the PPC Book

Is this a post about the arbitrage opportunities in the construction equipment market?

Nope, this is just a post about the importance of Quality Control in paid search. Why backhoes? My 20 month old son, who loves backhoes and trucks more than life itself, is obsessed with anything and everything construction related.

While searching for christmas toys I decided to check out the backhoe market on Yahoo. The REAL backhoe market. Why would I do this? I have no idea.

I found a few more ads than I had expected…

One in particular stood out, unfortunately because their landing page was unreachable.

Granted, the backhoe search market is not one likely to run up a quick tab of $3,000/day, but I’m sure this advertiser has burned a few clicks today. Now I know we don’t all have 3 dedicated QC experts on hand at all times to make sure our ads are 100% kosher, but at the very least you should be checking ad creatives 1x week.

Here’s a few quick tips on how to QC your Adwords campaigns:

1. Campaign Management>Tools>Disapproved ads

This is the best feature. Your disapproved ads will show up here automatically. Usually there will be a reason associated with the error. You can fix your ad right here and it will automatically be resubmitted. Insider’s tip: Make sure you update your campaign notification settings to email you when an ad is disapproved. Like so..

2. Campaign Management>Tools>Ads Diagnostic tools

Here you just want to pick a few of your main keywords and run them through the query tool. Make sure your ads are displaying. Simple enough.

3. Manual Options

Lastly, another thing I like to do is go to the campaign summary page and scroll to the very bottom. (if you don’t have to scroll you clearly don’t have enough ad groups and you are leaving money on the table. click here for help)

Usually people will find 3 or 4 adgroups at the bottom that aren’t getting many impressions. Click on the adgroups that fit this description and try to rule out the following:

Bad Quality Score
Low Volume Terms
Low Volume Geo Restrictions

If you’ve ruled those out you need to look at your ad copy for misspellings. (see #1)

There are probably some techniques I’m leaving out, but if you follow these tips on a regular basis you’ll likely save yourself from any embarrassing mishaps.

written by Jeff Hudson