Speaking @ Seattle AdClub
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I’ll be talking about SEO, PPC, and other online marketing options for advertisers big & small
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Adwords Quality Score Irrelevant?
I might be one of the few that doesn’t have to complain about the mountain of inactive keywords, especially when no ads are being shown already. Google’s quality score has been kind to me.
My top keyword (long tail be damned) accounts for 20-30% of our total volume. I have a 40% CTR and has been down to 1.2 cents a click. overall….pretty good quality I’d say. Google is paid at least 40% of the time that somebody does a search for that term - and we’re rewarded for providing them that sure money making click.
More background:
We’re usually the only “up north” ad (above search results, not in side column block of ads) and people have a hard time moving ahead of us, even though I’m only paying a couple cents a click and the average max CPC for competitors is 30-40 cents. What it takes to go “up north” in the premium position is based on a revenue. This has been confirmed through Adwords reps. I have a feeling they’re tweaking that part of the algorithm a little more than others since it’s such a huge aspect of their results page.
Recently..
We’re dropping behind AOL on this primo keyword. What’s stranger is that since we’re not the first Adwords results, nobody is going into that premium slot. So AOL’s ad is not meeting their revenue # expectation to take that position. But weirder still….no matter what I bid, I cannot move above AOL. 50 cents a click? nope, no premium position, no moving above AOL.
Why…
I have no idea. Could be that they’ve
- adjusted the revenue requirements for premium
- adjusted total quality scoring
- weighting their new partner AOL
- AOL is getting to try out the position preference functionality and is bidding to #1 no matter what (most likely?)
- my quality score is falling (true, now that we’re not premium spot anymore - one of those self-fulfilling prophecies)
- something else…
I’m not pronouncing any conspiracy theories or anything…just noting that quality scoring is still a complete mystery, and with new changes in Adwords we’re going to see a lot of behaviors we’re not familiar with.
I’ll be looking for more discussion about quality score and position preference as we see more real world examples. It just feels like a free will and pre-destination argument. In my view, you can’t really have both. …Just don’t go arguing about Google like religion now, or it’ll be “you can’t talk about religion, money, and now…Google.”
