Thursday, June 5, 2008

Are Some Google Reps Playing God?

PPC Management Frustration! "... putting a strain on Google's servers? Pleeeaassee ...!" (Read On)

Today I pinged Google through their pretty hand chat communicator, to ask for help with an account of a client of mine. Here was my question ...

Can you please expand the number of campaigns allowed (standard is 25) for this client to 99 campaigns?

The first chat (yeah, I had it emailed to me following the conversation) shows the first rep giving me a long winded excuse that sums up to ... I'm lazy and don't want to do this for you.

The second chat initiated about an hour later - posing the exact same question to a different rep, shows the rep helping me by accommodating my request.

I removed the Google rep's names to protect them from any conflict and blocked out account numbers / info, too.

Chat #1 - the rejection ...
General Info

Chat start time Jun 5, 2008 11:37:50 AM EST

Chat end time Jun 5, 2008 11:58:05 AM EST

Duration (actual chatting time) 00:20:15

Operator "Google Rep"

Chat Transcript

info: Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Please hold a moment while we route your chat to a specialist who will help you with your question: "I manage this account for my client. We're looking to really scale this account out. Can you please make the number of campaigns allowed on this account to be 99?".

info: "Google Rep" has received your message and will be right with you.

"Google Rep": Hello, Clay. Thanks for contacting Google AdWords. I'm happy to help you.

"Google Rep": I understand that you'd like to have the number of campaigns in your account expanded. I'd be happy to look into this for you.

"Google Rep": Would you mind waiting a moment while I pull up your account?

clay: sure ... thanks

"Google Rep": Thank you for waiting, Clay. I've looked into this issue for you and it won't be possible to expand the number of campaigns in your account. This is because including a larger number of campaigns would cause your account to run extremely slowly. However, you can create multiple child accounts for this client so that they can have more campaigns.

"Google Rep": Does that make sense?

clay: child accounts?

clay: also ... why would that make the account run slower?

clay: I have other clients/accounts running over 60 campaigns at a time ...

"Google Rep": The child account is what we call a client account that is included in a My Client Center account.

"Google Rep": Having more campaigns may cause the account to run slower because there would be much more information included in the account, which means that it would take much longer to load all of that information at once.

clay: well - I already have an MCC account. How can I set up child accounts for this client?

"Google Rep": I'm sorry. I should have been clearer. This client account, *****, is what we call a child account, because it is in your MCC. You can create an additional account within the MCC for this particular cilent. Does that make sense?

clay: I understand, but that's not a viable solution for this client.

clay: can you expand the account to 70 campaigns?

clay: pleaaaaasseeeee ???

clay: u there?

"Google Rep": Yes, I apologize for the delay. I'm looking into this issue right now to see if we'll be able to request an exception for the campaign limit.

clay: ok. (don't worry about slow performance ... I'll take care of that)

clay: u there?

"Google Rep": Thank you for waiting, Clay. I don't believe that it will be possible to expand the limits for your account at this time. The reason for this is that your account currently has many ad groups which have a large number of keywords that have not had any clicks or impressions. Because your account has so much information in it that is not contributing to your performance, we recommend that you optimize your keyword lists to make your ad groups and campaigns more efficient. By doing this, you may be able to reorganize your account and make it more efficient within the given account limits.

"Google Rep": Having a large amount of unnecessary data puts a strain on our severs, which is why we have account limits. By encouraging you to stay within these limits, we may be able to make your account run more efficiently and help our servers run faster as well.


clay: (heavy sigh) ok

clay: bye

=========================

Now read the chat transcript from the "helpful" Google rep.

Chat #2 - the solution ...

General Info

Chat start time Jun 5, 2008 12:52:10 PM EST

Chat end time Jun 5, 2008 12:59:14 PM EST

Duration (actual chatting time) 00:07:04

Operator "Google Rep"

Chat Transcript

info: Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Please hold a moment while we route your chat to a specialist who will help you with your question: "Can we expand the number of allowed campaigns in this account from 25 up to 99?".

info: "Google Rep" has received your message and will be right with you.

"Google Rep": Hello, Clay. Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. I see that you'd like to increase the number of campaigns allowed in your account.

clay: yes

clay: I actually manage that account :-)

"Google Rep": Ok, I'm happy to help you with this. Would you mind waiting for one moment while I pull up your account?

clay: no problem ... thanks

"Google Rep": I can raise that limit for you.

clay: great

clay: when can this be done?

"Google Rep": I'll be able to do this later today.

clay: thank you

clay: what will you be raising it to?

"Google Rep": You're welcome, Clay. It will be raised to 100.

"Google Rep": Is there anything else I can help you with today?


clay: not today. again ... thanks!