Archive for the ‘Adwords Changes’ Category

Some Great New AdWords Features

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Just for some balance and to show that we do appreciate the good things that programmers bring to us, here are some recent at-a-boys for our developer friends.

Negative Word Lists

In the past there were only ad group or campaign level negative keywords but now Google is supporting keyword lists that can be applied across multiple campaigns.  The process is simple to implement and it starts by building the negative keyword list in the Control Panel and Library section.  Here you create the list and add the keywords, then at the campaign you attach the list in the negative keyword section. Now you can add a keyword to your list and have it applied to all the connected campaigns.

Better Mobile Targeting

Mobile targeting was greatly enhanced by a new campaign level setting that allows for targeting the device type and the carriers. Everyone knows that mobile is rapidly expanding and changing and not everything works for everybody so now you can control this to a much finer level. If your site uses Flash you probably want to turn off iPad and iPhone traffic since we know that Apple does not support this.  If your web site isn’t designed for a good mobile experience you may want to turn off Andriod, iPhone, and Palm, but keep the iPad traffic since the screen size is large enough that a desktop design works just fine. Carriers are another item to consider, especially in a very localized campaign.

Display Network Bidding

In one of the great non-events of recent time the split bids between managed and automatic placements has been consolidated. We are not sure why they ever split this up to begin with but it is no longer the headache that is was. Now we have only search and display bids as it should be.

Top Ads

You have probably noticed some changes in the Top position ads with longer than normal headlines. This is controlled by including a period, exclamation point, or question mark on the first line of body text. When this is there and the ad qualifies for a top position above the organic, the line will be appended to the headline with a dash and the punctuation will be removed.  This is a big deal to several of our clients and we have begun a full review of all accounts to leverage this change. While we are very excited about the potential of this for many of our clients the early testing shows there are some bugs to be worked out. If you do this yourself make sure you test the outcome of the change!

Ad Copy Conversion Optimization

Google rolled out a new change to the Ad Rotation settings for campaigns extending the optimization based on Conversions rather than Clicks. We have been asking for this for years and the problem is so old that it was a chapter in our first book several years ago. We have some testing underway to see if this operates as you would expect, but the fact that it exists means I can take this off my Christmas Letter to Saint Google.

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Posted by Bob Dumouchel in Adwords Changes, adwords expert | No Comments »

What happened to Quality Scores?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

The one constant with Google is change, and recently it seems that it was Quality Score’s turn. We actively manage over 60 accounts; each month we analyze each account and report our observations to our clients. This allows us to see patterns that are not visible to the vast majority of people and this month what is very apparent is that quality scores are on the move. Quality scores are always on the move but not like this. Across dozens of accounts we saw point shifts of 2-3 and all in one direction.

In the bidding process Google treats quality score just like money and it is a good indicator of SEO problems with the site so it is high on our list of things to watch. Because of the way the math works a dip in quality score is the same as reducing your bids, which can put your ad in weaker positions. What we observed is that almost across the board there were 2-3 point reductions in quality score. In the past a 7 was an average keyword quality score, but it appears that 5 is the new 7. From what we can tell this does not seem to have impacted ad delivery because everyone took a similar hit to their scores.

While change can be upsetting, I have to admit that the Quality Score is getting better with this change. Although there are exceptions, generally speaking the relevancy fit of the new quality scores is better than it was before this change. This was not a simple change where they removed x number of points to readjust the center point of the bell curve. Words that were a 7 before ended up from 4-6 and the ones that got the 4’s generally were weaker than the ones that earned 6’s. Quality score in a very broad sense is reasonably accurate and fair and while you might want a higher score the real question is do you deserve it? We get calls every day from people wanting us to improve their quality scores but they almost never want to the hard work required to impact this number.

Our guess of what is happening is that they are moving the center of the curve toward 5 to give more room in the process. With the average sitting at 7 and reporting only whole numbers it gave very little room to show the finer details. In the long run this is better for the system for the center point to be at, well, the center point. Theoretically there may be a risk of losing positions if the change rolls into your account before your competitor. So far we have not seen any indication of that happening, but we are watching very carefully.

Adwords Quality Score and Organic Page Scores share lots of attributes so it is important for both sides of your web strategy team to watch these numbers and to learn from them.

Posted by Bob Dumouchel in Adwords Changes, Quality Score | No Comments »