Adwords Quality Score for Previously Unsearched Keywords
10. November 2008
Ollie
Last week Tug launched a PPC campaign to coincide with the release of a huge Holywoood blockbuster film. We quickly found that certain keywords on Google were getting awful Quality Scores despite the fact that the keywords were 100% relevant to both the AdCopy and their Landing Pages/Website (Quality Scores as low as 1/10). The keywords in question generally included the title of the film, which obviously we expected to have a top quality score for and hence a low minimum cpc for.
Over the next few weeks we have been in talks with Google to get the bottom of the problem but to no success. This week on SearchEngineWatch.co.uk, however, David Szetela explains how he had experianced a similar problem and discusses the best way to combat it:
We had launched a new AdWords campaign to drive interest in a book that was soon to be published by a major New York publishing house.
The day after we pushed the switch to activate the AdWords campaign, we noticed something baffling: minimum bids for many keywords were $5.00-$10.00. Most maddeningly, many of the keywords affected seemed to be our best possible ones — for example, the ones in the ad group that consisted solely of a few keyword variations of the name of the book, with ad text that included the name of the book, and clicks landing on the book’s site page that was most heavily-laden with mentions of the book title………………….
It took another few months of sleuthing and talking with a variety of industry experts to determine the root problem. Hopefully our findings will help you avoid similar pain. Warning: the following explanation is still undocumented by Google, so it could be “off” in part — but not far off.
QS calculations are based on an AdWords account’s history — how well the account’s campaigns have performed over time, especially in terms of CTR. So accounts can “earn” better and better QS over time as the advertiser optimizes the campaigns by optimizing ad text, splitting ad groups into smaller ones, etc. — by adhering to the best practices I’ve detailed in previous installments of this column.
But what about new accounts? Since there’s no CTR data on which to base QS - how does Google determine minimum bids?
Initial Quality Score for New Accounts
Google does so by using the only data it has: data on how well keywords have performed for other advertisers in the past. For a brand new account, there’s obviously no history for keywords in relation to particular ad text and landing page combinations a new advertiser is using. So those usual components of QS are ignored until their influence on a keyword’s performance can be determined — after enough impressions and clicks have accumulated.
Sounds reasonable enough, right? Well, sharp readers will have already detected some flaws in this methodology. For example, how does Google account for words with several synonyms? But here’s the issue most pertinent to today’s premise: how does Google assign initial QS for keywords that have little or no history? Into this category would fall many important keywords: book and movie titles, for example. Another important one would be brand names of new products.
It turns out that this is the main source of many advertisers’ minimum bid problems. Keywords with low search volume history are assigned super-low quality scores, and hence high minimum bids. But that’s not the worst of it.
An account’s Account Quality Score is the average of all individual keyword quality scores. So if a new account includes many keywords with low search volume history, that account can start off with a low Account Quality Score, which can have a negative effect on all campaigns and ad groups in the new account - even ones that include well-constructed ad groups with high-search-volume keywords. That’s the reason seemingly great ad groups are “dinged” with inappropriately-high minimum keyword bids.
Fortunately, this situation can be avoided pretty easily. Build out your new accounts as usual. But pause ad campaigns (or ad groups) that might include keywords with low search volume history. In other words, start with the ad groups that include keywords that are most likely to earn high quality score right away. After the ad groups have exhibited good-to-high CTRs, then start gradually activating campaigns and ad groups that are more “iffy.”
For more go to: http://searchenginewatch.com/3631591
Adwords, Google, Search Marketing | 0 Comments »
Jerry Yang Talks at Web2.0 Summit
7. November 2008
David
Below is a video of Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo talking with John Battelle of Federated Media. In the video they talk about the deal that could have been with Microsoft and other various ideas from Jerry.
You can also find an article about the talk here.
Yahoo | 0 Comments »
MySpace Ads Booming!
7. November 2008
David
MySpace.com recently launched a new Ad Platform called MySpace MyAds, similar to that of Facebook’s but they only allow the use of skyscrapers and banners. Like Facebook, they allow you to target your ads very specificly. Techcrunch have posted an article about theyre inital earnings, in the article they talk about how MyAds is already atleast a $50 million/year business for MySpace. Very impressive to say the least…see a quote below from the TechCrunh article:
”MySpace’s self service display ad product, called MyAds, officially launched on October 12, less than a month ago. Advertisers can bypass the normal sales routine, use a Flash tool to create their own display ads, and run them on a cost-per-click basis. The minimum CPC rate is $0.25.
Demand for the product was immediate and significant, we’ve heard from multiple sources close to the company. Average daily revenue, say our sources, is $140,000 - $180,000, which means MyAds is at least a $50 million/year business for MySpace already….”
Read the rest here.
MySpace, Social Media | 0 Comments »
Ocean Holidays puts websites on Common Ground
6. November 2008
Nick
Ocean Holidays has revamped its websites to incorporate the same booking engine as sister brand Beat The Brochure.
The company operates Ocean USA, Ocean Florida and newly launched Ocean Ski and Ocean Cruise.
