Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article is titled “Be Evil”. [Copywriting Article]


Daniel Levis’ latest ‘Total Package’ article:

Be Evil

Dear Web Business-Builder,

Now, before you send me a bunch of hate mail for the headline to this article, realize that I put it up there just to catch your attention and to make a point.

You see, this article is about the new moral judge of the world: Google. As you may know, one of their goofy taglines is “Don’t Be Evil.”

It seems the good people at the church of Google have taken it upon themselves to protect the world from evildoers who lurk in the online shadows.

Who are these evildoers you ask?

If you ask my humble opinion … the enemy is YOU and ME and every other marketer on the planet who uses direct response marketing methods.

How do I know?

Back in 2004 when I first started using AdWords, Google was still a grassroots experiment with precious little revenue. And AdWords was the coolest thing in the world. I used it successfully for years, profitably generating 70,522 leads for my info-marketing and consulting business.

Rules and regulations were few. You could advertise just about any web page you wanted to. Click prices were reasonable. You could test things and make changes on the fly. And the whole process was quick, easy and automated ““ a veritable direct response paradise.

One of the reasons AdWords worked so well was because Google factored consumer behavior into your bid prices. If your ads were relevant and compelling, and more people clicked on them as a result, you got a higher position. More clicks. And you paid less.

But as AdWords took off toward the celestial heavens and Google became very rich and powerful, they started getting self-righteous. Funny how that happens …

Somehow, they figured their dominion over the user experience extended to the web pages that advertisers were leading people to.

And they began taking it upon themselves to decide for their customers what was a wholesome web page and what wasn’t. Not based on consumer behavior, but based on Google’s own arbitrary criteria.

They started slapping advertisers who didn’t rise to their moral standards … raising click prices … choking off traffic … or just freezing accounts and booting the offensive out of the system.

And what were those criteria?
Well that was the problem. Nobody quite knew. All you could do was send emails to the Google cathedral.

If you were lucky enough to get a reply, it was like getting a telegram from the Pope. Unfortunately the instructions inside were always as vague as a cloud and empty and meaningless as a state of the union address.

Eventually it became clear that squeeze pages were verboten, the work of the devil. Affiliates were being chased out of town, Satan’s spawn.

And now, the latest scuttlebutt floating around the web is that sales pages have been declared a filthy transgression, too.

Over at Armand Morin’s blog there is a trail of comments a mile long about how legitimate direct response marketers are being kicked out of AdWords for the heinous crime of using “bridge pages.” I shudder to even think of the evil.

What’s a bridge page you ask?

Well, according to this latest development it seems to be a page designed with the sole intention of shunting the visitor to another domain. Google thinks this is a crime.

Allow me to spell this out for you. You know how we use long copy sales pages with order buttons leading to 1shoppingcart or InfusionSoft or paypal or clickbank or any one of dozens of other payment processor domains to transact a sale?

Well according to Google, it’s a sin. Even with full menu bars with links to the rest of their website, marketers are getting banned.

And if you’re a sinner, eventually ““ when Google’s army of internet Nazis gets around to you ““ they’ll slap you silly.

Well I say if squeeze pages and direct response
style sales pages are evil ““ BE EVIL.
Now let’s be clear. It’s Google’s playground. They have every right to do what they’re doing. Every media provider needs a few rules to try and deter scum.

And if the moral giants over at Google want to bite the hands that feed them, that’s fine, too. It’s their choice. I have no problem with it whatsoever. There are plenty of alternatives.

What really shocks me is the online marketing community’s reaction to all this …

Some people are calling for class action suits to try and force Google to treat advertisers fairly ““ like access to AdWords was some kind of God given right.

Others are clinging to the hope that Google didn’t really mean to ban legitimate sales pages. And that they’ll come to their senses.

Others are trying to think up new schemes for fooling Google into overlooking the “wickedness” of their direct response web pages.

The really crazy thing about all this is that the real evildoers will indeed find a way to do this. They’ll make web sites that look like real content sites and that meet all of Google’s crazy criteria of a website where no evil can exist. And they’ll continue to rip off the unwary.

What the high priests and witch hunters over at Google don’t seem to understand is that the form and function of a website has absolutely NOTHING to do with the integrity of the advertiser.

But here’s the saddest thing of all …
Some marketers are actually repenting their sins and changing their ways. They’re trying to play by Google’s butt stupid and ever devolving rules, bending over backwards to create mega content sites that let people graze around looking for something to buy.

I’m all for these kind of websites. They have their place. But advertising them is sheer suicide for anyone who demands a return from their advertising dollars, which I assume most of you do.

This whole thing has been brewing for several years guys. And now, it’s painfully clear.

Google does not want direct
response marketers on its network
Every few month’s they drop another bombshell, slapping direct marketers silly.

And so many of you sit their and take it … spending dozens if not hundreds of man hours jumping through hoops and bouncing through loops trying to find ways to appease the church of Google.

Every time you do … your conversion rates tumble. And your profits sink.

So what’s the solution?

Stop being Google’s Bitch!
Did you know there is now a sizable and growing pool of reliable advertising sources with far fewer restrictions on ads, landing pages and content than Google?

You’ll pay 30% – 75% less than Google AdWords on average. And these sources can actually deliver far MORE traffic than Google.

Many of them have start up costs of less than a hundred dollars.

And some of them are even open to working with you on a performance basis, where you pay absolutely nothing for ads until after sales are made.

I’m holding a special webinar with Jonathan Mizel tonight for all of my subscribers who want to learn more about non-Google traffic sources.

It’s free to attend.

If you’re on my list, watch your in-box for details.

If you’re not yet on my list, shame on you!

Let me offer you an olive branch of forgiveness. Sign up at my byline below and I’ll make sure Sangeeta shoots you an invitation ““ or the recording of the webinar if you missed it.

Chalk it up to obscene arrogance, hubris, insanity ““ call it what you will ““ I find it absolutely incredible that Google is willing to alienate thousands of paying customers who spend thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a month). And in the process throwing away millions (probably tens of millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds) in brand equity, based on what appears to be nothing more than a ridiculous moral misjudgment.

Your thoughts? Fire away in the comments box below.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis

Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.

He is also one of the leading Web conversion experts operating online today, and originator of the 5R System (TM), a strategic process for engineering enhanced Internet profits. For a free overview of Daniel’s system, click here.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

The Total Package

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.

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