and you won't be able to reach them about it. But at the same time, nobody is making a lot of noise about it, although it is a multi-billion dollar company and it is the product that they make most of their money from. Most of B2B start ups that wind up in "Show HN" have better support than Google!

But no one is doing anything, because what can you do — switch another context ad system designed for another search engine? Yeah, right. This is the classical monopoly example, that no one does anything about.

easytiger• 12 years ago

I guess they don't want to open the floodgates to all the support queries they would get. But it is most frustrating as if one is dealing with the "computer says no" travel agent from Little Britain.

silverbax882• 12 years ago

This has always bothered me. People always say that Twitter and Google can't offer real support because they would be able to handle the number of incoming requests.

But that's exactly what companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart do every day. For crying out loud, even Comcast (COMCAST!) has better support than Google or Twitter for their paid products.

coliveira• 12 years ago

Google adwords is not for small advertisers. Period. It may work fine if you spend millions of dollars or if you have so much time and experience in your hands that losing money is not a problem, but it doesn't work for the general population.

rbinv3• 12 years ago

This is absolutely not true.

JonLim2• 12 years ago

I'd count us as a relatively small advertiser, but it works perfectly well for us. Since I've taken over our accounts, I've made quite an impact in terms of traffic and conversions, and we don't spend that much compared to big brands.

That, and I've gotten them on the phone for support a few times already, answering random questions I have, pretty satisfactory.

rcarrigan873• 12 years ago

Size of business really isn't important, life time value of a customer is really the primary metric when evaluating whether or not a paid channel will work for your business.

If you can convert a lead profitably then it makes sense to advertise in that channel.

If you spend $400 per lead and you convert 1 out of every 10 leads to a paying customer, then it costs you $4,000 to acquire that customer. If the life time value of the customer is $10,000 with a 50% profit margin ($5,000), then you just profited $1K!

PPC is really a game of arbitrage. Where it gets hazy is calculating correct LTV (considering customer turnover, referrals, etc.) and properly tracking conversions. It's not an exact science but good advertisers can get accurate enough.

damoncali• 12 years ago

My experience is very much the opposite. Large companies tend to overspend on adwords due to agency interference, ignorance, apathy, and organizational dysfunction.

Small businesses, like doctors, for example, can make a mint with AdWords. If you sell the right kind of product, it works exceedingly well even at tiny scales.

simonbarker872• 12 years ago

We find Google adwords an invaluable way of backing up our TV ad campaigns and we are a fairly small start up. I've spoken to a number of Google reps and they were all really bothered about making sure that as a small business we were able to get up and running quickly because they "know we don't have a big ad department" - so from my experience, Google absolutely wants small businesses using them.

Thinking about it, with Google's push to make you add your business location to maps etc they are really starting to compete with the Yellow Pages which was/is basically 100% small to medium businesses - I guess it's a market where the combined long tail is much bigger than the big players.

ksk2• 12 years ago

It really bothers me, how bad the Google's support is, especially for the products that make them money

In what way was the support inadequate with regards to this article? It seems to me Google responded pretty quickly and resolved this persons issue.

yock• 12 years ago

I guess "resolved" is in the eye of the beholder, considering Google's mistake still cost them thousands of dollars that as yet remains unrefunded.

jobu2• 12 years ago

Google support is terrible, but they get away with it because they are a near monopoly in on online advertising.

What blows my mind is people that know how bad Google support can be, and they still build their business around Google services (Google Apps for Business, Cloud Computing, Google Wallet, etc). Amazon, Rackspace and many others aren't much more expensive and you get world-class customer service.

rwmj• 12 years ago

This guy doesn't have log files? This is basic stuff. There are even hundreds of companies out there who will verify many aspects of Google AdWords for you.

imdsm2• 12 years ago

No credit to the account? Definitely pursue this! Absolutely, definitely pursue this. Find out why the number was wrong, find out why the technical team had to change it, find out how long it was wrong for, establish whose fault it was, tot up how much it cost you, and definitely ask for a refund!

Just think if this was your personal money, what would you do? If you just take the hit, the money doesn't mean enough to you.

JonLim2• 12 years ago

I hope you got a refund?

We spend quite a bit of money on AdWords every day, and I started managing the account a few weeks ago (hand-off from an agency) and it's been a fantastic challenge to brush up on that part of my skill-set again. However, it's kind of weird that their numbers never really match up with ours, typically overreported, and I pray that we never run into an issue like the one you have had.

On the bright side, at least AdWords numbers are predictably off (about 15% overreported, on average.) Facebook Ads numbers overreport anywhere from 10% to 100%, so that's the one I worry about on a day to day basis.

Cthulhu_2• 12 years ago

I hope you got a refund?

Seconded; the support people basically did state it was an error on their side, so a full refund sounds obvious. Maybe even a compensation for damages, since you probably lost a lot of potential customers.

pistle• 12 years ago

Is this really level of flailing emotion people bring to their customer service interactions?

"It's just super frustrating because we spend like $300/day!"

How about: "We have been spending $300/day, and an error on Google's part means we are not being provided the service we are paying for. We need to know that this is fixed and then will need to discuss our past spend with someone who can act on crediting our account. Here's how we can replicate the problem."

You aren't their buddy. You are not asking for a "solid." You are a business owner, not some tweener boy that smudged their new white kicks.

"you can also just search it now. it's still screwed up."

Own the facts and deliver them without emotional loading. "Screwed up" is inaccurate and unprofessional - whiney in context with the "super frustrated" quip above.

"You can also just..." leaves room for a different set of facts.

Give a detailed description of the path you took and the results. If the results aren't obviously incorrect, define that issue. Repeat the desired outcome.

And, if you have "a meeting" and can't get the issue resolved, then you should have someone else make the call who can grind it out or schedule abundant time for dealing with this - or maybe $300/day and the previous spend isn't all that much and you should just walk away from AdWords...

You'd be better off penning blog articles that break down perfect grass types and pros/cons of various herbicides for the locality of McLean than crapping investor cash on advertising in the unseen margins of the search results.

Lawn care is definitely a word of mouth and signs in green yard growth business. I'd ask neighbors before trusting anyone who pays for AdWords, because my bill for lawn care pays for those AdWords and a good lawn care company doesn't need ads.

Most every service I've courted that does big ad spends on Google charges more for the same or worse service than other providers.

wahsd• 12 years ago

This is interesting because it touches on a larger topic, what I call the Google bias. It is the bias that assumes that the search results from Google are the correct and most relevant results, when, in fact, they are simply the results that are the ones Google wishes / can output.

When I do a search for topics or resources that I come across on here on HN or Reddit or other sources that are extremely valuable and informative and useful, there is almost no chance that you can find those resources simply by doing a google search. That's only a small, anecdotal example, but it indicates a larger issue to me; like the top couple snowflakes that are sitting on top of the tip of the iceberg.

IanDrake• 12 years ago

Hello from Google's automated help system. I see you mentioned the word "refund" in your long winded email which would have fully explained your situation to a human.

You can apply for a refund here: https://support.google.com/adwords/refund/procedures

Was this response helpful?

Yes: https://support.google.com/adwords/Yes

No: https://support.google.com/adwords/FuckOff

newman8r• 12 years ago

They have always been pretty good about refunding me when directly requested and presented with evidence. I think you need to directly ask for a refund, but since this situation is public now it might not be as simple.

A Google Adwords Bug That Cost Us

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