The Offer From Amstron Technologies
The offer was top sponsored listings on either the premium position at the top of the page or on the right hand side of the Google results. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say and I agree. There are many reputable companies offering to manage your Adwords account for a fixed fee. This wasnt the problem. It was the offer of unlimited clicks for a flat fee of £175 per month that we found hard to believe.Alarm Bells Start To Ring
They say that when something is too good to be true it usually is. The clients themselves thought it was a little too good to be true and called Webphoria for some advice. After looking through the email they had been sent a number of things caught our attention before we had even called Amstron to go through the proposal.Heres what we found:
- Graeme Mackintosh claimed to be calling from Google and sought to back this up by emailing the client from a “Google” account. Only it wasnt a Google account – it was a googlemail account. Freely available to anyone to sign up to.
- The company Amstron Technologies had no web presence whatsoever. No sponsored links, no website, no directory listing. NOTHING. The telephone number failed to show up in any searches despite claims of “many years experience” and 100′s of clients already signed up.
- Companies house confirms a company called Amstron Technologies was set up but was now dissolved.
- The keywords he was offering can cost upto £5 per click – they are premium keywords. One simple calculation later and it would only take 35 clicks before the £175 monthly fee would be used up and our listing would start costing Amstron money. How can it work? How does this company make money?
Lets talk to Graeme…
I telephoned Graeme Mackintosh at around 5pm on 11/03/2009 when I got back from the office to go through the proposal with him. For those interested the number was 0870 803 4169 or you can catch him on his mobile on 07837 987493.Our conversation started off quite cordially as he explained what he was offering to my client. He went through the offering, explained how much it would cost and how many keywords they would optimise the site for. He also explained how our natural listings would also benefit by the increase in paid promotion.
I listened to what he had to say and then asked him how it was possible to offer unlimited clicks for a fixed fee. After mentioning again that it was possible and that his technical team dealt with the specifics of how it worked he continued to give me his sales pitch and how it was all more than possible.
I mentioned again to Graeme that some of the keywords were quite costly and that after a few clicks would start costing Amstron money – he replied that he understood this and it was a risk that the company would absorb. At this point i think he was getting annoyed with me and when i asked to speak to one of the “technical team” he concluded our conversation.
The Aftermath…
This is the email Graeme Mackintosh sent to my client, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.Dear XXXX
Thank you for your interest shown. I received a rather offensive call from your “website guru”, Numan, yesterday evening, questioning our business and how we’re able to offer you the deal that we did.
If he doesn’t have the knowledge how to tie the links together, I don’t think it’s his right to question how we do it and then tell me that it’s not possible.
Unfortunately that offer has now been accepted by one of your rival firms.
I wish you well in your endeavour to appear on Google. In closing may I suggest that it’s not very professional for someone like Numan (who should know what he’s talking about, but obviously doesn’t), to ring up and question our ethics and proposal.
Regards
Graeme Mackintosh
Business Solutions Advisor
Amstron Technologies
Tel: 0870 803 4169
Mob: 07837 987493
Frosty to say the least but I was definately not offensive and if Graeme was offended by my questions then I apologise to him but we still dont have answers to our questions.
It doesnt end there…
Annoyed that Graeme had emailed again to complain about my questions and to inform them of a “Rival” firm taking up the offer my client decided to retaliate in the way only he knows how…Dear Graeme,
Your emails have been passed to me.
Firstly, DO NOT contact this firm again. You talk about being professional, well you’re approach certainly isn’t.
When I first spoke with XXXX about this, she seemed very interested. I told her that muppets from companies like the one you work for are a dime a dozen and to stay well clear. Judging by your response, you have cemented my initial thought that you are indeed a muppet. I’ll call you kermit from now on, as Graeme certainly won’t be your real name.
So kermit, you claim to be a well versed with google and the rankings system, and consider yourself professional. Why don’t you have a proper email address, instead of a ‘googlemail’ one. That’s the first sign of a con artist for me.
Questionning why our web expert called you is just stupid. You are attempting to con people out of money and get irate when someone calls you to ask what you are doing for the money. Well, that’s another sign of a con artist to me.
