The end of the year is typically a time to reflect on the past 12 months and plan for the next adventure. Taking inspiration from our favorite pre-holiday work distraction, we are pleased to bring you the Agency blog's own "best of 2009." Your visits and time spent on site helped us identify the information, ideas and resources that can best help you move your clients' businesses forward.
1. Google Content Network tips and tools - Knowing that the Content Network offers the opportunity to scalably expand your clients' reach, we posted on a number of Content Network topics, ranging from tools to optimization tips to training resources. We hope that they enabled you to plan, execute and measure your Content Network campaigns in the most impactful, efficient and cost-effective ways possible.
2. Quality Score - A key element of successful campaigns is ensuring that they have the strongest Quality Score possible. Whether you're brand new to search marketing, or were one of the first search advertisers on the scene, there's always something new to learn about Quality Score. To help you get the strongest Quality Score, we ran our Quality Score series and will continue to post new tips as they become available.
3. Case studies - One piece of feedback we heard is that agencies and advertisers value case studies, as they inspire and instruct with "best in class" examples and useful data points. We also heard that sometimes they're not easy to find. As a result, we added case studies to the 2009 blog list, with topics ranging from online-to-stores successes to effective integrated media campaigns.
4. Training resources - With the frequency of additions and updates to Google's media solutions, you could spend as much time keeping up to speed as you do managing your clients' campaigns. Knowing your time is precious, we focused on webinars and on-demand videos that work with your schedules and deliver just the right amount of information. In addition, we introduced you to Google AgencyLand, our new learning and resources platform for agencies.
5. Analytics - Whether you love data, or love to hate data, data is central to successful campaigns. We want you all to love it, so we posted our favorite Analytics 60-second videos, product updates, as well as useful tips delivered from in-house experts, including Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik.
6. Local marketing resources - Sometimes your clients' customer is half way across the globe; other times the customer is half a block away. Regardless, it is important to market to consumers where they are, and Google has made it easier to do that with new and improved local marketing features, such as Location Extensions and Place Pages in Placement Performance reports.
It's been a pleasure blogging for you in 2009, and we look forward to bringing you fresh new tips, tactics, resources and updates in 2010.
Showing posts with label Quality Score. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quality Score. Show all posts
Quality Score resource: Search ads quality guide
It's that time of the year again, when kids dust off their textbooks and head back to the classroom. In the spirit of learning, we wanted to help you make the grade on Quality Score knowledge with the Search Ads Quality Getting Started Guide. The guide covers a range of topics relating to Quality Score, including how it affects your rank, how it affects your cost-per-click, and how to improve it. You'll even hear from our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, on how the ad auction works.
Use it to learn, refresh, or review the foundations of Quality Score. You may even want to share it with clients to help them understand how their ads are shown on Google.com.
Use it to learn, refresh, or review the foundations of Quality Score. You may even want to share it with clients to help them understand how their ads are shown on Google.com.
Quality Score fact of the week
This week, we bring you the final fact in our Quality Score series. We hope you've found the content helpful and informative. Last but not least, our fact this week is:
Quality is given extra consideration when determining which ads appear in the top positions. For ad placement in top positions above Google search results, we use the same Ad Rank formula as we do for all other search ads, based on your Quality Score and CPC bid. However, in order to ensure that the highest-quality ads show above search results, only ads that exceed a certain Quality Score and CPC bid threshold are eligible to appear in these positions. The CPC bid threshold for these positions is determined by the matched keyword's Quality Score; the higher Quality Score, the lower the CPC threshold.
Quality is given extra consideration when determining which ads appear in the top positions. For ad placement in top positions above Google search results, we use the same Ad Rank formula as we do for all other search ads, based on your Quality Score and CPC bid. However, in order to ensure that the highest-quality ads show above search results, only ads that exceed a certain Quality Score and CPC bid threshold are eligible to appear in these positions. The CPC bid threshold for these positions is determined by the matched keyword's Quality Score; the higher Quality Score, the lower the CPC threshold.