Pay Per Click (PPC) | 0 Comments »
Yahoo’s Hillary Schneider on the Yahoo/Google Agreement
6. November 2008
Ollie
Today, Yahoo’s Hilary Schneider e-mailed all Yahoo clients letting them know directly Googles decision to terminate the advertising services agreement that the companies announced in June. Here are some of the main points of the e-mail:
“Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement, and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s and advertisers’ concerns.
…..even in the absence of a commercial agreement with Google, we intend to become an ever-stronger player in online advertising. Our certainty on this front comes from the progress we continue to make in many areas, not the least of which are the significant innovations we’re making in search. We continually optimize our algorithmic and sponsored search. In fact, in 2008 alone, we have developed and launched hundreds of improvements to our search engine, including index expansions and updates, ranking models and performance tuning. Each of these features is designed to improve search quality and deliver a more relevant search experience to our user.
Particularly in this economic climate, identifying and making rich and deep connections with your target audience is of the utmost importance. No company is better prepared to help you succeed in that quest than Yahoo!. In addition to being the largest aggregate publisher in the U.S., we are #1 or #2 across virtually every key category, including being #1 in the categories of News, Sports, Finance and Entertainment, and we’re putting our leadership to work for you every day.”
Google have also spoken about this on their official blog.
Yahoo Search Marketing | 0 Comments »
Mr Paparazzi Celebrity Gossip Website Partners with BlinkX
4. November 2008
David
Mr Papparazi recently parterned up with BlinkX to share ad revenue, heres a quote from NME magazine:
“Video search service Blinkx has partnered with celebrity gossip site Mr Paparazzi to offer users clips of the likes of Amy Winehouse and Victoria Beckham. Through the partnership, contextual ads will be served against the clips on the video search engine and both parties will share ad revenue….”
Read more here.
Celebrity Gossip Blog here, BlinkX here.
BlinkX | 0 Comments »
Google to Index Scanned PDF Images
3. November 2008
David
Recently Google announced that they will now begin to index scanned PDF’s, see below for a quote from the Google Blog:
This shows how important it is to optimise every little bit of your content, Google indexes Flash, Images, Videos and now even PDF’s! If you need any of your content optimised, feel free to contact Tug or even fill in a Free SEO Healthcheck form with your requirements and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Google, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engines | 0 Comments »
Recession Proof your Search Campaigns
3. November 2008
David
SEMPO recently held a webinar about ‘recession proofing’ your PPC accounts. The majority of it was about how to save your clients’ money, as opposed to how search trends and behaviors change. There was nothing particularly new or shocking in the webinar but some interesting points. Tug have put together a short summary below based on what we thought were the main points, there’s also a link to the webinar below.
Budgets are increasingly migrating from traditional advertising and into search as the economic crisis worsens. This will be largely due to the accountability of search over press, TV etc. Proving the ROI has become crucial as marketers are under increasing pressure to account for all advertising spend. Evidence of this is that Google Q3 profits were up 26% to $1.35B. The downside of this is that keyword prices are driven up hence there is a need to reduce all unnecessary spend and make sure you are only paying for relevant clicks, below are some tips on how to do this.
How to ‘recession proof’ your campaigns
· Cut waste –
o Remove all long-tail keywords that you do not consider essential. These will cost you money but rarely convert
o Use location targeting based on where your sales are coming from, not your clicks
o Introduce day parting based on sales data, not click data
o Turn off the content network if it is not converting for you. People browsing the net are now much less likely to convert into a sale
· Improve your copy & keywords –
o Remove all branding copy and replace with detail about the value that your brand / product offers over competitors
o Do you have any offers / price points that should be in your ad? People will be on the lookout for these when they search
o The above also applies to keywords – people will be using the words ‘cheap’ and discount’ more (Google trends shows increase in people searching for word ‘cheap’ since Oct)
o Do some competitor ad analysis and find ways to make your ad copy stand out
o If you have a trusted/well known brand make sure that the brand name is prominently in the ad copy to make people trust you and be more willing to convert
· Why is the recession good for search? –
o As companies and advertisers look for ways to cut their marketing spend, people who would normally be reluctant to try new advertising methods or have never tried search before will discover PPC & SEO and realize the value of it
http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/webinars/081030_Webinar/
This article was prepared by Lauren Macnab of Tug Search.
Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Marketing | 1 Comments »
Best Halloween Search Engine
31. October 2008
Nick
While Ask was the scariest in 2007, they’re 2008 attempt is lame and family oriented (sorry to be a grump I want to be scared!) - check it out http://www.ask.co.uk Surprisingly Yahoo has made no effort. MSN has a nice hint of Halloween but nothing special: http://www.msn.co.uk. For me Google’s the coolest this year: http://www.google.co.uk
Pay Per Click (PPC) | 0 Comments »
Trying out MSN’s Big Snap II
30. October 2008
Nick
So i signed up for Big Snap 2 today. It’s another programme where MSN is trying to incentivise people to use their search engine, MSN Live. When signed up - the more you use it the more chancs you have to win John Lewis vouchers. I like that there’s an actual sponsor and they are UK specific - great opportunity for John Lewis really… Again we’ll wait and see if this makes any impact on MSN search numbers… In the mean time I am going to make an effort to use MSN Live and report back on my likes and dislikes… and if I win any vouchers!
http://try.bigsnapsearch.co.uk/
Pay Per Click (PPC) | 0 Comments »
