Is Google Gambling with your PPC Campaign?
Google announced on the 17th October that they will now be allowing adverts to be shown for Gambling products and services which were previously banned. They have stipulated that in order to advertise the company are required to be registered with the Gambling Commission and can provide a valid operating licence number. Before this policy change Gambling companies have been restricted to advertising on Google’s PPC competitors Yahoo & MSN with their decreased market share.
Initially I was expecting a steady period of increasing competition while the news filtered through to everyone and companies got themselves up and running on there but already as I type there are currently 612 ads showing for the keyword “gambling”. When you consider that there is a similar number of ads showing for highly searched and established keyword like “DVD” it’s clear that the uptake of companies advertising on gambling keywords has been rapid to say the least.
So does this mean you have missed the boat if you haven’t already got yourself on there? Not at all. The current fight between companies to appear on the first page when nobody has any solid quality score built up yet is leading to high CPC’s as companies are outbidding each other in a attempt to take a cut of the traffic. Potential profits in this sector for a customer signing can be high and this usually follows suit with CPC’s being high. It is going to take a few months before some of these companies gain a decent quality score that will start to drive their CPC’s down and provide a better ROI.
This leaves any companies wanting to join the Gambling PPC market two options. The first is to join in the fun now and build up some quality score as quickly as possible in order to cement your position on page one for the future and reap the rewards later. The second option is to let everyone else ride the storm out with the high CPC’s and then jump on board in a couple of months when things have calmed down again.
Either option needs an expert at the helm to make sure the strategy will provide the greatest ROI possible so why not call us and find out how we can help.