Quality Score fact of the week
Another week, another fresh fact for you. This week's addition to our Quality Score series is:
Low competition for a keyword does not mean that it will be inexpensive. Competition is only one of the variables that determines your actual CPC. The price you pay for a click is also determined by your keyword's Quality Score for that query. If your keyword has a low Quality Score relative to the other ads on that page, you may find that your actual CPC is close to your maximum CPC, even though there is low competition for that keyword. Keep in mind that you will never be charged more than your maximum CPC for a click, no matter how low your Quality Score.
Low competition for a keyword does not mean that it will be inexpensive. Competition is only one of the variables that determines your actual CPC. The price you pay for a click is also determined by your keyword's Quality Score for that query. If your keyword has a low Quality Score relative to the other ads on that page, you may find that your actual CPC is close to your maximum CPC, even though there is low competition for that keyword. Keep in mind that you will never be charged more than your maximum CPC for a click, no matter how low your Quality Score.
Quality Score fact of the week
It's Monday, which means we've got a Quality Score fact for you. The fourth post in our series is:
Ads may not be shown on all search results, even for queries that advertisers are bidding on. Some keywords have such low Quality Scores that ads are unlikely to show on them. Therefore, there may be keywords in your client's account that don't show any ads at all. You may want to try optimizing the ad creatives associated with those keywords to make them more specific and relevant, thereby increasing the likelihood they'll be shown. You can also find out why your client's ad may not be showing for a given query by using the Ads Diagnostic Tool.
Ads may not be shown on all search results, even for queries that advertisers are bidding on. Some keywords have such low Quality Scores that ads are unlikely to show on them. Therefore, there may be keywords in your client's account that don't show any ads at all. You may want to try optimizing the ad creatives associated with those keywords to make them more specific and relevant, thereby increasing the likelihood they'll be shown. You can also find out why your client's ad may not be showing for a given query by using the Ads Diagnostic Tool.
Quality Score fact of the week
Along with your morning coffee, your Monday Quality Score fact is here. The third fact in our series is:
Restructuring your account does not cause you to lose your historical Quality Score information. The historical performance of your keywords, ads, and landing pages is preserved when you restructure your account. Therefore, we encourage you to restructure or optimize your client's account structure as needed.
Restructuring your account does not cause you to lose your historical Quality Score information. The historical performance of your keywords, ads, and landing pages is preserved when you restructure your account. Therefore, we encourage you to restructure or optimize your client's account structure as needed.
Quality Score fact of the week
We're back with our second Quality Score fact. This week's contribution to our newly revived series is:
Quality Score does not suffer when your ads are paused or showing infrequently. One of the factors that determines Quality Score is the performance of a keyword in combination with its associated ads. Pausing ads or showing them infrequently doesn't affect Quality Score since they aren't accruing any performance data while they're not active. So there's no need to worry if you run seasonal or low-exposure campaigns for your clients, your Quality Score won't drop while the ads aren't showing.
Quality Score does not suffer when your ads are paused or showing infrequently. One of the factors that determines Quality Score is the performance of a keyword in combination with its associated ads. Pausing ads or showing them infrequently doesn't affect Quality Score since they aren't accruing any performance data while they're not active. So there's no need to worry if you run seasonal or low-exposure campaigns for your clients, your Quality Score won't drop while the ads aren't showing.
Quality Score fact of the week
A few months ago, we ran a series of posts on a hot topic among our agency clients: Quality Score. Due to the popularity of the series, we'll be bringing you more facts about this important metric on a weekly basis. We hope you find these useful, and here's our first installment:
A higher bid will not improve your Quality Score. Your Quality Score is determined by a number of factors, clickthrough rate (CTR) foremost amongst them, and is normalized to compensate for the higher CTR that ads in higher positions accrue. By simply increasing your bid for a keyword, you will likely increase the position of your ad on the page, but you won't be impacting the Quality Score for that keyword.
A higher bid will not improve your Quality Score. Your Quality Score is determined by a number of factors, clickthrough rate (CTR) foremost amongst them, and is normalized to compensate for the higher CTR that ads in higher positions accrue. By simply increasing your bid for a keyword, you will likely increase the position of your ad on the page, but you won't be impacting the Quality Score for that keyword.
