The Heavy Chef Project

The dangers of over-reliance on PPC

Pay per click is fantastic for so many companies but as I say to clients, never rely solely on that as a way of generating business. This became evident yesterday with a client who now has a big issue to address, having ignored that advice …

This client relied on hundreds of keyword phrases that utilised the phrase ‘SAP’ from the well-known software company. What happened was that SAP themselves registered their trademarked phrase with Google, which automatically stops advertisers from trading under that trademark phrase unless the trademark owner has told Google that certain companies are allowed to.

Sometimes this works in the favour of companies because I’ve just had a client who had the same issue with ‘Botox’ and the result was that although they were temporarily penalised, discussions with the trademark owner resulted in most of my clients competitors being unable to use ‘Botox’ but my client and a few others being authorised by the trademark owner. This hugely reduced the costs per click and increased the numbers of clicks - both of which have had a major positive effect on the client.

However, with the ‘SAP’ example, it’s unlikely to go the same way for various reasons. This means that the client is now faced with needing traditional search engine optimisation, a process that would take some time to take effect (due to the nature of the work that has to be done) and in the meantime, virtual invisibility online. Luckily they have existing relationships with some key clients and so will survive but their growth is now cut off overnight.

So, the message is: although I’m not an SEO guy (I focus purely on web strategy and PPC), any company out there who is relying on keyword phrases that involve well-known names/brands as a substantial part of their PPC strategy should think very seriously about the services of SEO experts at an early stage. The alternative is to have too many eggs in a basket that could turn to water at any stage and those eggs will be smashed.

- Andy (www.custwin.co.uk)