Some are old, some are new, they’re all pretty funny. This is a compilation of some of the best mistakes and fails on Googles AdWords platform.
Note: Most of these are AdWords ads, a couple are Bing ads or other platforms.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion Fails
These blunders are caused by over-zealous usage of AdWords Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) function. DKI allows you to leave a placeholder in your advertisements that looks kind of like this: {KeyWord}. Basically whatever the person is searching for on Google, that gets inserted into the ad-copy as long as the advertiser has that as a keyword in their list.
When you mix DKI with keyword lists thousands long, you tend to get some unexpected results:
Contextual Fails
This next batch isn’t as much an error or mistake of any kind, mostly just a bad case of unavoidable bad timing. Googles contextual ad placement works of an algorithm of finding the most important keywords on any given website, and placing related ads. Unfortunately if your page is a news article is titled “Cruise Ship Capsizes, 100 Dead” this means you get ads for THE LATEST CRUISE SHIP DEALS,BUY NOW.
One for stupidity:
This is probably just a case of testing keywords or something, but still, launch when you’re ready, not before!!
Target Market Win:
This last one isn’t a fail at all, in fact, i’d call it a win in terms of identifying your target market!
