Google Announces Major Quality Score Changes…
Okay, this is coming straight from Russel Wright - he’s got the scoop on what’s shaking over at Google land and here it is:
In July 2005, AdWords introduced minimum bids for keywords based on Quality Score. This system allows us to show very high quality ads to Google users, while also giving advertisers control over their keywords. Since 2005, we’ve improved Quality Score in many ways, such as the inclusion of landing page quality and landing page load time as factors. Along the way, we’ve also received much helpful feedback from both users and advertisers.
Today, we’d like to let you know of further improvements we’ll introduce in the coming weeks — based, in part, on this feedback. First we’ll outline the key points, and then dive into the details:
* Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query
* Keywords will no longer be marked ‘inactive for search’
* ‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’ in your account
A more accurate Quality Score
Most importantly, we are replacing our static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad’s quality each time it matches a search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they’re relevant and less likely to show when they’re not. This means that Google users are apt to see better ads while you, as an advertiser, should receive leads which are more highly qualified.
Keywords no longer marked ‘inactive for search’
The new per-query evaluation of Quality Score affects you in that keywords will no longer appear as ‘inactive for search’ in your account. Instead, all keywords will have the chance to show ads on Google web search and the search network (unless you’ve paused or deleted them). Keep in mind, however, that keywords previously marked ‘inactive for search’ are not likely to accrue a great deal of traffic following this change. This is because their combined per-query Quality Score and bid probably isn’t high enough to gain competitive placement.
‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’
As a result of migrating to per-query Quality Score, we are no longer showing minimum bids in your account. Instead, we’re replacing minimum bids with a new, more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google web search. They’re based on the exact match version of the keyword, the ad’s Quality Score, and current advertiser competition on that keyword. Based on your feedback, we learned that knowing your minimum bid wasn’t always helpful in getting the ad placement you wanted, so we hope that first page bids will give you better guidance on how to achieve your advertising goals.
It’s worth mentioning that the impact of these changes will vary from advertiser to advertiser; some might see no changes to their ad serving, while others may see a noticeable difference. As always, we recommend optimizing ads to prevent them from receiving a low Quality Score.
Putting it all together
Here’s an example to illustrate how per-query Quality Score works:
Nancy’s Dairy advertises on the keyword ‘milk.’ Nancy’s ads perform better on the keyword ‘milk’ in the U.S. than in Canada. Her ads also perform better on the query ‘milk delivery’ than on ‘milk,’ and better on certain search network sites than on others. Instead of one static Quality Score and minimum bid that determines whether the keyword ‘milk’ is eligible to trigger an ad for all search queries, we will now determine eligibility dynamically, based on factors such as location, the specific query, and other relevance factors. For that reason, Nancy’s keyword ‘milk’ will be able to trigger an ad for search queries where it’s likely to perform better, i.e., in the U.S., on ‘milk delivery’ and on certain search network sites.
We’re working to update the AdWords API and AdWords Editor so that, in the future, they will support first page bids. Until then, both the AdWords API and AdWords Editor will continue to show the minimum bid field. However, the information shown in this field will be based on the new per-query Quality Score. You may keep current with upcoming API releases on the API Blog and learn about upcoming AdWords Editor releases via the AdWords Editor Forum.
Finally, please note that we’ll release these Quality Score changes to a very small segment of advertisers within the next day or two, so that we can gather feedback before launching to all our advertisers. We will, of course, post again in advance of the time that these changes go live for everyone.
Site Targeting Changed to Placement Targeting
Google finally made the change from site targeting to placement targeting. For those of you unfamiliar with what site targeting was in the first place, it is part of Google’s Adsense program but for advertisers (as opposed to bloggers, website owners, etc.) When site targeting was around, it allowed people to run the “content network” aspect of Google but now targeting “sites” per se (as opposed to having Google decide for you based on your keywords and other parameters).
