Google sent me yet another direct mail letter. They really, really want me to sign up for AdWords. They even offered me a $100 advertising credit if I’ll chip in $25 of my own. See for yourself…
It’s not a bad deal.
But there’s one problem so obvious it’s hard to miss.
I’m already a customer. And customers don’t like to be treated like non-customers. See Exhibit A, namely the first paragraph of the letter.
You might be surprised at the number of people in Parker who are searching Google for exactly what you have to offer. These are potential customers, looking for a business like yours. Let me explain.
Wait a minute… you mean to tell me that out of the 48,608 people living in Parker, Colorado there are some who actually use Google to search the Internet?? That right there is just crazy talk!
</end sarcasm>
As you can imagine, this approach is just a little bit insulting for a person who’s already spent thousands of dollars on AdWords ads.
But Google’s letter is actually far worse than I’m making it out to be. That’s because Google banned me from using AdWords back in 2011 and have refused to reinstate my account.
They are clearly sending me mixed messages. Actually, they’re worse than mixed. They’re flat out contradictory.
“Hey, we want you to use AdWords. In fact, we want you so bad we’ll give you $100 to try it out!”
Then I call. I want to give Google money. That’s when they say, “Actually, we don’t want your money because you violated a rule we made up in 2011 and applied retroactively to 2006. So piss off!”
Google makes boatloads of cash from AdWords, so I guess they have plenty of money to burn on direct mail campaigns. That’s essentially what they’re doing… taking big fat wads of twenties out of their pocket and setting them on fire.
Has nobody ever taught Google how to clean a mailing list before dropping a new campaign? All they have to do is take the names and addresses of all banned accounts and remove them from their mailing lists.
Anybody with basic database management skills could do this. And with all the “geniuses” working at Google, you’d think they’d have at least one guy with the skills necessary to do this.
But I guess not.
So Google — if you’re reading this — please stop sending me direct mail letters asking me to do something you’ve already told me I can’t do.
Of course, if you want to reinstate my AdWords account, then let’s talk.
-Ryan M. Healy
