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Posts Tagged ‘improving quality score’

Improvement Quick Tip 1: Organizing Ad Group Themes

February 25th, 2009

An effective AdWords campaign usually will undergo major changes in its life. It is often difficult to build a perfect account from the start, for many it is a learn as you go process. This series of Improvement Quick Tips are designed to take an account that is performing OK and take it to a new level of performance. The incentives to improve an account include a higher conversion rate and higher quality scores which equate to lower costs per click. The question becomes how do we make quality score great. Is there a way to continue to refine an account to further increase the quality score, increase conversions and reduce costs? Answer = Yes.

Organizing Your Account – Ad Group Themes

Organizing your account into tightly knit ad groups around a specific theme can increase relevance and account quality. When ad text is directly related to keywords, customers identify better with the ad because it so closely matched their search query. This results in a higher click-through-rate (CTR) which will increase quality score.

For this example I have setup an account for a door repair service. The keywords I selected for the service were: door repair, commercial door repair, storm door repair and entry door repair. The ad text is generic with “Door Repair” as the title.

Sample 1

Keywords in NON Specific Themes

A New Approach

I decided to reorganize the ad groups into themes. This example outlines the ’Storm Door Repair’ theme. I created a new ad group labeled ’storm door repair’ and created ad text with Storm Door Repair in the title. Keywords were selected to focus strictly on storm door repair. The CTR increased and the Cost per click (CPC) was greatly reduced. The original cost, $2.19 average CPC to $1.14 average CPC.

Sample 2

Theme

Why the Improvement?

The improvement is directly related to the relevance of the ad text to keywords. People can identify with the advertisement. The relevance in the theme is stronger. Setting up an account this way can be time consuming; starting with a setup like scenario 1 and work to identify what keywords deserve their own group may be a good approach for someone that does not have a lot of extra time.

When are we done improving?

Never really. I find that I am always looking to improve an account, finding ways to increase quality score, reduce costs and ultimately increase conversions. My next step on this account will be to include specific keyword matching options such as [Exact] and “Phrase” match. This will increase the CTR even further. I will also test different ad variations of the Storm Door Repair ad text to find the most compelling ad text possible.

Sample 2 does not reflect a change in quality score yet, but in time it will. While we wait for the new quality score to be reflected we can enjoy that lower CPC.

Future Improvement Quick Tips will include: Keywords, Ad Text, Bidding, Tracking Codes, Reading & Understanding Account Data, The Reports Center, Implementing Changes, Optimizing Websites and More.

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Posted in Getting Started, Improving CTR, Quality Score

Remember The Exact Match Option

January 7th, 2009

Starting small is golden therefore newbie’s performance numbers are usually not big enough. I mean say hundreds of or a few thousand impressions a month, and much much fewer clicks. If you have ever tried to ride a bycicle you know that while it can be pretty easy at a reasonable speed, as you are slowing your vehicle down, balancing might get more and more difficult. A newbie may be in a similar situation if he wants to investigate the relationship between the CTR of a broad or phrase match keyword and its Quality Score. (It’s common knowledge that CTR, or Click-through-rate, is the most important factor considered by the AdWords system in the calculation of your Quality Score. Now we are supposing that the beginner wishes to monitor in his account how his improving CTR will lead to better Quality Scores.)

Paradoxically, he may experience a considerable increase in CTR associated with a worsening Quality Score or vica versa. The reason for it is that the AdWords system only gathers Quality Score data when a user’s query exactly matches the keyword in your account. E.g. in case you have the phrase match keyword “holidays” in your ad group it may happen that 10 users keying in the search query *summer holidays* see your ad and click on it. Say that 10 other users key in the exact search query *holidays* but none of them clicks on your sponsored link. In this scenario your phrase match keyword’s Click-through-rate is a fantastic 50% (10/20) while your exact match specific CTR is 0%. The consequence is that though you have a really high overall CTR, your Quality Score is pretty bad.

It may be frustrating and resulting in a distorted picture. It’s perhaps even more lamentable that you get the least information in this respect in the most sensitive first stage of your learning curve. For this reason I’d advise every newbie to list their broad or phrase match keywords as 2 match types — broad & exact or phrase & exact. That way at least they are likely to grasp more quickly what is happening and why to the relationship between the CTR of their broad or phrase match keyword and its Quality Score.

Note that if the performance numbers are really huge, the above scenario is practically out of question. In such cases when you are improving the CTR of the broad match or phrase match, you should be statistically improving the underlying or embedded exact match CTR as well. However, this post is meant for newbies with low performance numbers.