Quality Score fact of the day
To wrap up our series on Quality Score and start off the new year, we've saved one of our favorite facts for last:
Changing a keyword from broad to exact match will not improve its Quality Score. With broad match, your ads may show on variations of your keywords. However, ad performance on these variations won't affect your keywords' Quality Scores. For example, say your ad group contained the broad-matched keyword resolution. Your ad could potentially show when a user searched for new year's resolution or conflict resolution, although its performance in these instances would have no impact on Quality Score. The keyword's Quality Score would only be affected by how your ad performed on the search term resolution, since it exactly matches the keyword. Changing a broad-matched keyword to an exact match, therefore, won't improve its Quality Score.
We hope you've found these installments useful, and although this concludes our series, we're still all ears when it comes to your questions and feedback. Let us know at agencyblog-feedback@google.com.
Quality Score fact of the day
We're back with the fourth fact in our series to help clear the air about Quality Score and help you run more effective campaigns for your clients. Today's fact is:
A few bad days of test performance will not ruin your Quality Scores. In order to optimize your clients' accounts, we encourage you to run targeted tests on your bids, creatives, and keywords. These small tests are a useful way to measure the impact of changes before applying them more widely. You should carefully track the performance of your experiments. If you find that the changes you've made don't perform well after a few days, you can revise your experiment or delete those changes and the short term impact on your Quality Score will soon be outweighed by the positive performance you have accrued in the rest of your client's account.
We'll bring you our next fact in the new year. Wishing you Happy Holidays until then!
A few bad days of test performance will not ruin your Quality Scores. In order to optimize your clients' accounts, we encourage you to run targeted tests on your bids, creatives, and keywords. These small tests are a useful way to measure the impact of changes before applying them more widely. You should carefully track the performance of your experiments. If you find that the changes you've made don't perform well after a few days, you can revise your experiment or delete those changes and the short term impact on your Quality Score will soon be outweighed by the positive performance you have accrued in the rest of your client's account.
We'll bring you our next fact in the new year. Wishing you Happy Holidays until then!
Quality Score fact of the day
Welcome to the third fact in our series on Quality Score. We've been posting specifics about Quality Score to set the record straight on some of the common questions we receive. Today's fact is:
Google does not keep track of your landing page Quality Score history. We've heard some concern from advertisers who think their current Quality Score is being lowered by previous landing pages' Quality Scores. However, Google only uses the most recent check of your landing page to determine its relevance and quality.
And, as always, if you've got questions or feedback, let us know at agencyblog-feedback@google.com
Quality Score fact of the day
We recently began our series on Quality Score to help dispel any myths or misconceptions about this factor in your account. For the second installment of our series, we bring you this fact:
As always, feel free to send us your questions or comments at agencyblog-feedback@google.com.
Your ad conversion rate does not affect your Quality Score. Some advertisers using AdWords conversion tracking mistakenly believe that they should set an easy conversion event on their landing pages to artificially boost their conversion rates. In reality, this will not actually have any effect on your Quality Scores. Feel free to use conversion tracking to meet your clients' needs and don't worry about its impact on your Quality Scores.
Quality Score fact of the day
In our conversations with advertisers, we hear a number of questions about Quality Score, a key metric in the accounts you manage. Quality Score measures how relevant your keywords are to users' search queries and influences CPCs and first page bids in your account. We'll be bringing you a short series of facts about Quality Score to help answer the questions we frequently receive, beginning with this one:
Showing up in a higher position will not benefit your Quality Score. Although higher-ranked ads may typically earn better clickthrough rates, Quality Score is normalized to compensate for performance differences resulting from ad position.
Stay tuned for more facts, and we're always open to hearing your suggestions via email at agencyblog-feedback@google.com
Showing up in a higher position will not benefit your Quality Score. Although higher-ranked ads may typically earn better clickthrough rates, Quality Score is normalized to compensate for performance differences resulting from ad position.
Stay tuned for more facts, and we're always open to hearing your suggestions via email at agencyblog-feedback@google.com
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