The bad check story seems to have struck a chord with lots of people. I’ve enjoyed reading the various posts and comments left here and elsewhere. Thank you to everyone who added to the conversation.
First, the story was picked up by Valleywag and the avalanche began from there. The Huffington Post ran the story from Valleywag and next someone posted it to digg. My traffic exploded thanks to hitting the digg front page. Next, from digg it moved to StumbleUpon and later a number of very high profile news portals and blogs.
Notice that there are zero ads on mobilejones.com and that has been the case since I began to write about Adsense. I intentionally and perhaps foolishly didn’t want ads during the story’s life span. The point of posting about this situation was not to serve as link bait and drive traffic for monetization purposes, but to humanize this problem and get Google’s attention. From that perspective I will declare my efforts a success.
Everyone no doubt wants to know if Google made good on the check. The answer is yes. But there’s more to the story and I can’t resist sharing it with you.
July 10th - check bounces and tried to call someone at Google
July 10th - sent an email to Jesus via the generic adsense-support@google.com email address. I had no idea who if anyone might receive that communication. Apparently, no one did.
July 11th AM - phoned Google HQ and left a message with whoever answered the phone for Brian the Adsense payments operations management guy. I was assured that the message would be delivered. The message was to inform him that the check had bounced and I needed further instruction. Basically, a “what now?” plea.
No word. No reply.
July 11th PM - post check bounced article to mobilejones.com
No word. No reply.
July 12th - post a comment to Matt Cutts blog which is never published because it posted on an article about Amazon customer service - off topic I presume. Matt did return and comment here on the 13th.
No word. No reply.
July 12th PM - post “by the numbers” article on mobilejones.com
July 13th - Google Adsense calls to discuss their findings and recommendations
- Calling are Suzie and Scott - self described as - in management at Google and covering for Brian who began vacation on July 12th.
- My message to Brian didn’t get through. There maybe more than one Brian in Adsense payments they tell me.
- Adsense checks are deposit only (FAQ mentions this for Citibank checks, but mine was from Wells Fargo)
Google would be happy to talk to my bank to ensure the check goes through. (why would that be necessary - and no, don’t want you talking to my bank, thanks) Google already knows everything about me other than the location of the largest birthmark on my body. This idea felt a bit intrusive. Where’s the mystery if you know it all, Google?
Scott the Google management covering for Brian whiles he’s on vacation guy offers to call me back on Monday to ensure all is well, and wants me to know that they want to solve the problem and will stay with the issue until it is resolved.
I tell Scott this. I don’t want to deposit the check. I want to cash it and use the cash for a down payment on a car.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience, Scott tells me.
July 14th - Wells Fargo cashes the check and wants to sign me up for a checking account. I leave the bank happy without a new checking account.
July 16th - at 9AM as scheduled Scott and Suzie call. I inform them that the check is cashed and all is well.
They want me to know that their findings indicate that the problem was a technical one and that the engineers are already tasked with fixing an issue around updates that fall close to the payment cutoff date every month.
Scott and Suzie tell me that my case is being studied to determine how to improve the system. Being a perfect storm, they have learned much from my case.
I ask, “What did you learn? I’d like to hear your takeaways. That’s important to me. I know what I learned.”
Suzie continues to explain the technical issue that they are chasing down and that the engineers are already working on it.
Scott answers with something that I didn’t expect to hear. “We’ve learned that our payment system and what we do has real impact of the lives of our publishers.” Bingo! Empathy is a great teacher.
We discussed what I felt was the more important aspects of creating the perfect storm and that was Google policy and process. Google services accounts with millions of publishers. And like the Wizard of OZ, on our journey we hear about the goodness of the Wizard (Google) and that he can grant our wishes (for revenue) simply by the asking. So when we knock on the door of the Emerald City (Googleplex) only to find a gatekepper who chases us away, it’s not only frustrating but like Dorothy we question the goodness and wisdom of this so called Wizard.
I asked as many others have before me, “What is the revenue split between Google Adsense and we publishers?” Scott explains that this is information Google will not release. I ask him, why, when other ad networks do release this information, would Google want to create a trust issue with it’s publishers rather than be transparent about their take. The only reason I can imagine for not disclosing the details of the revenue split is that it must be unfair to publishers.