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Posted in Improving CTR, Quality Score

Tags: exact match keywords improving quality score

High Minimum Bids Without Competition?

December 30th, 2008

All my former keywords (bids of a few cents for each click, #1 position) were suddenly doomed “poor quality” and “not relevant”. The minimum bid was raised to almost 90 cents though there is no competition.

It’s a complaint we hear most often from newbies to the Google AdWords advertising program.

You should see right away that the amount you bid is not the amount you pay. Google AdWords uses a so-called second price auction model the effect of which is that while you may bid 90 cents, the paid amount will probably be much less. The bid in this case indicates your seriousness, how much you *could* be paying. Of course, you can’t know for sure before you accrue clicks. However, based on general experience we may state that the price will be really lower since you have few competitors. Try to get a good click-through-rate and the actual CPC will go on lowering down to $0.10 or so. It should be noted that some savvy advertisers are known to have bid around $100.00 and paid $0.01. Generally speaking, your short-term competitors may increase the average CPC temporarily their actual costs, however, will get them to leave finally.

What you should achieve is to have a nice CTR in the region of 5% or higher, keyword search only. The Google AdWords system is considered to assume a cca. 2.5% CTR until you build up a meaningful history specifying your own actual CTR. Specialists argue the system seems to have a price goal for the space which is in fact a lower limit. In case your landing pages, ads and keywords are fine you may receive a good initial minimum bid. AdWords, however, modifies the minimum bids in stages. The second stage is the very first visit by the AdWords bot exploring your landing page quality and various relevance factors. If the bot results are poor you may see a sudden increase in your minimum bids which newbies are often upset with. Now you need to discover what the problems might be, create a new ad group and cancel the former one.

If the above remedies don’t cure the situation you are punished by a poor account history in the course of the AdWords auction. Established online businesses often rehabilitate such keywords by moving them to a new Google AdWords account. Small ventures, of course, are often unable to follow suite and have more difficulties with solving the problem. All in all, we may state that if you have few competitors you will not have to pay high costs per click for extended periods of time. Precondition is, of course, that you need to build up a meaningful history with acceptable CTR values so as to lower the actual prices. It’s plenty of work to do for any new advertiser.

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Posted in Improving CTR, Quality Score

Tags: historical CTR improving quality score

Some Considerations On Quality Score And First Page Bid

December 11th, 2008

Many newbies think they understand the concept behind Quality Score especially because every time they ask a question regarding the details they receive the same automated response from support. What they do not always understand is why the Quality Score incorporates such general issues that when they research their score no exact reason is given as to why it may be low. How are advertisers supposed to adjust their landing page or ad campaign if they are not sure what is prompting the negative rating?

The key concept of the whole Google empire is *relevance*. That’s what made Google the No 1 Search Engine in the world and that’s the cutting edge which continues to keep Google ahead of the competition. While in general *relevance* refers to the usefulness of information to a user, in terms of figures it is reflected by a keyword’s Quality Score which is algorithm based so that the AdWords system can calculate with it. Of course, any mathematical algorithm per se can only be an approximation e.g. as compared to the linguistic-psychological notion, conception or mental apprehension of what “relevance” means for us, humans. Even the best mathematical algorithm is nothing more than just an approximation. However, so as to achieve a good approximation, the Quality Score formula needs to be pretty complex and to include a lot of factors for consideration.

What is ‘Quality Score’ and how is it calculated?

Quality Score for Google and the Search Network

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10215

If you take a look at the above help page you’ll see that a really great number of factors are considered in the calculation. Some factors are within the scope of your responsibility while some are beyond. Accordingly, a low rating can be caused by any of them and only a very thorough investigation of your case can decide what the real reasons might be. Paradoxically, such an investigation cannot be algorithm based for the time being, it requires human intelligence in most cases.

Many people likewise wonder how it is possible to have a good average position of e.g. 4.5 but then not have a first page bid? If the average position is 4.5 doesn’t that qualify you to be on the first page?

The first page bid estimate only applies to search queries exactly matching your keyword, it may well not apply to phrase or broad match search terms. This translates you may accrue a good avg. position from phrase and/or broad match impressions while simultaneously the first page bid estimate indicates that your bid is too low for the first page. (In regard to an exact match impression, of course.)

