Yell PPC (management of Google) - misselling

[Carlotta]

After many years managing my own Google ppc account I agreed that Yell would now manage my Google Account. How this would be done was not very clear and I had assumed that I would be getting a better service that me going to google directly as they would be using their pay per click expertise. In fact it is far far worse. Unbeknown to me they do this by creating their own campaigns and adgroups that I cannot see and let me know each month how many clicks have come through. Previously I knew how many clicks for every keyword so could breakdown what campaigns worked and where I should spend my money. Now I have no control whatsoever and end up competing with myself, via yell and via google adwords. I am appalled. As a small business in hard times this really affects me financially.

Does anyone have experience of going through the legal route for Misselling on this.

 

[gregmilner]

Hey Carlotta,

I don't have any experience with the legal side of things here, but my general thoughts on this:

• How much did you spend? Is it worth writing this off as a business expense, a lesson learned the hard way?

• Is it actually worth the potentially high legal costs to recoup the money that you initially spent?

• Is it worth the TIME (your biggest asset) you'll spend going through a legal process?

• Do Yell have a returns/refund policy? Did you fully read the contract before signing it and are you allowed to cancel the service and get a refund on the money?

• Are you seeing any results from Yell? You didn't mention if you were seeing any return at all (I'll assume not for now). Sometimes these things can take a while to come to fruition.

• Competing against yourself is probably not a good idea as you're spending double the amount - is this necessary?

The problem here and the really hard lesson to learn is that as the business owner you have to be able to take responsibility for the decisions you've made.

You assumed that you would be getting a better service, well you know what happens when you assume...

I'm not trying to be mean, but it's important to remember that to avoid things like this happening again in the future. Remember the dirty "R" word - Research!

Good luck, and please keep us posted on how things go for you, maybe someone else will be along to help you with more specific knowledge.

Greg

 

[Codefixer]

Hi Carlotta,

Sorry to hear about your experience.

The fact that you have no control and can't see the actual nitty gritty stats is one of the reasons I would always question whether small businesses should let Yell run their PPC campaigns. There is no transparency and this has been the case for years.

I would doubt that you have any grounds on misselling, particularly as you didn't appear to know exactly what you were getting/promised and merely 'assumed that I would be getting a better service'.

 

[TODonnell]

Errrr ... isn't Yell in trouble because Google & Co have killed directories? So why let them manage a PPC account? From what I've read, Google itself will also 'help' you, by advising you to spend more money with them!

Cripes, I wouldn't let behemoths like them manage my precious money!

Blind leading the blind, double-whammy, rasser-fasserrrr--mumble mumble ...

 

[TODonnell]

Can you charge back, if you paid by credit-card? Or at least, send a stinky letter demanding £500 of free credits and a list of keywords you want targetted with those credits.

 

[Yell Support]

Hi Carlotta,
We are sorry that you feel that we've let you down. Can you please email us at hlg [ at ] hibu [ dot ] com with your account and contact details. We will then arrange for one of our colleagues to look into this matter for you.
Many thanks,
Caroline
Yell Social Media Team

 

[Carlotta]

I really appreciate your responses. Now that Yell social media (the above post) are willing to
look into this I have emailed them with my account details and will keep you posted of progress good or bad. Carlotta

 

[Optimise-u]

I believe they owe you a refund because Google's agreement with re-marketers doesn't allow for competing with yourself as you say you are. Call up and make a complaint saying that this is your issue and they will not have a leg to stand on. Google are strict on this because it is essentially agencies stealing business from them.

The problem with big agencies like yell is they have a sales team with lots of different products meaning they don't understand a huge amount about how they work, they then employ workers with no particular specialty and then run preset keyword groups based around your business function allowing no flexibility. The way they work means you have no personal account manager or accountability other than your salesman.

 

[Ali-v-8]

HIBU is the company behind Yell.com or Yellow pages as most know it. Google has an open policy for its customers and if it is found that a client is unable to access their clicks they deem it bad practice.
The market for PPC management is still strong but any campaign you run must allow you to know the CPC rate and keywords. if you receive 10 clicks you should be aware what term delivered them and at what cost so you can see if it has a justifiable conversion.
To be honest if a company doesn't show you then they could be buying worthless traffic.

