Downtrodden Adwords Quality Scores -- Really?
-
Wow! 93% of our Adword keywords in our new campaign received a Quality Score of 4 or less. That means most of the keywords aren't showing.
I received the quick answer from our Adwords advisor that, "Quality score is created from a variety of factors ... etc." Yes, I know that by reading Google's documentation.
I dug deeper into the data.
When I looked at keywords dashboard for this campaign, what vexes me is that it's all about "Keyword relevance: poor". That is repeated time and again in the keywords hover, bubble pop-up in Adwords.
"Landing page quality: no problems".
"Landing page load time: no problems".
63% of keywords have quality score = 3
29% of keywords have quality score = 4
We have thousands of keywords that are electronic part numbers. All keywords use phrase matching. We use dynamic keyword matching in the ads.
I dug deeper. I chose random keywords (and corresponding landing pages) from lower quality scores (1,2,3,4) and higher scores (5,6,7,8,9,10). What is the difference?
Examples:
- Quality score 1 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/LM2901
- 2 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/BZX84-A20
- 3 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/MAX4796
- 4 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/TMP302A
- 5 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/LTC4267-3
- 6 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/CAT1161LI-28-G
- 7 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/DS1216C
- 8 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/R10S-E1Y1-J5.0K
- 9 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/208M822-19B11 145785-000
- 10 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/TP3-PNEU-0.250 243362-000
Notice URLs with score 9 and 10 have url-encoded space (%20) -- just pointing it out.
What is the difference between these pages that have such different quality score?
And, interestingly enough, the majority of example keywords in the Urls above (LM2901, BZX84-A20, etc) have zero impressions and zero clicks thus far.
Yes, the keywords have low traffic because this is exactly what people search for an purchase when making a B2B component buy. It's all about the exact part number.
**I'd love specific suggestions of how to improve quality score of pages with a 3 or lower! ** Thanks kindly, Loren
-
Loren first off in your number crunching, I'd suggest you calculate a weighted average of your Quality Score, whereby you take into account the number of impressions for each keyword.
This is my general thought based on limited knowledge of your account:
The most tell tale factor is that you have an aged account of 2+ years with a lousy historical CTR. This is going to greatly impact the QS of any keywords you add to your account no matter how relevant (or how much better you've gotten at creating relevant campaigns). Your predicted CTR is terrible, so your QS reflects that.
There is an implied volatility, and what I haven't been able to figure out is, how much change it takes to impact your QS. I've noticed that if your future CTR is really good, and your keywords have high volume impressions and clicks, the QS can improve very quickly (sometimes within days). But if the new keywords you've added are low volume, it can take a long time before your QS improves to reflect the underlying relevance.
George Michie of RKG wrote a detailed blog (rant) post about Quality Score, and while it doesn't directly answer your question, it does educate you on what goes on in that "black box."
-
I find it hard to answer these sort of questions without seeing the account from my experiences new accounts sometimes show bad scores when you first start a campaign. But if you see it across the account i would try to make sure the ads relate to what the people are searching for as best as possible etc this post might help you as well - http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2454010&from=10215&rd=1
-
I love that you're helping me dig deeper.
I crunched quality scores (export and into Excel) for two longer-running campaigns that get an acceptable number of leads/conversions for the cost.
Older campaign 1 : average quality score = 4.8
Older campaign 2 : average quality score = 4.2
So those aren't great either (imho) yet better than the current campaign.
More questions to help you noodle on my situation or do you have gems to share on how to raise the quality score?
Cheers, Loren
-
Do your old campaigns have bad scores also?
-
Hello David,
The whole account has been running for 2+ years.
This particular campaign was started yesterday -- alongside several campaigns that have been running for months.
CTR average = 0.63% (pretty lousy)
For today's data, 187 distinct keywords had clicks.
28% had CTR >= 50%
34% had CTR 10% - 49%
37% had CTR 0.07% - 0.09%
The median is 20% so that means a lot of the CTR are at the lower end.