Well, the thing about site targeting is that you were more or less forced to advertise on EVERY page of the site. You can imagine this is not exactly ideal since who in the world would want to appear on say… the “Contact Us” page or even the home[age - you want to be a lot more specific. You can also imagine that this is extra useless if you are opting for the CPM (cost per thousand) model, which is what Google would LOVE for you to do since they get money independent of your good or crappy copywriting skills as they are reflected in your ad writing.
Anyway… their first move to placement targeting is a great one. Now you as the advertiser gets to specify exactly what pages and even what slots of a website you’d like your ad to show. On top of that, Google also allows the CPC (cost per click) model now on content network. This allows you to test your ad copy and your entire advertisement system, jack up your CTR as high as you can, before you switch over to CPM. You’d ultimately want to switch to CPM since you’ll get much more favorable rates there as far as cost per click go.
But this assumes you know what you are doing and has gotten your CTR high to make CPM worthwhile.
How to Organize Your PPC Campaign
Remember when you were a kid and your mom would tell you to organize your desk?
And remember how you thought it was the harshest torture ever and absolutely refused to do it?
You’d kick and whine until you had absolutely no choice (or if you had a mom who gave in way too easily and would end up doing it for you).
Well, it’s time to get over it and start organizing your life again – starting with Google AdWords.
If you want to stay alive and be efficient in Google AdWords, organization is a must. And we are here to help you.
Some questions that you may have could be:
- Wouldn’t it take a long time?
- What are the benefits of being organized?
- Why would it matter?
- Better yet, why should I care?
- What’s the alternative? What’s easiest?
These are all valid questions so let’s dive right in.
First, the alternative to organizing is disorganization. How’s that working out for you in life? Not too good, huh? Well, AdWords is no different. =]
Google Keyword Dump
See, what a lot of rookies do is they gather a list of hundreds if not thousands of keywords that are somehow related to your business (or not) and toss them all in one campaign under one AdGroup and under the same generic ad.
This is what we’ll call - “keyword dump” and what Google calls “bugger off”.
As you’ll learn later in the AdWords Seduction Newsletter series, Google will “Google Slap” you to heck and back – which simply means, your campaign will disappear as quickly as it went up.
So aside from avoid getting shut down by Google, other benefits of a well organized campaign include:
- Making it easy to turn off unprofitable keyword sources – which will trim the fat from your advertising and put more money in your pocket.
- Making it easy to track the results of your keywords – which will allow you to break down conversion rates, so you can see exactly how much money each ad and keyword is making you.
- Making it possible for your ads to be more relevant and focused (on the keyword level) - which seduces Google into lowering your cost per click.
Lesson #1:The bottom line is, being organized increases revenue while reducing cost, which means more profits for you. So while organizing your campaigns in tightly grouped AdGroups takes a little extra work, your business checking account will thank you for it. |
Get Organized - How To Lower Ad Cost and Increase Profits
With that said, let’s take a look at how you get organized.
It’s actually very simple really: you segregate your keywords into relevant groups. And each adgroup should be based around one keyword and as soon as one of your keywords deviates from that, create a new adgroup for it.
As we suggested to you in the last newsletter, you start with lateral keywords and think of as many as you can that are relevant to your campaign. These core keywords would form individual adgroups independent of each other.
Then within each adgroup, you would go into more depth coming up with more keywords that are closely related to that original keyword.
For example, let’s say you are creating a campaign for a martial art school and one of your core keyword is “grappling”. You create an adgroup called grappling and add keywords such as “best grappling”, “useful grappling”, “grappling martial art”, etc. Notice that each keyword contains the core keyword.
Let’s also assume that while conjuring keywords for grappling, you get inspired and comes up with the keyword “jiu jitsu” – a popular form of grappling martial art. You would identify this keyword as a separate adgroup of its own despite it’s close relations to “grappling”.
This is because “jiu jitsu” does not contain the core keyword “grappling” in it.