What I learned from this experience is that I joined the Adsense network as a publisher/business partner with Google without much thought to the logic and benefits in that partnership. I didn’t give much thought to what I wanted from a partnership with Google or what I wanted from monetizing mobilejones.com. It’s now time to reset and approach my relationship to advertising from a more structured and thoughtful position.
If my experience in this perfect storm of a customer service episode improves things at Google for publishers and front line support staff, then I’ll be very happy with that outcome. Kudos to those I spoke with at Google who worked around a broken system to solve my problem.
I’m closing my account at Adsense until I can see that improvements have been made and until Google discloses their revenue split with publishers. No breath holding on that one.
If anyone out there has ideas for making mobilejones.com profitable. I’m all ears.
Goog nite and Goog luck!
August 10th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Ironic that I was only scrolling the “Next Blog” button on the very day you had your big story. It’s admirable that you quit AdSense when you could’ve really cashed in.
Glad everything ended up well for you, though I still think big companies are raging clusters!
July 28th, 2007 at 7:46 am
More and more, people are getting away form google adsense and running their own ads:
http://www.doshdosh.com/direct-advertising-sales-beginners-monetization-strategies/
If you like the idea of being able to set it up once and forget it, there are great options available:
*Yahoo Publisher Network — does contextual ads as well
*AdBrite — some people make less than with Adsense but some make much more
*Text Link Ads — you have to meet fairly stringent criteria when it comes to Alexa rank and PageRank, but if you are popular enough, you can make decent money with them.
I disagree with the poster above me. Signing up for different ad networks and seeing who is paying more is a fairly simple practice and could seriously increase the amount of money you’re making with your blog. I think that assuming that Google pays the highest is a big mistake that a lot of people make, and I frequently hear complaints of people making less than a dollar per month even after spending many many hours building content and optimizing for search engines.
My experience with Adsense was lackluster at best. I had a CPM of 76 cents, and even though google analytics was showing that I had thousands of visits and 15 clicks… I made 3 cents. This was in one week, and no I never used any questionable tactics — adsense just was not paying what I was comfortable having for my traffic. I tried putting more than one ad on my page, but the next day my CPM was even less and I hadn’t made anything. I yanked adsense and never looked back. I now have a site that makes way more money than with adsense.
It’s not a ton, but then I don’t spend much time on the site (it’s a hobby site — not my work site which I’ve linked here).
I would suggest taking a look at DoshDosh if you haven’t already. It’s a great site, with a lot of tips on making money with your website that doesn’t revolve around Google.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Well, you can always give it a try, but it is well known that Google AdSense best performs in contextual ads so far, thanks to their large amount of advertisers.
To a certain point i can agree with you, but as far as it regards that “Google AdSense SHOULD tell their publishers whats their part of revenue because others do” does not make sense to me. Things are plain and simple, the rules are on table if you like it you play, if you don’t you quit and stand up from your seat.
I can’t understand why people want more, why aren’t satisfied with what they can have, with a great contextual ad program, with options that permit you to blend your ads within your site the way you want. Of course, all this does not mean you should not try other ad networks and see which ones perform best for you, but thats just for you, quitting with adsense for the reason that they don’t tell the share revenue they take it does not make much sense to me. Thinking to revolutionize how adsense has worked so far for so many years it could be tough. You revolutionized already the system and made the support staff to stand on their feet and dug into your issue. All this would actually motivate me to continue with AdSense (i repeat, i would not halt to change ad network but just with the purpose to see which one performs best for you).
Anyway, glad you cashed your check. By the way, did you got your new car?
Cheers and best regards.
July 21st, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Mike, if I can make money with and for Google, then I can make money with and for another partner company. And perhaps, I can find a company to partner with that isn’t as difficult to communicate with should a problem arise.
Further, I’m displaying Google’s ads and serving them to MY audience. So, in this partnership, Google brings value by securing ad inventory, and delivering ads reliably. I bring the audience. Now, think about the models in other media. Does an ad agency tell the NFL how much it will pay for Super Bowl commercials after they run? Or does the NFL set the price for a 30 second spot purchased before the event?
