Search Engine Marketing Scam - Idearc Media
If you have ever thought about or already have a "cost per click" search engine campaign with Google, MSN or Yahoo you should be aware of what could turn out to be a scam.
Read complaints at the web sites listed below, you will find that there are countless other consumers and businesses out there that have become victims of poor business practices and terrible customer service.
If you still reading this post then you have been scammed or you are about to be scammed; please leave your comments about your experience with Idearc Media at the bottom of this page.
My personal experience with Idearc Media
I was called by a marketing agency called Idearc Media (formerly known as Verizon Superpages.com) and they offered to take over my pay-per-click advertising and manage my Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo Marketing accounts. This all sounded great since I was pretty busy with Project Playboy and it would put experienced PPC and search engine marketing gurus in my camp. The cost for this management was $500 a month plus a pay-per-click budget of $2000 a month to be shared among the three campaigns.
I was a little hesitant at first because of the $2500 I would have to shell out each month, which is about $1000 bucks more than I was already spending on this type of advertising. I went ahead and took the leap trusting that Idearc and their search engine marketing reps knew a lot more than I did and that they would put together a campaign that rocked and returned good results.
The Contract Terms and Timelines
Before I get started on the timeline let me tell you about the contract terms.
- You have 14 days to cancel if you change your mind
- the contract is for one year at $500 a month for them to manage you campaign plus the cost of the pay-per-click advertising
June 3, 2008: I had my initial meeting with Allison Spears; she is a sales rep for Idearc Media. I signed the contract and she said that they would assign a rep to my account in just a few days.
June 26, 2008: I was finally contacted by Eddie Swift, an account manager with Idearc Media; we set up a phone meeting for the following day that I missed because I was focused on Project Playboy. I emailed Swift, Eddie and asked him if he could reschedule and I never heard back from him.
Do the Math
Let’s stop for a minute and do some simple math; June 26 minus June 3 = 23 days (26-3 = 23). Guess what you’re now in a contract obligation and you don't even know if this media company can be successful with your campaign because you haven’t even been contacted until today.
July 3, 2008: I was contacted by Casey Patterson, also an account manager with Idearc Media. "I don't know what happened to Eddie Swift", Casey has been assigned to my account now? I missed Casey’s call that day.
July 8, 2008: Casey Paterson tried to contact me again; we eventually got to talk on the phone for a few minutes and scheduled a kick off meeting for July 11, 2008 that was to include my sales rep Allison Spears, Casey Patterson the account manager and myself.
July 11, 2008: Casey and I had our kick off meeting; Allison Spears was not present. Casey only asked a few questions about demographic targets like male/female age group and who my top five competitors were. Casey said that that was all he needed to know.
I was a bit drawn back by the small amount of information Casey wanted and offered to fire over an extensive list of keyword search phrases that could be integrated into the account.; after all that’s why I hired these guys. I figured they could get the campaigns going that I had little time to do myself. Casey assured me that that was all he needed and that he would use the online catalog to get all the keywords in place on his own. He did make a request to get access to my existing accounts with Google, Yahoo and MSN; I set up access for him so he could get a leg up on what was already happening with the campaigns I had already been running.
July 14, 2008: Today I was contacted by Casey Patterson; my new Google Adwords and Yahoo Marketing campaigns were up and running and my previous campaigns had been paused. I was pretty surprised to see that the new campaigns had already started since I didn’t provide a keyword list to Casey.
I went to Google and Yahoo and ran a couple of keyword phrases to see where my ad placement was; to my surprise my ads were running in the #1 position. I explicitly stated to my sales rep and to my account manager prior to the campaign start that I was not willing to pay for top placement and would prefer to be in the third through sixth position; besides the high cost for top placement I have other reasons for not wanting to be in first place, more to do with Psychographics than anything else.
I sent Casey Patterson (my account manager) an email asking what the cost-per-click was that he had set up and what keywords he had set up. I didn’t get any answers from Casey, just some comments about where he thought my ads should be running; no mention of CPC or keywords. Throughout the day I continued to monitor my ads; by mid afternoon my ads stopped running. I knew why the ads had stopped running; the budget for the day had been depleted so I was no longer competing for business. I was not very happy about this and immediately resumed my old campaigns which had been paused.
Setting a budget for your daily spend is a good idea, but keep in mind that if you want exposure for the entire day you should set your cost-per-click accordingly. As an example if you crank all of you ads into the top spot you will spend fast and deplete your budget quickly.
Look at it this way, do you want to drink fast until you are completely drunk or would you like to drink in moderation and be present for the entire duration of the party.
July 15, 2008: Unhappy about being offline the day before, I called Casey Patterson (my account rep) and once again expressed my concerns about the cost-per-click and let him know that I would prefer more exposure verses top placement; I also called and sent my sales rep an email and let her know that I was not happy about spending my daily budget and being offline only half way through the day. I also had some question about how they would track ROI, how would they know if a conversion occurred and provided them with a link that would ensure that I could also log a true conversion.
