The All-Important Quality Score

Yesterday I sat in on two sessions for the Adwords Advantage webinar.  Below is a recap of my tweets for the second. I think both sessions were interesting and I  picked up some useful nuggets from each.  The webinar series will last another couple of weeks and include 12 more sessions, so come back on Thursday for more.

Read the tweet stream from the bottom up.

Session Two:  Craig Danuloff (@clickequations) on “Quality Score in High Resolution”

#aaos10 Landing pages can only hurt QScore, not help you. L Page Q Score is not used in ad rank calculation, only CPC calculation.

#aaos10 100% match search queries w/ ad copy. Test copy 2 find best perf ad. Delete/pause ineffect keywords. Fix landing page probs

#aaos10 How to improve QScore | Align; Revise; Remove; Eliminate

#aaos10 See more about the impact of Q Score on CPC and the impact on CPC of 1 point QS change http://bit.ly/yXH24

#aaos10 Q Score gives you either a discount, or a penalty, on your CPC.

#aaos10 Ad Rank Calculated | bid X Q Score = Ad Rank. CPC Calculated | next ad rank (below urs) /your QScore = your CPC

#aaos10 QScore applied | Determines the amount you pay for each click on the ad. Also the first page bid estimate of the keyword.

#aaos10 Q Score applied | whether an ad is eligible to be shown in a partic. auction. Determins the position the ad appears in SERP

#aaos10 “7″ is an average keyword quality score. Below that, dude, its bad. Symptomatic of bad stuff in ur account.

#aaos10 BUT a hundred other positives will not overcome poor CTR.

#aaos10 CTR is by far the most impt element in QScore calculation. Good CTR will compensate for other weaknesses.

#aaos10 Bounce rates are a factor on the organic side of ranking.

#aaos10 Q Score is only calculated when the search query is identical to the keyword. CTR is position adjusted.

#aaos10 Non-factors in QScore calc | match type, adding negatives, searches not on Google.com, google content network

#aaos10 You are the company you keep re: Q Score. Your market must not be shady.

#aaos10 Landing pages must be relevant, not be deceptive, no popups, no data collection, privacy policy link, be quick loading.

#aaos10 Google understands context better than any other company. Google ‘gets’ relevance (literal use of keyword not 100% necess)

#aaos10 So if you’re doing new campaign, pay close attention to keyword relevance through entire process (text ad to landing page)

#aaos10 ‘relevance’ is esp. important when CTR is unknown (new ads, new landing pages, new keywords, etc.).

#aaos10 QS inside of Google is not between a number between 1-10. Range of scale is unknown, really.

#aaos10 Q Score shown to you in AdWords interface is average of all indiv. QS calculated in real time for that keyword.

#aaos10 Don’t screw up account history. Don’t let poor performers (keywords) just sit. It affects everything in your account.

#aaos10 Must worry about any keywords in ur account with bad CTR. This affects quality score on well opt. keywords for that account.

#aaos10 What is level of decay in CTR from day to day? Unknown to AdWords user It’s an *average* of the CTR for that keyword.

#aaos10 Factors in Quality Score Calculation | CTR, Relevance, Other | see three previous tweets for details

#aaos10 Other | Landing page copy, load time, privacy policy, popups, geography, industry, pattern of bad behavior.

#aaos10 Relevance | Query to keyword to ad copy to landing page.

#aaos10 CTR is first component of Q Score. History of keyword, of account, of display URL, geography of the click.

#aaos10 Quality Score is Google’s best guess (combo keyword/text ad/landing page) going to perform in search auction.

#aaos10 The higher the quality score, the more $ Google makes off the ad. It appears more often, gets clicked more often.

#aaos10 Quality score improves the relevance and quality of an ad. It provides feedback, predicts results, encourages actions.

#aaos10 Quality score is sweat equity. Spend money to get on page, but also must earn the privilege.

#aaos10 Quality score of a keyword is as important as its bid. How much time, attention, resources do you give QS?

#aaos10 In an AdWords auction, the high bidder doesn’t necess. win (get top position). Winner is bid X quality score.

#aaos10 Agenda: AdWords auction; what is quality score; how is quality score calculated and applied.

#aaos10 Starting now, “Quality Score in High Resolution.”

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