 

[Carlotta]

I would like to give a deep deep thanks to Optimise-u and Ali-v-8 as both of you have given some very useful information that I can use when Yell/Hibu get in touch.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

The problem with big agencies like yell is they have a sales team with lots of different products meaning they don't understand a huge amount about how they work

I agree. And this is likely to lead to misselling. (Whether it's legally misselling or not.)

Adwords isn't for everyone. You need to have a business and website that can earn enough from a visitor to cover the cost of that visitor.

Someone who has been elbows deep in adwords for years will be able to spot businesses that have no hope of winning with PPC - and will turn down that client because it's not worth the headache.

Someone who is a commission salesman, who's never done any adwords work - and who doesn't have to worry about the client failing - is going to try to sell to everybody.

Steve

 

[shaunb]

This is completely wrong. If they were just managing your PPC account, they should have used the same account you were currently using, and made changes on that one, so you still have access and can see what they are doing. It is bad practice to have two adwords accounts running, and targeting the same search terms.

Companies do this because either they don't want you to see what you are doing on the account, which can mean bad news, or, they set a new one up to put on a promo code for free £x of ad spend, usually as an offer to rope you in to their PPC management.

We manage quite a few PPC accounts for clients, and are always transparent with what we are doing, and the client can always access the account, and see that we are making changes. This is also important so that you can keep track of your spend, otherwise, they could just go nuts, and leave you with the bill at the end of the month!

Hibu have a really bad name in this online sector, from extremely hard selling tactics for their PPC management, and ridiculously rubbish websites that they do for people.

 

[Whittie]

I'm completely baffled as to how both Yell & Hibu are still going.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Companies do this because either they don't want you to see what you are doing on the account,

Or because they want to hold it hostage.

There are some arguments that, if they set up a really effective account for you, that they want to control it so you don't just take what they did and stop paying them. I guess it's a bit like an SEO company not telling the client where the links came from.

However, IMO, the need for transparency is far more important than the need to "protect intellectual property". The simple solution is to charge a fair price for the set up and a fair price for management.

That way, if the client takes your work and walks, you got paid fairly for that work... and they're missing out on future management that would have more than paid for itself.

Steve

 

[shaunb]

Or because they want to hold it hostage.

There are some arguments that, if they set up a really effective account for you, that they want to control it so you don't just take what they did and stop paying them. I guess it's a bit like an SEO company not telling the client where the links came from.

However, IMO, the need for transparency is far more important than the need to "protect intellectual property". The simple solution is to charge a fair price for the set up and a fair price for management.

That way, if the client takes your work and walks, you got paid fairly for that work... and they're missing out on future management that would have more than paid for itself.

Steve

Completely agree, charge a fair price, do the work that you are paid for, and 9 times out 10 the client will continue with you managing the account.

 

[Carlotta]

Success. Through Caroline from the Yell Social Team she passed me on to someone who had the authority to make decisions. I did not need to push my case, just repeat in summary of what I said in my original posting. My hunch is that he would have seen the postings here and that may have influenced his decision. He said upfront that the product sold to me is unsuitable for my needs and that they will cancel this contract and reimburse me the money paid to date. I now have the financial aspects of this in writing. What a relief.

Thank you so so much for all your contributions. Sometimes the little guys do get some redress in this world and with your support both empathetically and your practical suggestions it has really helped.

 

[leveldisc]

Hi Carlotta,
Sounds like a bit of a nightmare. Presumably the accounts are no longer competing against each other. If they are I would pause yours until the Yell has stopped.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

So now you should stick around and join in more

 

[directmarketingadvice]

He said upfront that the product sold to me is unsuitable for my needs and that they will cancel this contract and reimburse me the money paid to date.

I'm glad to hear you got the outcome you were hoping for.

Steve

 

[intelligentppc]

I hate misspelling.

 

[Optimise-u]

I'm completely baffled as to how both Yell & Hibu are still going.