Google sees it as appropriate to not inform me of the price before I serve their ad, or of the revenue split. Is this a partnership that is equitable for the value I bring to it? The answer is I don’t know, and Google wants it to stay that way. I don’t.
I’m looking for a different way of working with the ads that might be of interest my audience.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I’m closing my account at Adsense until I can see that improvements have been made and until Google discloses their revenue split with publishers. No breath holding on that one.
If anyone out there has ideas for making mobilejones.com profitable. I’m all ears.
Does it make sense to close your account if you are making money?
July 20th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I think that if anything this shows how human-based systems are hard to scale compared to automated systems.
The whole genius of AdSense (in my opinion) is that Google managed to pretty much automate everything. AdWords for advertisers to input the ads. Algorithms to infer keywords from content in order to select the right ads. Self-service console for account management.
But not everything can be automated and so Google has to fall back on humans to handle the exceptional conditions. Like this one. And if they don’t have enough staff on hand to deal with the problems that do crop up, people get frustrated.
It’s not the people themselves that are the problem. In over three years of writing about AdSense on my blog and in my books, my occasional dealings with Google staff have been nothing but pleasant. Even when an April fool’s joke I made about Google letting publishers click their own ads was gracefully handled by Google staff after it tripped their automated click fraud filters.
As AdSense continues to grow, you can expect to hear more stories like yours. I suspect that Google’s decentralized management structure makes it harder to find the right people to fix the very odd situations like yours as well.
The other takeaway from this is to not put all your eggs in the same basket: if you depend on regular AdSense income, you should try to diversify that income stream with other sources.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:03 am
If the amount Google is paying to you warrants so much trouble, I would assume it’s a fairly significant sum. Are you sure you want to give up this source of revenue?
Adsense is still one of the most profitable streams of income online, no?
July 18th, 2007 at 8:37 am
I’d like to second that opinion mojo. I am a big fan of Google, but I came to realize when I have problems with my Adsense/Adword account or recently also Google Custom Search, I don’t always get the support I am hoping for.
Also on the revenue split, it either means as you said Google are not doing it fair, or else, it could be the split is based on complex changing criteria. If it’s the latter I guess they could say it.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Hi Matt,
Thanks very much for your initial involvement and follow up here. Yes, the Adsense people that I spoke with were excellent. But I have to conclude from my experience that the customer service system is weak and/or broken. It took extraordinary measures from humans to overcome the weaknesses in the system. Lucky for me they were willing.
Had it not been for the people involved - you included - this situation would have been more hellish by far.
Brian, Scott and Suzie were generous with their time and attention, but only after you got involved. If Google, or any company, ever doubted that they’re best asset is their people, this episode should settle that fact.
My frustration could have been expressed with humor or anger, and humor seemed the most sane to me, as you must admit, the thought that Google couldn’t cover a tiny check is absurd.
The money quote from the whole epsiode is this from Scott.
“We’ve learned that our payment system and what we do has real impact on the lives of our publishers.”
I hope this message is the one that gets passed around at Google over and above the technical issues.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I’m sorry that I didn’t approve the comment on my blog (it was off-topic for that post), but I was keeping an eye on things on my side, and I’m really glad that the check got cashed. It’s frustrating that there wasn’t enough money in the account for the check that Google sent, so as far as we can tell, it was human error on the behalf of the teller at that first bank that you went to.
I’m sorry that you had a bad experience getting your check sent to the different address and getting it cashed, but I know that Google did take your situation to heart and is looking at how to change several things about how address changes work, plus the timing/latency of changing addresses. It sounds like you got a chance to talk to Google folks on the phone for a half-hour or more about the situation too, so I’m happy that you got to connect with them and close the loop about how things were looking from your perspective.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
If you are avoiding Adsense there are plenty of other options. Text Link Ads works very well for a lot of people and pays promptly every month into my paypal account. If the amount is high enough I transfer it to my bank account, though I usually end up buying stuff on ebay etc., with it
Michele
July 17th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Finally. I follow your story earnestly. It’s good to see it finally ended. So driving a new car now? Congratulations.