You have no web presence, errrmmmm con artist springs to mind again. It’s getting a bit repetetive now isn’t it kermit?
Basically, I have better things to do with my time kermit, but suffice to say that you have shown you true colours. Move onto the next con please.
Mr XXXXX XXXXXXX
Summing Up
There are still a lot of companies offering the unlimited clicks for fixed fee service and i am yet to meet anyone who has signed up to this and gotten what they pay for. If you work for Amstron or if Graeme himself wants to get in touch and explain their offering I would be happy to print a retraction.If you have ever signed up for an unlimited clicks service and have been happy with what you have received then please get in touch with us – we would love to hear from you.
Update 09/04/10
We had received an email from a concerned user detailing an offer from townpages.co.uk with regards Unlimited Google Clicks. The email they received looked suspicous and they forwarded it to us for our opinion. After posting the email on this page and subsequently speaking to a representative at townpages he told us the following.
- There is no fixed fee for any keywords
- Fees are dependant on the popularity of the keywords and reflected in the price you pay
- They state that Credit card details are not taken and the client can cancel the direct debit at any time but if you view their terms and conditions this is not true.
This is an excerpt from townpages terms and conditions:
“AdWords 90 day trial will automatically continue into a further 12 month contract at the expiry of the 90 day trial (for which the additional payment will be due from you for the additional period of 12 months) unless cancelled in writing by notice to us within the first 60 days of the trial period. Please see terms and conditions for further details. ”
We still dont believe you can offer Unlimited Clicks but obviously they werent going to share their business model with us. The cost for keywords varies depending on the industry and market your operating in. Typcally personal injury, accident claims, cheap flights are amongst the most expensive keywords you can buy (upto £25 per click) and townpages dont offer these words in their unlimited clicks package for obvious reasons.
There are a number of online tools available for you to check the adwords spend of your competitors and using this tool and one of the examples the townpages rep gave me it showed a daily ad spend on between £0.40 and £4.40 for one of their clients. This equates to a maximum monthly charge of around £123. If this figure is accurate and the click through rate remains the same then they would be spending a maximum of £123 on that campaign per month . You can check the tool out yourself at: www.spyfu.com/uk/
UPDATE – 16/11/09:
Lavora Marketing are another company that have been accused of using this sales technique. A search for Lavora Marketing brings up a number of posting and websites dedicated to Lavora and their sales technique. If you come across any more companies claiming to be from Google, have an aggressive sales technique, dont deliver on their promises or are offering unlimited google clicks for a fixed fee please get in touch with us.
UPDATE – 23/11/09:
We had a telephone call from Michael at Lavora Marketing today to object to the comments on our website. Michael has stated that they DONT offer unlimited Google clicks for a fixed fee unlike the guys at Amstron. What they offer is sponsored google advert for 5 keywords in exchange for a fixed monthly fee. Of this fixed fee Mike told me that from this fixed monthly fee they charge a 30% management fee for the management of the campaign. Webphoria have a client currenly signed up with Lavora and they were able to tell me their experiences of Lavoras offering:
- They did not promise her Unlimited Clicks
- Although the advert appeared when they said it would it dissapeared shortly after
- She has had to chase them up on a number of occassions to ask where her advert was – it then subsequently re-appeared
- There was a lot of keyword duplication with her natural listings (i.e. she was paying for keywords she already ranks page 1 for)
- The adverts were generic and not tailored to the keyword typed and hence in our opinion not very well optimised
Mike was very honest in the bad press they have received and owned up to some past mistakes but claimed that they are very transparent in their offering and that all clients receive documentation detailing what they get for their money. He also mentioned that most of the postings were from a number of years ago but our research has seen comments as late as October 2009.
In our opinion 30% for managing an adwords campaign is a little steep for what is essentially a 5 minute job. Anyone can create an Adwords campaign within minutes and get their site to the top of Google. Our advice is to try it yourself first and if its too difficult look for a reputable agency to manage your PPC campaign. Most companies charge between 10 and 15% of total spend to manage an Adwords campaign for you.
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