Quality Score

Jim Jansen

College of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University

jjansen@ist.psu.edu

Quality Score, why do we care?

Improved Quality Score

Leads to

Improved Return on Investment!

Quality Score

• Think of it like this -- Quality Score is a grade applied to your keyword advertising campaigns by Google.

• The higher your grade, the less you're charged and the more prevalent your ads are in the sponsored links.

• Quality Score has a major impact on your campaign’s success and profitability

How Ads are Shown in Google:

The AdWords Auction

1. CPC – Cost Per Click (Sort of what you bid.) – peoples’ vote trumps all!

… but also …

2. Quality Score– High quality scores can drive down your ad cost. – Low quality scores means that your ad (or landing

page) isn’t very relevant to a keyword and is likely to perform poorly

Quality Score• Quality Score is based on:

– Click-through-rate (CTR)– Ad text relevance (such as if the ad text contains a keyword)– Overall historical keyword performance with Google (i.e., how the keyword

has performed in the past)– User experience on the landing page or site associated with an ad– Page load time

Watch Video – “Google Seminars for Success - Explaining Quality Score ” (2:28) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-6GxOV5Ws

Note: Quality Score is not static. It is

consistently changing based on these

factors! Therefore, continual management.

So, Quality Score affects

• How much you pay!

• How many times your ad is shown

• Where you ad is shown in the results listing

• Whether your ad is shown at all!

Okay, but what do we do?

Quality Score Formula

Note: You have control over most of these factors!

To Improve Quality Score…

…modify your ad campaign through actions such as:– Testing and refining keywords– Adjusting max CPC bids– Reorganizing Ad Groups– Rewriting ads– Adjusting keyword matching types (broad, exact,

phrase, and negative)– Choosing relevant destination URLs– Improving landing pages (lessons 22 and 23)

How do we implement some of these Quality Score Improvements?

AdWords Quality Score Begins with Keywords

• Keywords are the foundation – if your keywords research is weak, your whole ad campaign will suffer

• Use the keyword suggestions from Google AdWords and other tools

• But, your own historical data is the best guide! Note: Google Analytics is great!

• Keyword management is a daily process for your campaign! (you should be doing this every day!)

Grouping Keywords to Improve AdWords Quality Score

• Key to high Quality Score Ad groups is - relevance.

• All keywords in an Ad group should share a common theme or meaning

• Group your keywords by theme, and then segment those groups into subgroups, and so on, creating a hierarchy of small, manageable keyword groups

• Why? So, you can them write relevant ads for each Ad group.

Writing High-Quality AdWords Ads

Craft ad text that is:– Is Relevant to Your Product – Is Relevant to the Searcher's Intent– Corresponds with Your Landing Page

• Should see a continuity, from keywords to ad text to landing page

• A good ad not only improves your Quality Score, it catches the eyes of potential customers to increase CTR, which improves Quality Score even more

What about Landing Pages?

• We will cover on Lessons 22 and 23. A brief introduction to Dreamweaver and then Landing Page Design.

• Note: Everyone will optimize at least one landing page for one of their Ad groups

• Implementation will depend on your client(i.e., if they will let you great, if not will

provide as a suggested re-design)

Team Exercise (Part 1)

• Set-up schedule for daily monitoring and reporting of Ad group performance (note: leverage the reports you have set-up, separate campaigns)

• Start teasing apart the Ad groups (good place to start – separate high performing keywords into own Ad group). Want a hierarchy of small, manageable, high performing Ad groups in each campaign.

Team Exercise (Part 2)

• Generate new ads for those new Ad groups (note: interesting to try ad generator tools, such as http://adwords-generator.com/keyword-multiplier.php – use your common sense though)

• Client Relations – contact your client to see what access, if any, you will have with the Website (note: explain the importance of the landing pages to the advertising campaign).

Thank you!(reminder to do your daily logs)

Jim Jansen

College of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University

jjansen@ist.psu.edu