Don’t Fall for the Google Adwords Unlimited Clicks Scam!
Everyone wants more clicks, traffic and leads, but Adwords Unlimited Clicks for your business… Don’t fall for this Common Adwords Scam.
Phone call scams have been around for a long time, but lately I’ve been seeing a BIG resurgence of Facebook and Instagram ads where “agencies” are offering unlimited clicks in Adwords if you sign up with their services. While Adwords can be a great lead generation tool for your business there is no way anyone can provide Adwords unlimited clicks for a flat fee.
In fact, I’ll save you the time of reading the rest of this post; these types of offerings are against Google Policy:
There’s nothing new about this kind of Adwords scam, and you can find many posts about these kinds of Google Adwords scams being reported in the Google forums dating back several years. The unfortunate thing about them is that they still work.
Why Do these Google Adwords Scams still work?
Every small business owner / entrepreneur wants to better their business and for most, generating new leads or sales is such a strong motivation that the allure of saving money with Adwords unlimited clicks to reach new customers can simply be too enticing.
There are a couple of very important things every entrepreneur should know before signing on to an Adwords management service and these are how to quickly identify and Adwords scam and how to estimate what Adwords might cost your business.
How Can You Identify a Google Adwords Scam?
That’s a great question since some of the scams out there can be VERY convincing.
The Most Common Adwords Scams and How To Avoid Them:
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The Classic Phone Scam
How many of you have received a phone call that goes something like this; “Hi, this is “so and so” from Google, I wanted to talk to you about how we can help improve your Adwords…”
The following is an actual reported case:
I received a phone call from Brand Rep a few days ago promoting first page listing on Google. At first, the company makes you believe they are Google themselves. The sales person then attempted to ask a series of yes or no questions: so you can agree that you have room for more sales in your company. And you can agree that you would like more people to know about your company…. Blah blah blah. After a few yeses, I was then transferred to another sales agent who once again said they were with Google. Congratulations, your company has received enough foot traffic to qualify for the first page of Google listing. Not every company qualifies for this opportunity. Who doesn’t know Google? I was super excited to have been one of the select few chosen. The guy was fast talking and smooth, and I almost took the bait… Until he asked me for my credit card information. I explained to the guy that I had no clue who he was and how was I supposed to know he was actually with Google? Also, I wasn’t going to just give him my personal info like that. He had pitched quite a few numbers to me and I didn’t have time to process it all. He rebutted by saying that the service they provided was very desirable and that if I didn’t take the offer now, He’d go on to the next caller and I’d be losing out on this highly profitable opportunity. I asked them to email me his proposal. Lo and behold I open an email from Brand Rep with a brand rep letterhead. I thought you worked for Google I asked. No he replied. We are a company accredited by Google. A huge red flag rose. Had he told me that from the beginning I would’ve remembered. There’s a big difference between being Google and Google accredited. So I googled them. The first couple of reviews were suspiciously positive. But everything afterwards reaked of scam. When I had expressed I was no longer interested in this “once in a life time opportunity” the guy proceeded to get really condescending with me: “you don’t know what you’re losing out on. It’s your loss. Much luck to your company.”
FACT: Google won’t call you out of the blue offering Adwords or services to help you rank better in search.
Additional Facts Provided Directly by Google regarding phone call scams:
Google does not:
- charge for inclusion in Google My Business or in Google Search.
- offer to improve your search ranking or manage your business’s online profile.
- ask you for your password or verification code. You should never provide sensitive information about your account (like your password and verification code) to a caller.
If you receive a robocall—a call placed with a recorded voice—for any of the above reasons, it is not from Google. The Federal Trade Commission has established a Robocalls resources website with additional information about robocalls and steps you can take if you receive one.
It’s not surprising that the very same agency mentioned above is taking to social media with a slightly different approach – Adwords unlimited clicks.
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Offering Adwords Unlimited Clicks
If you get that feeling like it’s just too good to be true… it probably is.
I receive way too many calls from clients asking about an Adwords phone call they received or a promotion that they saw with such an amazing deal that they wanted to know if I could match it. YIKES!
One such reported case goes like this:
“I got a appointment fixed from a google adwords certified partner.
They told me that they will offer me Adwords Unlimited Clicks for 5-10 Keywords for a Fixed Amount.
Frankly speaking I was on top of world when I heard about this but later that evening I thought why didn’t google told me about this thing so I began searching for this kind of proposal and to my surprise I didn’t find anything like that on google except some sites claiming that this is yet another misleading technique of Adwords partners.
So, i just want to know if this statement;
Unlimited Clicks for 5-10 Keywords for a Fixed Amount is true or not.”
Here are screenshots of the same promotion on Facebook and Instagram:
So, how do I know that so many people are still falling for this type of Adwords Unlimited Clicks scam?
Take a look at the comment thread on their Instagram Ad…
So, Does Google Provide Adwords Unlimited Clicks for a fixed amount?
NOPE!
As shown in the screenshot at the very top of this post, this is against Google’s policy.
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How To Estimate or Calculate Projected Google Adwords Spend
Having an understanding of what your business could expect to spend on Adwords is pretty important. So, understanding how to estimate or calculate possible ad spend in Adwords to determine your marketing budget as well as to know what is realistic for marketing your business online will be essential.
If you’re considering Adwords for your business or you’re thinking about signing up with and agency for Adwords management and you want to know if they’re blowing smoke up your ass with a claim that they’ve made, you can run an Adwords Calculation to check the numbers yourself.
This is a pretty straight forward way to roughly calculate how much an Adwords campaign might cost you, simply follow these steps. Depending on how carefully you select your keywords, this could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 35 minutes.
Step 1: Simply Go to the Adwords Keyword Planner
Step 2: Enter a List of Keywords
*Note the more detailed keywords you enter the better your estimate will be. In the example below I pulled about 100 keywords from an actual Adwords campaign.
Step 3: Select Potential Ad Groups and Keywords
*Based on the initial keywords you provided, Google will spit out a bunch of potential ad groups and keywords that you could use to set up a campaign. Not all of them will be relevant, so go through the list and select ad group ideas and keywords that work for you.
Step 4: Review the Adwords Performance Forecast
*After you hit “review plan” from the previous step, Google will provide you with a pretty detailed ball park calculation for your ad spend. It’s important to note that these numbers will be a ball park aproximation, but they will give you a very realistic calculation on what you should expect to spend.
In the example shown below the client should expect to spend about $245 per day to target customers nationally for a complete line of high end outdoor furniture.
This kind of makes unlimited clicks for 30 days seem pretty silly.
There are many different ways in which agencies charge for Adwords management. Generally speaking you should steer clear of baseless claims and guarantees or flat fees for unlimited clicks. If you are looking for help with Adwords management any reputable agency will offer; transparent monthly reporting, typically a one time campaign set up fee, and a monthly service fee based on a percentage of your ad spend.
