So what is AdWords Quality score and what can you do to improve it?

Your keywords‘ quality score is equally as important as the maximum cost per click (CPC) when deciding where your ad will be ranked. Google decides your ad position using this multiplier – Quality Score x Max CPC.

5 Things you should know about the AdWords Quality Score

1. When you first upload a keyword, it will be given an average quality score for that keyword over Google’s networks
2. The single largest factor in the Quality Score Statistic is the historic Click Through Rate (CTR). This affects the Quality Score at all levels in an account (keyword, ad group, campaign and account). Therefore, a keyword’s individual quality score can be affected if the rest of your account is performing poorly (or well, of course).
3. The relevance of the Ad Text and Landing Page content to the keyword will improve Quality Score.
4. Landing page load time will affect Quality Score too – time to sort out that web host and remove those huge images that take ages to load!
5. If your keyword does not have enough traffic to reach a threshold (unhelpfully, Google doesn’t define this threshold), this can reduce the Quality Score.

5 Ways to Improve Your AdWords Quality Score

1. Use dynamic keyword insertion in your ads to make them as relevant as possible. Dynamic keyword insertion only works if your keyword has a quality score of greater than 3.
2. Group highly relevant keywords together to keep the traffic high for each Ad Group.
3. Where possible, make highly specific landing pages for your keywords.
4. Delete or pause poorly performing keywords, or move them to more relevant ad groups with more relevant ads, landing on more relevant landing pages.
5. Try adding phrase and / or broad match variations of exact match keywords you are bidding on to increase traffic volume.

In a fiercely competitive market, where clicks are £1.50 or more, together we established that he was wasting around £50 PER DAY on irrelevant clicks that had absolutely no chance of becoming sales.

Why? Keyword match-types.

You will hopefully be aware that Google Adwords provides three different keyword match types; broad match, phrase match and exact match.

Starting with the last first, Exact Keyword matching will only show your ad when the search term (what your customer types in to Google) matches your keyword exactly, no misspelling, no typos, no plural, no partial matching.

Secondly, Phrase Match will match the search term if it includes your phrase somewhere; the phrase “red dress” would be matched to searches for ‘ladies red dress’, ‘girl in a red dress’, ‘make a red dress’, ‘red dress design’, ‘red dress lyrics’. Now, of course some of these are relevant, but some are not and potentially waste your budget.

Phrase Matching is quite tightly targeted though, so the same phrase would not match searches such as ‘red evening dress’, ‘red cocktail dress’ or even ‘dress red’ or ‘dress red’. The words are in a different order or do not form the phrase you’re bidding on, so you should thoroughly research and include each variation in your campaign to avoid missing that traffic.

Lastly, Broad Matching is the widest possible match type, and matches any search which includes the words in your keyword, misspellings, plurals, the words in a different order.

This is fine in some circumstances, but we would advise caution; research all possible search variations which might match your keyword. In the example broad match ‘red dress’, this matches; red head dress, dressing in red, red gingham dress, red white and blue dress, red or dead dress, red dressing gown and many other, potentially wasteful clicks which aren’t relevant enough.

Some of the terms may be relevant, and you want that traffic anyway. But matching one broad match keyword in this way will make it difficult to target that keyword with a relevant ad and to land that searcher on the right page on your site, impossible to measure the success of each search term and you’ll pay a lot more for each click.

Worse still, Google AdWords also uses what it calls, ‘expanded matching‘ on broad match keywords, often using synonyms. In a recent example, fujitsu bracket might match ‘mount fuji’ and ‘monitor mount’ matches a search for ‘shower screen bracket’! Completely irrelevant.

So, what should your keyword strategy be?

Depending on your market, budget and your personal preference, we might recommend bidding on phrase matches to begin with, researching as many variations as possible, or using only exact matching to start. In either case, a small number of broad matches should also be included to pick up anything you missed in your research. You can then frequently monitor the search query report for your account to add more phrase or exact match variations, or use negative keywords to exclude the irrelevant searches you find.

CAUTION: if you have been using broad match keywords in your account, removing them all in one go can upset the ecology of your campaign – be very careful before implementing a policy change such as this.

For advanced keyword strategies, try live one on one coaching – guaranteed satisfaction or your money back.

Alternatively, have one of our professionals carry out a free audit of your campaign and tell you where you’re going wrong.

We spotted this neat video which demonstrates the value of CTR and explains in simple terms how Google ranks your ads amongst competitors’ ads.

Learn more about quality score here.

