So instead of creating their own lander, I know some people simply use a high-ranking website for the niche (and check it on Spyfu to make sure it doesn't have any PPC ads) and use that domain as the destination url. And they keep testing until they find a good domain with high QS for a given keyword. Cool strategy for PPC, since you're focused on driving click-to-calls...
Definitely works and I've done it a few times, but I'm wondering... is this risky business? Heard from some that you're really better off just creating your own lander, what I've been sticking to, but wanted to double-check on this.
Anyone get their Adwords account banned from doing this?
Its kinda risky, I got an account banned because of the niche: Tech Support. I can get it back if I change the LP. Because it was an external URL I'm not able to change it. So I lost that account forever.
I'm not 100% sure, but if you know google a little bit you know for sure that they don't like it and will ban you ;-)
EDIT:
I prefer building my own pages because when you go scale your campaign to top 3. I get around 20% of the calls from my website. In fact, i can build my own LP's within less than 30 min with over 300+ GEO pages. If you know the basics of PHP you can develop these pages yourself.
The risk is that Google finds out it's not your page, or that they need something changed on the site. Since you don't own it, you can't change it.
So, they could pause all your traffic in the account, until you do change it.
Or, they may just ban your account.
It doesn't take long to set up a quick site with some content and it's worth it in the long term.
Thanks for the advice, guys...
mikeyboy - yes, motherfucking Tech Support. I had my first Adwords account ban from running some traffic in that niche too... I suppose I popped my cherry? haha, lesson learned.
mike - yeah, very true. And having just started all over fresh now, I have zero desire to go through the process again.
Cool, will keep building my own LPs. And yeah, definitely hear you there mikeyboy, calls on the lander/website have also done good volume for me too. I'm a big fan of using PHP templates too... very cool how you're scaling Geo there, great advice man.
If affiliate marketing had boy scout badges, getting your adwords account dinged would be one of them. Next up, getting a C&D.
What you're talking about doing is the equivalent of pay per call cloaking, definitely want to move toward your own LPs.
I have seen more and more issues arising from this lately. If that URL has a bad history you don't know about it can cost you your account, or if the site changes you have no control. I don't think it's worth it. Getting a decent responsive wordpress theme and creating some page templates to test doesn't take a lot of effort, and buying some content on Fivrr won't exactly break the bank.
If you don't get a good quality score right out of the gate but see potential in the vertical you are promoting, then it's worth it to put in some effort to get your quality score up.
- RP Jon