Quality Score - Bid your way to the top?
Filed Under (AdWords, AdWords Quality Score, PPC Industry News) by Jeff Hudson on 09-08-2007
Okay, so it took a few re-reads before I got a handle on the new Adwords quality score update. Basically, what you need to understand:
The key change to the formula will be how we consider price.
Instead of factoring quality score and actual CPC, they are going to factor quality score and maximum CPC.
The Adwords team tries to convince you that this gives you more control over your placement:
Actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behavior of the advertisers below you. This means that your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could be constrained by a factor you cannot influence. By considering your ad’s maximum CPC, a value you set, you will have more control over achieving top ad placement.
Whatever, that’s fine. I understand Google wants to make more money, I have no problem with that. Just don’t tell me you’re trying to increase the ‘quality’ of your ads.
This change is designed to improve the quality of our ad results…
I’m speculating here, but do you think that turning the dial all the way to ‘quality’ last year started to make ‘too much’ of an impact? Now the dial is going to be somewhere between ‘we like high bids’ and ‘we’re rich as hell’. Maybe, just maybe, the quality score was partly responsible for the drop in net profit margin from 29% last year to 23%?
100% agree about QS being responsible for being responsible for the NET drop last year, but we knew this would happen, Google knew this would happen.
I don’t think that they expected so many people to get a grasp of quality score so quickly. Right now, in the most competitive (and expensive) industries 99% of advertisers are experienced and quality score was just something they had to get a handle on quick. They did.
Now Google are ready to milk that and turn the direction back to bidding.
I think now more than ever there is going to be a greater need to test landing pages constantly to squeeze every last drop of conversion power from landing pages. Especially if you are going to be paying a premium. I also think that a lot of people are going to loose a lot of money setting up initial campaigns and testing them. Unfortunately, this will be the small advertiser.
This will also herald in a new era of higher demand for skilled people who have experience with AdWords. Not the basic setting up and entering keywords people, but those who have lived in AdWords and who can spot the little things and draw meaning from seemingly meaningless data.
I think this is going to help a lot of agencies and freelance professionals.
Thanks for the comment Dave. (great blog, I’m a frequent reader, btw) I especially agree with your thought:
I’ve felt this way since they started this whole quality score initiative. The more complicated it gets, the more that professionals will be in demand. Fine with me, for sure.
However, I do think the last adjustment was not executed correctly. There was simply too much inconsistency, and let’s face it, I can’t redesign every client’s website and business model. It just is not realistic. There has to be some room for market forces - meaning, people would eventually start ignoring the ebay (children for sale) ads. As hard as Google tries to police ‘quality’, the market will do a better job.
As to your point of squeezing every drop from landing pages - couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’m looking to hire a landing page specialist right now - know of any?
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