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To effectively lower your cost-per-click (CPC), and therefore your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or cost per sale, you need to first appreciate Google’s perspective. If you understand what motivates Google, you’ll understand better how to manipulate the system to your advantage:

1. Obvious, perhaps, but Google is a SEARCH engine. Its job is to make sure that the user finds the most relevant results, first time, every time. Google leads the search market by a very wide margin because it focuses so hard on this principle. If users consistently see results irrelevant to their search, there’s a strong possibility that they’ll switch to another search engine that works better. That’s not what Google wants.

2. Whether results on Google are natural listings or paid ads, this same principle applies. Google wants your ads to be relevant to the keyword on which you are bidding. The ads that are most relevant WILL appear in the higher positions because that’s what motivates Google. Not how much it earns for each click fee, but how relevant your ad is to the keyword.

3. Google measures your ad’s relevance to each keyword in a number of ways; the keyword appearing in your ad, the keyword being mentioned a number of times on your landing page. But most importantly, Google measures the relevance using the most reliable method: users vote with their feet every time they click – generating your click-through-rate (CTR) statistic.

4. When your keywords achieve a high CTR, Google will promote them up the ranking without you needing to increase your bid. More importantly, once you reach those top one or two positions, you can begin to lower your bids and still achieve position 3-4 and continue to retain a good CTR.

5. Maintaining a good CTR in positions 3-4 will again push your ads to positions 1-2, and again you can reduce your bids, repeating this cycle as often as possible whilst still maintaing those important top positions.

To lower your CPC and CPA – you must first satisfy Google’s first rule – RELEVANCE.

Learn more about how to lower your CPC by reading the AdWords Success Guide.

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But there’s a little-known element that’s really beginning to annoy me and a lot of the other search community: the Search Network.

You’ll be familiar with the two primary networks; Google Search – essentially, the Google you know and love, and then there’s the content network where your ads are showing alongside some forum or blog that contains the keywords on which you’re bidding.

The Search Network is somewhere in the middle of these two and relates to sites that technically are search engines like Google, and merely send the visitor’s search query off to Google, and then get Google’s data back. And your paid for ads too. And yes, you’re still paying per click the same way you do on Google Search.

It’s good idea in principle, at least for sites like www.sky.com and www.orange.com. These are search engines where the audience will behave in a very similar way to the audience on Google.

However, this is where it starts to get a little concerning. Google doesn’t publish a list of its “Search Partners”, so there’s no way of knowing in advance which sites will be carrying your ads, and where your money is being spent.

Depending on your market and your product, for example, you might not really want your ads to show on www.ebay.co.uk, or Amazon.co.uk. Or perhaps you do? Either way, you really want to be able to measure the effectiveness of each of these sites carrying your ads and the clicks that come from them – how many Amazon clicks does it take for you to achieve a sale?

Right now, the only way of knowing this is to use Google Analytics or similar software to check the source of visitors to your site, how they behave, and if they convert to a sale or not.

It isn’t currently possible to run a campaign only on the Search Network, or to see where your ads are showing, or which site individual clicks are originating from. You can’t currently calculate your Cost Per Aquisition, the average ad positions or the average cost per click. All of these stats are rolled up in the stats for Google Search in your campaign.

So what happens if you don’t want your ads showing on a particular property like www.FreeIndex.co.uk or www.DoorOne.co.uk? A nice simple site exclusion tool like the one provided on the Content Network? No, I’m afraid not – you have to actually call Google and request that they manually exclude your ads from showing on those sites.

Maybe some of these sites perform really well and have a great CTR and awesome CPA figures. And maybe they don’t. But without the ability to individually target ads for the audience, without the ability to measure it’s effectiveness, it’s difficult to make a case one way or the other.

You could always opt out of the Search Network, of course, but there’s definitely some good quality traffic in there you’d be missing out on.

If only we could tell which traffic it was.

Using the example of a campaign selling hubcaps, if you don’t sell Renault hubcaps, make sure you use “-Renault” in your campaign. If you provide a service in a particular geographic area, get a list of all of the places outside of that area and include them as negative keywords.

Using Google, search for your keywords and see what results come up. Retry your search using search term -keyword -keyword -keyword in the search box, keep applying this until all of the irrelevant results are filtered from your search. Whatever negative keywords are now included in your search query, add to your ad groups or campaigns so that others users searching or those irrelevant terms don’t see your ad.