July 16, 2008: I received an email from my account rep today Casey Patterson, he sent me over some tracking code to embed in my conversion tracking page which should have been done before the new campaign commenced, he also said that he would send over a list of keywords, bids and position and he mentioned that the only campaign that was running was Google Adwords. "That’s funny, back on July, 14; he said that the Yahoo campaign was running too?”
I emailed Casey back and again expressed my concerns about the cost-per-click and again let him know what I was willing to pay-per-click and what position I would prefer to be in, what I expected out of them as far as setting up the campaigns and if I could get the campaign access to Google Analytics. I then sent him another email with instructions to append an affiliate ID to the end of the target URL so I could track the conversion.
July 17, 2008: My ads are still running in the top spot and I have not been provided the keywords list or the cost per click that has been set up? I am getting a little concerned and fear that nobody is listening to my opinions, input or requests.
July 18, 2008: Still no response from Casey Patterson,keywords are still in the top position and the Yahoo campaign doesn’t appear to be running at all. I forward my emails to Casey requesting affiliate tags and analytics to my sales rep Allison Spears to see if I can shake things loose and get some response.
July 21, 2008: I call Allison Spears and let her know that I am getting very concerned about how things are progressing and let her know that I resumed my previous ad campaigns and that they generated conversions over the weekend and that I was very unhappy with the performance of Idearc Media and how they have been handling my account. I also requested a copy of the contract that I signed, I have no idea where that is but it would be nice to have it so I can review it. I'm starting to get very disappointed at this point and I am ready to terminate the account with Idearc.
July 22, 2008: Casey Paterson calls to address some of my concerns. I asked him to tell me where things are at, how much in click fees have accumulated and then informed him that we have had zero conversions from the campaigns he had been running and that the original ads that I had set up did indeed generate conversions over the weekend once I resumed them. I then instructed Casey to pause the ads he had created so I could get back to the ad campaigns that generate conversions.
July 23, 2008: I put in a call to Allison Spears the day before and she finally returned my call today. She knows that I am not happy and recommended that I let Idearc handle the Yahoo and MSN account and that I handle the Google account. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let Idearc handle any of the accounts since they could not even get the first one set up professionally. I told Allison that I wanted to terminate the contract; she said that I would still have to pay the service fee of $500 a month for a year since I was past the 14 day period to cancel (See Do the Math at the beginning of the post).
So today I am really upset about this whole thing and am writing this post not only to inform others to steer clear of Idearc Media but to also share some of the things that will help you get the most out of your pay-per-click campaign if you decide to hire somebody to manage it.
- Never give them access to an existing account! Let them do the leg work and create new ones rather than just copy your existing information, that’s why you hire them.
- Make sure they ask you for a keyword list and if they add keywords make sure they get your approval before starting any campaign
- Be persistent and let them know what you are willing to pay per click and make sure they are listening and do as you request.
- Make sure they provide a way to track conversions before launching any campaign and if you can add a string to the URL for internal tracking do it.
August 1, 2008: I finally made it up the flag pole a little bit today :) I received a call from Jimmy Linville of Client Services for Idearc Media, he is very well spoken, seems to be a straight shooter. Of course like any business that takes care of their clients on a team player level, Jimmy wants to convince me to give Idearc another shot and proposed a scenario that just might get me to to give it another go. I cant lay the the details out for you but I will say that I view it like gambling, I'll have so much that I am willing to loose at the black jack table, if I loose it all I walk away; if I win a few hands I keep playing.
So far there is no deal until the dealers (my sales rep Allison Spears and her sales manager) agree to play a fair game of Black Jack. I will have to wait and see if they agree. While Jimmy is negotiating the new terms with the dealers I agreed to take this blog post out of public view for today, I am pretty confident that Jimmy will be able to make it happen and this blog may never be seen again; unless there is some ulterior motives that Idearc has that I am not aware of, if that's turns out to be the case I will be sure to protect my rights and freedoms to share this blog with the public.
August 4, 2008: I have decided to go with my initial decision to terminate the terms with Idearc Media. I spent some time over the weekend thinking about the offer that Jimmy Linville had put together and wasn't too comfortable with his proposal, plus I think you should always go with you instincts and my instincts had me filing a complaint with the BBB and sending in a request to terminate on July 25, 2008; it was that day that I had decided that I had had enough and I dont see any reason to change my mind now. So for now the blog remains the same, it will be public, open for comments and will only be removed once I get confirmation that the contract with Idearc Media has been terminated.
August 5, 2008: I received a call this morning from Idearc Media letting me know that the sales department here in Beaverton Oregon is not willing to terminate my contract even though common sense would tell you that they breached the contract long before they even started on my campaign.
I guess I will sit and wait for them to bill me and then send me to collections as they have done with countless other consumers. Once they do that I imagine I will have to get ahold of a local attorney to take care of the matter and possibly take them to small claims court.