When you owe the bank a million you have a problem, when you owe the bank a billion they have a problem.

Glad that everything got sorted out for you quickly. Complaining over social media is usually the way to go - shame them. As said earlier in the thread - sales teams don't necessarily deliberately mis-sell, they are just given unreasonable expectations of the products they sell which they then pass on to the consumer.

 

[Carlotta]

I will now have a look at other posts and see where I can contribute more.

 

[Will Blears]

For anyone reading this and not taking away the lesson learnt, steer clear of Hibu (Yell) they are an absolutely awful business, with an even worse business model which preys on small to medium size businesses who are looking to dabble in Online Advertising.

The only reason they create the Google Adwords account and do not give you access is because this is part of their business model. The way these companies (Hibu, Reach Local e.t.c) make money is through adding a markup to the individual CPC of your account.

For example

Keyword "Yellow Shoes" 100 clicks at £1.00 per click = £100.00

What these guys do is the following

Keyword "Yellow Shoes" 100 clicks at £1.00 per click = £100.00 + 40% markup = £140.00 and that's what you pay.

I know this from my experience in the industry, friends, colleagues, clients - trust me when I say this, they will never, ever, ever be beneficial for any company.

 

[Daniel HORAN]

WARNING WARNING YELL.COM WILL RENEW YOUR ADVERT WITHOUT ASKING YOU THEN THE CALLS AND EMAILS START DEMAND YOU PAY THEM FOR THE YEARS ADVERTISING THIS IS A DESPERATE COMPANY WHO DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS AND ARE RELENTLESS ABOUT HARASSING YOU FOR MONEY FOR A ADVERT YOU DIDN'T ASK FOR HARASSMENT IS A CRIME REPORT THEM TO THE POLICE YELL DOES NOT WORK IT IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF YOUR MONEY IN BUSINESS MISTAKES HAPPEN AND MINE WAS GETTING INVOLVED WITH YELL.COM.

 

[rhys_td]

If you get stuck with Google AdWords, phone their help-line, they spent literally over an hour talking me through step-by-step when I first got involved with PPC and since then I've been in contact with them quite a lot (almost a year ago now) regarding different things, really helpful people especially if you go through to their Irish offices!

 

[Carol Coxon]

I'm so glad I read this, I have just had a meeting with a Yell 'expert' who has told me exactly the same as your experience, I was so close to signing up with them and the promises they have made to manage my account better than I can. I was harassed by phone calls to have a meeting by an Irish guy from Yell and I eventually gave in, thinking, what harm can it do to listen to an 'expert' and get some tips to manage my account. One guy came out and could not tell me a lot so he requested that he returned the following week with a 'google expert' After a very pleasant meeting I was told some shocking news that all of my traffic was coming from Russia and I should be really concerned about my google ads. I am a bit of a novice with Google ads but I am learning all the time, however, I panicked thinking I am loosing a lot of money and it would be better if Yell took over as clearly I did not know enough to manage my account effectively. After reading your story I would rather muddle through and figure it out for myself. Thank you!

 

[Carlotta]

Carol, I am glad that you have gained from this and all the helpful contributions.

 

[makeusvisible]

Really interesting thread....but quite shocking.

The way we, and decent agency should deal with an Adwords account is via the MCC. The MCC is a management centre available to agencies, whereby they can mange all their client's accounts in one place.

The beauty of this is that the client can still see all the data, and change history.... i.e they still have overall control of their own Adwords account and can see live data.

I don't quite understand how Yell gain so much business managing client's Adwords accounts.

When I think about what we do for our clients in terms of managing campaigns;

1. Configuring the client's landing pages by editing their site
2. Setting up remarking scripts on clients site
3. Creating merchant centre accounts and managing feeds
4. Creating image ads with consistent branding
5. And then of course the everyday text Ads/managing keywords/bids

Id love to know from anyone who has used YELL......do they do step 1, 2 3 and 4 above? i.e has anyone ever had Yell login to the back end of their site....access it via FTP....create a merchant centre or discuss branded image ads?

 

[Ikkie]

human error i will say. not a big deal.