This improves your quality score, and therefore the cost per click for your ad or improves your position. The improvement in your position should increase your click through rate (CTR). The increase in click through rate is rewarded with a better quality score, which again then should reduce your cost per click.

It pays to be relevant.

Get more tips in the Free AdWords Guide, or contact me to discuss your campaign.

Actually, I have established a circumstance where this is beneficial. During the last week, I was revising a campaign. One particular ad was consistently achieving #3 or #4 spot. On increasing the bid price to put it in to the top spot, the ad actually achieved less clicks and cost more per click, but remained in the #4 position.

The advantage is this: with these changes, assuming your ad and landing page fulfils the required quality score, you can now get to the top spot much more easily. Before, you had little control over your average CPC; you do have control over your max bid price, although it may be more than you’re willing to pay.

Inside AdWords: Improved top ad placement formula now in effect
Beginning today, the actual CPC you pay for an ad in a top spot will continue to be determined by the auction, but subject to a minimum price. The minimum price is based on the quality of your ad and is the minimum amount required for your ad to achieve top placement above Google search results. As always, your actual CPC will be discounted and the higher your ad’s quality, the less you will pay.

And yet, I still think this move says profit, not (e)quality. What do you think? Comment below.

See more AdWords comments here, or learn how to achieve AdWords excellence.

It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. Right now, the placement of your ad is not just based on how much you bid for particular keywords, it is also based on a quality score (relevance of your ad and landing page to the keywords, and the Click-Through-Rate). This means that when someone searches, they are more likely to get the most relevant results – damned good practice, I think.

So, the current calculation is a mix of quality score the average cost per click that you paid. The post correctly points out that how much you pay is defined by all the other advertisers around you, something over which you have no control. I guess the easiest way to explain it is that if your average CPC is £1, and another advertiser averages £1.10, their ad will appear above yours, even though you might have set your maximum bid to £3.

In addition to the quality score, the proposed change will be based on your maximum CPC, not your average. This appears to me to be a good strategy to increase the average CPC. If ads are placed higher based on maximum CPC, surely advertisers will just increase their maximum CPC? In turn, this will increase the average CPC.

And Google’s profits. Watch this space.

Inside AdWords: Upcoming change to the top ad placement formula
The key change to the formula will be how we consider price. Today’s formula considers an ad’s Quality Score and actual cost-per-click (CPC). The improved formula will still heavily weight Quality Score, but instead of actual CPC, it will consider an ad’s maximum CPC. Here’s why:

Actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behaviour of the advertisers below you. This means that your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could be constrained by a factor you cannot influence. By considering your ad’s maximum CPC, a value you set, you will have more control over achieving top ad placement.

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However, there’s a downside: what if you’re searching for a product or service in another country? Google‘s technology presents the searcher with paid ads that are listed in their own country.

The two images are results from the same search, ‘dog care florida’. The first image is the results I get here in the UK, the second are the results users would see in the US.

So, if you’re an international business, perhaps a web store that sells all over the world, how do you check you competitors? How can you research your keywords and see what results they produce?

There is a solution. Hopefully, you’re using Firefox as your browser? If not, there are other, similar tools available for IE. Download the SwitchProxy extension for Firefox that allows you to switch between proxy servers at will. Identify a free proxy server somewhere else in the world at XRoxy.com and get googling to establish who is advertising on your keywords.

In case you need it – Wikipedia has a definition of a proxy server.

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Not least the whole Harry Potter thing, but we appear to be in a wizard-driven society, or at least much of the online experience is. That’s all well and good and many times, like this, it can work well. What it doesn’t do, is give as much flexibility – it’s a quick win.

1. It suggests additional keywords that you might want to consider, along with the bids, too. Be careful though, the keywords won’t necessarily match your ad copy. (Get the free guide for more on that).
2. It analyses your current keywords and suggests increasing your bid price to increase the ad position. (Hey, I thought Google rewarded relevance, not paying more to be at the top!?). It won’t give you the opportunity to define your increased bid, just to select the suggestion, or not, which is a little tedious. Interestingly, it suggested that an increase on a bid on one obscure keyword, although the search term had never been matched and the ad never displayed.
3. It suggests changes to your ad copy and displayed URL. Quite a useful exercise, actually, but I’d recommend cycling the ads for a short while to see what difference the changes make.

In all, it might well throw up some useful tips, but it’s not going to set your campaign alight. Remember that your business is about people, not about the technology which won’t know your customer as well as you do.

Original Story: Inside AdWords: Campaign Optimizer now available

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