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Does Google compensate Marketing Companies if they spend more in Adwords???

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Rick Buffkin

Rick Buffkin

Sausage King of Chicago
Oct 29, 2009
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#1
Guys,
I'm curious if Google compensates the marketing companies for bigger spending accounts! It's not talked about here in the forums nor have I heard a SEM rep mention it. I'm just curious though.

I had a situation where a SEM company that I was using a while back was offering an additional $2k in free paid search $$$ plus an I-pad if I increased my paid search budget an additional $3k for a total addition of $5k in paid search. Keep in mind, I was paying a flat monthly management fee to this company! How could they give me the additional monies when I'm paying a flat monthly fee to them? I'm curious as to how they could offer this legitimately and not loose money because the monthly mgmt fee was less than the free money in paid search.

Was this something that maybe Google offered them? If so, wouldn't that be a straw compensation, in a way? Kind-of?! Maybe?!

I'm just curious of you guys thoughts....
 
#2
Google Partners get kick backs if their volume is in the millions and if the conditions are right.
From what I've seen and heard, it's based on future potential - if they can give you a kickback to help you grow your business, it's win-win and they'll do it. If you've plateaued and aren't expanding with new technology or innovation, they're much less likely to give a kickback.

Speaking with one of the first vendors to offer VIN specific display ads, they were getting a healthy kickback for helping launch more aggressive advertising in the automotive industry.

With that said, there are companies that spend $1,000,000 a month and get very little to no kickback.
 
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#3
Interesting question! I've never been involved in talks with Google at that level so have no idea if there is any monetary compensation going back to the agencies/retailers. I do know that increased spends garner more attention and customer service from Google...dedicated reps, specialized training, etc.

I have been fortunate to work for two companies that both had programs with Google that allowed us to visit the campus, participate in training and have one-on-one meetings with various associates on the Auto team...both were tied to adspend and YoY increases.
 
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#4
If you want my honest opinion, it's who you know out there. I worked for an auto agency and they spent a crap ton of money (not going to put it out there, but close to what Craig quoted above) and I don't think we received anything, except for a couple of free trips out there and some cheap gear. Also, we were pushing VIN specific ads (early on), through a major ugly hack and never received any special treatment.
 
#5
I'll be honest. For me, it's getting harder and harder to trust our so called "partners" in business. We have vendors and we have the vendors that we consider partners. You have stuff like you mentioned @craigh but then, you have OEM's that are peddling products for vendors as well. Some of these products include paid search vendors with incentives of matching spend on a 1 to 1 basis. I've seen offers like that with direct relationships with vendors and with relationships going through the OEM's as well for paid search. I don't recall the the manufacture reps peddling Newspaper Ads and liners years ago!

Honestly, to me, standing back and looking at it all, it seems corrupt!

How can a dealer trust what their paid search provider is advising them on, when they (the vendor) have their own agenda they are working towards and not keeping the dealers (their customer) best interest on the front burner!
 
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#8
The threshold for becoming a Google Partner or Google Premier Partner is so low it's laughable. Agencies hide behind these labels to justify how "amazing" they must be if Google partnered with them.

I wish Google would use some sort of other data metric to gauge an agency's competency outside of simply maintaining / growing ad spend.

Eventually advertisers will get so burned by "Google Premier Partners" they will no longer trust Google. The thing Google has going for them though is paid search is almost a necessary evil nowadays.
 
#9
reverson said:
The threshold for becoming a Google Partner or Google Premier Partner is so low it's laughable. Agencies hide behind these labels to justify how "amazing" they must be if Google partnered with them.

I wish Google would use some sort of other data metric to gauge an agency's competency outside of simply maintaining / growing ad spend.

Eventually advertisers will get so burned by "Google Premier Partners" they will no longer trust Google. The thing Google has going for them though is paid search is almost a necessary evil nowadays.
Click to expand...
Yes, it doesn't mean very much to say you're a "Premier Partner" or the like. You pretty much buy into it. They used to force you to go through a "partnership" in order to be "AdWords Certified" which really doesn't mean much either. I remember taking it and finding the answers online, while I was doing it. Pfffttt...
 
#10
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