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Posted in Quality Score

Tags: exact match keywords improving quality score

3 Match Types With The Same Quality Score

December 10th, 2008

It might sound strange for many newbies but match types do not affect QS (Quality Score). The AdWords system only collects QS data when the user’s search query is an exact match of your keyword. If you use the phrase match keyword “video game” and the user keyes in *purchase video game* you may get an impression but these data will not be a factor in the calculation of QS for the keyword “video game”. Since data is collected only for exact matches the QS of an exact match keyword is then assigned to the phrase match and broad match type keywords as well.

Now let’s assume that only the broad match or phrase match type of a particular keyword is used in an ad group which has been running for quite a while to accrue sufficient data. If the broad match has accrued 100,000 impressions and 5,000 clicks , the CTR is 5%. In this case, you may experience that some of the users keying in a matching search term in fact do key in your exact keyword, say 10,000 out of the 100,000 users. Because in this case the numbers seem to be large enough chances are that approximately 500 of this 10,000 “tight” users will click on your ad resulting in 5% again. This example shows that the assumption is false according to which you could enhance the CTR of a broad match keyword without achieving an increase in QS that is purely based on exact match CTR. Though QS data is not collected for a broad match keyword it *is* collected for the “embedded” exact matches.

Starting small is golden so newbie’s performance numbers are usually not big enough. I mean say hundreds of or a few thousand impressions a week, and much fewer clicks. If you have ever tried to ride a bicycle you know that while it can be pretty easy at a reasonable speed, as you slow your vehicle balancing might get more and more difficult.

A newbie may be in a similar situation if he wants to investigate the relationship between the CTR of a broad or phrase match keyword and its QS. Paradoxically, he may experience a considerable increase in CTR associated with a worsening Quality Score or vica versa. (As set out above, if the performance numbers are really large, this scenario is practically out of question.) It may be frustrating and resulting in a distorted picture. It’s perhaps even more lamentable that you get the least information in this respect in the most sensitive first stage of your learning curve. For this reason I’d advise every newbie to list their broad or phrase match keywords as at least 2 match types — broad & exact or phrase & exact. That way at least they are likely to grasp more quickly what is happening and why to the relationship between the CTR of their broad or phrase match keyword and its Quality Score.

1 comment »

Posted in Improving CTR, Quality Score

Tags: exact match keywords improving quality score

Improving Quality Score and CTR

December 8th, 2008

All advertisers have the power to succeed with AdWords. They just need to know how to create a highly scored account. Whether you optimize your account or a professional does it for you the principals are the same.

Create Relevant Groups – Categorize

If you sell more than one product or service create a separate ad group for each category. Each group will have a set of highly targeted keywords, targeted ad text and a targeted landing page.

Keywords

Generic vs. Specific

Select specific keywords. Do not use generic keywords vs. specific keywords to describe your business. Most advertisers can not afford this option. If you sell Ladies Shoes do not use a keyword like footwear it is to vague. You will take impressions and clicks that are not going to result in business.

Matching Options

Different Matching options will not result in a different keyword quality score. Your broad match keywords will have the same keyword quality score as exact match. All keywords are scored as though they are exact match. However you can increase your overall account quality score through increasing the Click Through Rate (CTR) with different matching options. Your matching options are broad, “Phrase”, [exact], -negative and -[embedded match].

Ad Text

Create compelling ad text. Give users a reason to click your ads. Place your keywords in the ad text so that users identify your ads with their search query. If you are having a sale or offering free shipping mention it in your ad text. Try adding several ad variations set to run evenly so you can test the effectiveness of different ad text. You can identify the ad text that performs better by a higher CTR.

Landing Pages

Landing pages need to be original, have a transparent ordering process and do not require people to go through a signup to enter the site. The product needs to be found within 2 clicks of the landing page. If you have multiple products or services the ads should land users on the specific landing page for that product or service. Include your keywords in your landing page text.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

Once your keywords, ad text, and landing pages are created your account will begin to accrue a CTR score. CTR is the number of clicks per impressions. CTR is calculated historically per keyword, the associated ad group and the historical CTR of the display URL’s. Because the CTR is calculated for historical data it takes time to see improvements. A high CTR is a indication that users find your keywords and ad text relevant to their search query.

Analyze Data & Cut the Fat

Review the account data daily. You will see what keywords are performing and which are not. Cut the fat. Part of your score is the historical CTR for the group and display URL so poorly performing keywords do harm to your account.

*Want a professional to give your account a quick audit? The experts here can review your account for a reasonable fee. Contact us for details*
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