Has this ever happened to you?
There are two sides to this dilemma:
- Either someone outside the company is deliberately trying to ruin this company’s good name by creating a bad user experience (though I don’t see why anyone would spend money on that unless they are the underdog with an inferiority complex)
- Or someone within the same company is running a renegade pay per click campaign and don’t really know what they’re doing.
If the latter, you should lobby the decision makers in your company to route all PPC campaigns through a single office. One person should be in charge of managing all of your company’s advertising campaigns. Even if the management aspect of advertising is decentralized, there should still be a central approval process so that you don’t have advertising that is counterproductive and not effective.
If someone outside of your company is driving paid traffic to your website advertising a special that you aren’t running then here’s a solution that I recommend:
- Immediately set up a landing page explaining that the pay per click ad clicked on was not set up by your company and that those clickers are being defrauded into believing a lie. Be sure to include some real specials that you are running on that page.
- Make sure the PPC ad’s destination URL points to your new landing page or the destination URL redirects to your new landing page; if the sales pitch that was on your old landing page is vital, make the same pitch on your new landing page with a note at the top of the page stating that the pay per click ad is a hoax. You want your potential customers to know for sure that the ad they clicked on was not set up by your company and that you are not offering the special they were promised and that you apologize for their being defrauded at your expense.
- Hire a click team. Do not let anyone inside your organization do this. This is very black hat and one of the few times that I’d ever recommend this tactic, but hire a company that will go in and click the ad multiple times to deplete the budget of the advertiser. This is fighting fire with fire and very dangerous, but if Google won’t set it right then – it’s your reputation, right? Again, do not click the ad from within your company. Pay an outside firm to do it; yes, it is an expense, but would you rather several thousand potential customers see your company in a negative light? Remember, the goal is simply to deplete the advertiser’s budget in order to discourage them from using this negative campaign tactic against you.
- Again, this is expensive, but you can run your own pay per click advertising campaign where the ad states the offer in the previous ad is a bogus claim. This will only work if the two ads appear next to each other in the SERPs or the Content Network so you have to bid correctly and keep a close eye on the ads. Risky, but it might work.
Keep in mind what your goal is: Reputation management. You want to limit the number of potential customers who click on the bogus ad and to ensure that those who do click on it know that the advertising campaign is a bogus hoax with which your company is not affiliated. That is the most valuable thing you can get accomplished to counter this type of negative advertising. Anything else you do is extra and may be regarded as dangerous so tread lightly.
If you are a company that engages in this practice, shame on you!
