Thursday, March 28, 2024

Google Ads Verification Program Offers Hope to Computer Repair Businesses

Google announced on April 23rd, 2020 that they will be rolling out a verification program for advertisers using their Google Ads platform. Advertisers will be required to submit personal identification, business incorporation documents, or other information that proves who they are and the country in which they operate. This announcement from Google offers hope to local computer repair businesses everywhere who’ve had their ads removed from the Google Ads platform over the last two years.

Suggested article: Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

Google Ads provides a great opportunity for almost any business to place ads online using Google’s platform. They are driven by keyword searches such that, when a prospective client types a search term into Google, a number of ads are triggered and shown at the top and bottom of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Advertisers conduct research to ascertain the most effective keywords a customer might use to find them, and then compete with other advertisers to achieve one of the positions at the top of the page.

I launched my own computer repair business from scratch at the beginning of 2016. Apart from a few friends I began with no customers and implemented a number of local and digital marketing strategies in order to begin to acquire clients. Through the use of Google Ads I was able to grow the business rapidly and these ads quickly became my main source of new leads.

I continued to use Google Ads over the coming years, whilst my business also continued to grow through repeat custom, word of mouth and other effective marketing strategies. Then in early 2019 I started receiving emails from Google informing me that my ads were now being disapproved. Over the coming weeks all the ads I had been serving on their platform were gradually removed. I adjusted the ad copy and the landing pages, I tried call only ads, but in every case these new ads were disapproved in the same way as my existing ads.

As it turned out, Google had implemented a change of policy, no longer allowing genuine local computer repair businesses to advertise using their platform. This change resulted from the proliferation of fraudulent remote ‘computer repair’ providers promoting their scam activities using Google’s platform and elsewhere.

David Graff, Director of Global Product Policy at Google, stated in August 2018, “We’ve seen a rise in misleading ad experiences stemming from third-party technical support providers and have decided to begin restricting ads in this category globally.”

I reached out to local Google Ads support in Sydney and to my Google Ads account manager, but unfortunately there was no way forward. This left me disappointed and frustrated as I was unable to continue using the Google Ads platform.

Needless to say this policy change by Google has had a huge impact on the computer repair industry globally, as many local computer repair businesses, large and small, have found their ads removed from Google’s platform, resulting in vastly reduced streams of new business.

At the time of Google’s announcement of this policy change, they had announced their intention to provide a verification program so that legitimate businesses would be able to resume posting Google Ads. They stated, “In the coming months, we’ll develop a verification program to ensure that only legitimate providers of third-party technical support have access to our platform.” However, computer repair businesses have been left frustrated as to date no verification program has been implemented.

Suggested article: Updated restrictions to ads for third-party technical support providers (August 2018)

David Graff provided an update in September 2019 stating, “Since restricting ads for third-party technical support providers last year, we’ve been testing a verification program for legitimate providers. Unfortunately, our testing shows that the potential for ads that lead to abusive or misleading offline experiences in this category is still too high.” As a result, Google had made the decision to continue blocking ads from providers of third party technical support, such as legitimate local computer repair businesses.

Suggested article: Restricting ads in third-party tech support services

Google’s latest announcement regarding its new verification program relates to the entire Google Ads advertising landscape, and not specifically to the third party technical support industry. Nevertheless, it does offer hope for computer repair businesses in the US and around the world. It may, however, be too late for some whose businesses have been exposed as a result of an over-reliance on Google Ads, and have suffered irreversible losses.

The internet proliferates with comments from the owners of local computer repair businesses expressing their disappointment and frustration that they are currently no longer able to advertise using Google’s platform. Many also describe the impact this has had on their businesses. Those best positioned to weather this change have been those employing a more diversified digital marketing strategy.

Alternative Pay Per Click (PPC) strategies include Microsoft Advertising, albeit with a much lower market share than Google Ads, and Facebook Ads. In both cases the cost per click is significantly lower than with Google Ads. Unfortunately the use of Facebook Ads has not always resulted in satisfactory conversion rates for businesses providing on-demand services. In this case the ads are triggered by demographics and geography rather than by keyword searches.

A number of other elements comprise a balanced digital marketing strategy for businesses in the computer repair industry. These include the use of Google My Business and Bing Places for local business searches, and the need for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that a business’s position on search engine results pages is lifted. Add to these strategies the use of Social Media Marketing, through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms, and a local computer repair business is set up for much greater success and sustainability.

Google Ads remains an important element in a comprehensive digital marketing strategy and one of the most useful in enabling a new business to gain market share rapidly. Google is now beginning to verify advertisers in phases in the US and will continue to expand globally. As they do so the owners of third party technical support and computer repair businesses wait to see whether the verification program will ultimately extend to include them. Should this be the case, they may still have to wait several more years before they can begin presenting their ads again.

We eagerly await any further updates from Google.

Norm McLaughlin
Norm McLaughlinhttps://www.normscomputerservices.com.au
Norm McLaughlin is from Northern Ireland originally and moved to Brisbane, Australia last year after living in Sydney since 2009. He launched Norm's Computer Repairs from nothing in Sydney in 2016 and has restyled the company as Norm's Computer Services in Brisbane.

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