Warning: Don’t Trust Anyone Selling Google “Pay Per Phrase“ Ads
Sigh. It’s happened to the best of us. We naively click on a link promising free AirPods, or an email from your boss telling you to “Check this out!” and become plagued with alarming spam emails and never-ending phone calls.
A client of ours recently received an email from a Google “employee” that read as follows:
As you may know, only the major companies from every industry, appear on page one of Google. However they are currently on a system called Google Adwords Pay Per Click.
So in layman terms, every time your potential clients click onto their websites, they have to pay Google, a click charge. Spending anywhere from $5,000 up to $20,000 a month, in some cases!
And we appreciate, this is simply not feasible for any small to medium size businesses like yours!
…………………………………………………………. So we finally changed the way we do things!
Which is why we had to introduce Google Ad Express, Pay Per Phrase.
This allows one company per market sector, to appear on page one of Google, but without paying any Google click charges.
Does that make sense so far?
So instead of paying thousands of dollars in click charges, each phrase is just $99, per month!
- a) Guaranteed On Page One
- b) No Google Click Charges
- c) Exclusive Rights Per Phrase / Per Region / Per Month
- d) Google 30 Days – No Contract
Now, after reviewing your industry further, I can see the following phrases are currently the most searched for on Google & are available, as we speak.
- Heating Contractors
- Heating Companies
- Heating Repairs
- Heating Repairs Near Me
- Heating Installation Companies
- Heating Installers Near Me
- Local Heating Companies
- Heating Replacement
- Heating Maintenance
- Air Conditioning Repairs
- Air Conditioning Installation
- AC Repairs Near Me
- AC Installations Near Me
- AC Installers Near Me
- Duct Cleaning
- Air Duct Cleaning
- Duct Cleaning Companies
This list is simply to give you an in-depth Google Analysis – of what your potential clients are searching on Google every day
IMPORTANT :
Over the last 7 days or so, we have had thousands of new clients “panic buying” Google Phrases too.
Please note – once the phrases are secured, they can not be re-sold to another company.
So we do ask every business, to be “fair, reasonable and considerate” to other small businesses struggling within your communities, and reduce the “panic buying” of Google Phrases.
> We do have limits in place now, of how many phrases any one company can buy <<
If you receive an email like this, do not respond. Whatever you do, do not send them any money or provide them details about your credit card.
THIS IS A SCAM.
Here’s how you can tell that Google Ad Express Pay Per Phrase is fake:
1. They refer to Google Ads as Google AdWords. Google updated the brand name of this product from Google AdWords to Google Ads in July of 2018. They no longer refer to their pay per click advertising platform as Google AdWords.
2. If Google sends you an email………………………. They aren’t going to use extended lines of periods.
3. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Google exists to make a profit. Never in a million years would they offer guaranteed page one results with no click charges for just $99 per month.
4. They offer “no contract” – a company as large as Google will always have terms and conditions associated with the use of their product.
5. “Panic buying” – Google doesn’t use fear-based marketing to convince you to spend money. This is a tactic used by scammers.
6. Before reaching out to Google, we researched this new “product” and the only thing we found online was this crappy landing page (clearly not built by Google’s web development professionals): https://google.adexpress.us/
- All Google domains end with .com. This one ends with .us.
- They explicitly break Google’s strict brand guidelines with that logo GIF: https://www.google.com/permissions/logos-trademarks/
7. We have written confirmation from Google that this Pay Per Phrase program is fraudulent and illegitimate.
Finally, here are a few tips for identifying and avoiding email scams. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the email from someone I know and communicate with on a regular basis?
- If the email appears to be from someone you know, are they acting out of character or making an unusual request?
- Did you double check their email address? Scammers are very skilled at choosing realistic looking email addresses, with only minor differences from legitimate addresses.
- Did the email arrive at an odd time, like 3AM?
- Is the sender asking you to open an email attachment or zip file?
- Does the message contain poor grammar or spelling errors?
- Does something in your gut tell you something is off?
Hopefully this helps.
If something seems phishy (get it?!), it probably is.