We are in a loooooong tail business (with lots of part numbers) so the higher CTR are for 1 impression total, 1 click total, etc.
Lots of items with impressions and no clicks.
Search results are relevant given these are manufacturer part numbers.
**Great questions. Did I answer what you sought? **
I'd love additional thoughts from you. Kindly, Loren
-
What are your ctr's? How long Has your account been running? Also check search queries to see if the phrase match is bringing in relevant searches
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do IP and/or DNS changes impact Paid search (Adwords, Bing, etc.)
What impact (if any) does IP or DNS changes, have on paid search campaigns? We recently performed an upgrade to our sites that required a datacenter change (but within the same region East US) and DNS change. We believe there may have been an impact to our ad campaigns in the form of suppression of our ads following the change, specifically - Google Adwords. Is there any information regarding this issue or has anyone experienced this before? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | MWM37721 -
Approximate costs of keywords in Google AdWords
Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how to go about getting some approximate costs for keywords through Google Adwords to assist my SEO efforts. I don't want to open an AdWords account, just looking for costs. If the pricing is too high then the opened account was a waste of time. So if anyone has any resources to find out this information, that would be great! Thanks in advance!
Paid Search Marketing | | MainstreamMktg0 -
AdWords Match rule for "&" and "and"
Howdy, folks 🙂 Here is a question - is there way to have an AdWords matching rule, which would cover both "&" and "and"? Here is an example - rule to match both "B & B" and "B and B". Any help appreciated 🙂
Paid Search Marketing | | DmitriiK0 -
Importing Analytic goals into Adwords
My company is in the process of updating how we track conversions in Adwords and Analytics. One prgrammer suggested importing Analytic goals into the Adwords account. I am extremely hesitant to do that because I know that Analytics and Adwords don't always play nicely together. Does anyone have any experience (positive or negative) around this. Pros and cons? Should I keep the tracking separate? Also, FYI, our flow does not employ the traditional "thank you page" conversion model. We have java scripts and onload events that fire when goals are triggered. I am not a programmer so I am a little out of the loop on how it all works. All I know is that I want conversions/goals to be attributed to the correct channel. Help me mozzers!
Paid Search Marketing | | Vacatia_SEO0 -
Which of my products should I advertise for first using Adwords?
Serious Adwords noob here. I have been reading a great deal in preparation for my first Adwords campaign. Strangely enough, I have not been able to find information that might help me determine which of my 180+ products I should begin with and use in my first campaign. I imagine that there is some sort of general criterion like the highest selling item, lowest, one meeting certain criterion in the popularity of it's keywords/difficulty, one with least competition or, most likely, something that I haven't even thought of. Does anyone have any suggestions or a link to something I might be able to read to solve this? Thanks for your help!
Paid Search Marketing | | machineuser0 -
Have you used an ad network other than Google Adwords?
We received a cold call from a company called Division-D. They make a lot of promises which sound good (but that's what marketers do 🙂 ). Advertising on a non-Google network probably would have fewer restrictions than an Adwords campaign and they say that they are fully transparent. Would it be worth it to listen to their whole pitch?
Paid Search Marketing | | Linda-Vassily0 -
Is a $100 adwords credit appropriate here
Hello, A long time ago we set up an Adwords campaign for our company on my sister's personal Adwords account. My sister would like us to set up a new account under a business email for the new Adwords keyword research we want to do. Is using a $100 coupon appropriate for our new account? I honestly don't want to use it if it's against Google's policy. And is there anything else I need to keep in mind as far as fees or requirements in setting up a new account and/or using the coupon? Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | BobGW0 -
New v Returning in Google Analytics with Adwords
I am trying to figure out an issue with Google Analytics. What i am stumped on is I see traffic from AdWords coming in (accounts linked) and I see new v returning user. Does the return visit still show even if a user came back in via direct or organic? Or is it that these return visits are clicking on the ad again to come back as visits and clicks match in the reports?
Paid Search Marketing | | RadicalMedia0