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It’s 10:00 pm, do you know where your AdWords are (pointing)? No, not another campaign ad, but a question that non-profits should be asking themselves in light of a new Google policy regard AdWords and redirects. According to their help center (emphasis mine),

Based on feedback from both our advertisers and users, and consistent with our efforts to present relevant results, we’ll no longer allow certain exceptions to our display URL policy. These include, but aren’t limited to, redirects and vanity URLs. In line with our existing policy, we’ll continue to require that your ad’s display URL matches its destination URL (the URL of your landing page). This policy will be strictly enforced for new ads, regardless of previous exceptions.

What this boils down to is that you can no longer send users to a different domain than the one you use in the display URL. This means, for users of many popular CRM systems, that you’ll have to display the name of your CRM instead of your organization in the your ad, if your donation or advocacy page is located there.

While it may be bad for non-profits, it’s overall a sensible policy. What likely happened is one too many ads pretended to be useful information like you’d find in organic search, only to turn around and be a business site. For example an ad for “XBox start on fire again?” with a display URL that says Microsoft would seem to be a public service announcement that would tell you what to do about it (hint: it involves a fire extinguisher). But what if that link went to Best Buy instead so you could buy a replacement? Google is doing what’s best for their users.

One way around this restriction is to send users to a landing page first instead of directly going to your advocacy or fundraising pages. This will also let you create a reinforcement of the text of your ad and help users get to the right page next. While you want to minimize the number of clicks to completion to minimize drop-off, a well written and formatted landing page can keep people from bouncing off and increase conversions.

The new AdWord rules are going to require some creative responses by non-profits and other marketers, but it’s worth examining carefully how you’ll build your ads. With the display URL comprising one quarter of your AdWord, you can’t afford not to have this vital reinforcement of your brand. I’ll be interested to see how major CRMs to help them make their ads effective. For more on the policy, and answers to your questions about it, check out the AdWords Google Group.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Advertising, Search Engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.