Lesson #2:One option for organization is creating one campaign with multiple ad groups and each adgroup containing a handful of tightly related keywords. |
NOTE: We recommend you having as few keywords per adgroup as possible – to the point of having only one keyword per adgroup or perhaps only the 3 match-types of that same keyword – broad, phrase, and exact match.
Geo-Targeting Your Customers
You can take a step further and organize it on the campaign level.
The only reason I could see you using more than one campaign to have geographically-targeted ads.
Google gives you the capability to limit the geographic are where your ads will be showing. For example, let’s say you manufacture flip-flops and umbrellas. You would prefer to target the Seattle market with the umbrellas and the Los Angeles market with the flip-flops.
Lesson #3:Google allows multiple campaigns - but for simplicity’s sake, keep to one campaign unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise (such as geo-targeting or using the strategy to mentioned below. |
Three Match-Type Based Campaigns
Finally, another powerful way you can organize your campaigns is to have three campaigns with each campaign being dedicated to one form of keyword match-type – broad, phrase, and exact.
And within each campaign you would have multiple adgroups with each adgroup containing only one keyword.
You can also do this via having one campaign with each adgroup dedicated to one keyword but of all three different match types.
Lesson #4:Don’t forget to utilize the different match types Google offers. Whatever option of organization you choose - remember to keep your adgroups tightly correlated and keep the number of keywords per adgroup down. |
However you decided to do it is ultimately up to you – just remember this adage no matter which route you choose: don’t get lazy.
To Your AdWords Domination,
 |
| Lawrence Talent |
P.S. When you are ready for the next Google AdWords step, don’t be afraid to step up here: AdWords Secrets!
Know Thy Pay Per Click Market
Welcome to the first day of AdWords Seduction Newsletter.
By now, having gone through the free crash-course found on Seduce AdWords, you realize that Google AdWords is an extremely powerful marketing tool. You should have a good idea of what it is and what it can do for you and your business.
Before we dive into the nitty gritty details of AdWords and tactics that will help you dominate your particular market, we are going to take a step back and examine “marketing” as a whole.
We are going to examine the most fundamental aspect of marketing; for without this understanding, you will not master the art of AdWords seduction.
W.I.I.F.M.
As the great marketing guru and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says, W.I.I.F.M. is the radio station that everybody is tuned into in their heads at all times. It stands for “What’s In It For Me”.
In marketing; you need to keep that acronym in mind at all times. It is exactly what your customers are always thinking and it’s no different in the world of AdWords.
Unless you can answer this question for them, they will not pay attention to you.
Unless you can provide what they want, they will not care for you nor your business.
Before you set foot into the AdWords realm (heck, before you set foot into the business realm) you must be able to answer that persistent question in their head or else you will get burned.
And burned hard.
Some Questions to Ponder
So ask yourself, what product and service do you have? Whom are you targeting? Who is your ideal client? WHY are they your ideal clients?
What benefits will you bring them? What pains of theirs will you be solving for them? These are just some simple questions to start your thought process. You must put yourself in your potential clients’ shoes and see it from their perspectives.
You must forget about your ego, which is no doubt constantly hawking at you and touting how awesome your product/service is and how everybody should buy it from you. You must think in terms of how you and your product/service can help your clients.
Locking in on Target…
See, you have to think of Google AdWords as a marketing homing missile. It is able to connect precisely with those whom you want to target-market to and impact with unwavering accuracy.
Here’s the catch… for it to work, it must have a specified target.
And you are the one responsible for giving it the location of that target – the more precise the better.
Your success in AdWords (as a matter of fact, in marketing and business in general) depends on this skill.
In the next newsletter, we will break down in more details on how you should choose the keywords you will be bidding on (think of it as identifying the exact clients you want to be target marketing to).
The concept covered in this newsletter will be vital to the next step. So start thinking now and visualize your ideal prospect and what you have to offer them. And be prepared to explain exactly what’s in it for them.
To Your AdWords Domination,
 |
| Lawrence Talent |