Dramatic drops in keyword quality score recently caused a flurry of paid advertising angst. Google was quick to claim it as a known issue within the AdWords Help forum stating, “This issue was limited to the reporting of Quality Score, and the fix should be live for all within the next 24 hours. For those keywords with a status of Low search volume, the fix should be live within the next few days. However, not all advertisers have recovered.”
Within our own client advertising campaigns we’ve seen some quality scores return to 7/10 while others remain at 3/10. I emailed AdWords support regarding the issue and after reviewing our account they determined, “…you have been making changes to the CPC bids in the last 2-3 weeks. This could have been a reason for the change in the Quality score.” Guilty as charged! We reacted to major drops in quality score by changing our CPC bids. And I suspect we were one of several advertisers who tweaked their cost-per-click bids.
Given that the position of your AdWords ad on Google varies per keyword and is determined by a keyword’s maximum CPC and Quality Score relative to other advertisers running on the same or similar keywords, it’s not surprising the bid changes advertisers made in reaction to Google’s reporting issues has impacted the position of all of our ads.
If you’re scratching your head in bewilderment, you’re not alone. We’ve had the itch as well! Maybe it’s a matter of letting the dust settle and we’ll see a slow crawl back up the quality score ladder to a better displaying ad near you. In the meantime, we’ve pulled together some practical tips for improving your quality scores.
- Take suggestions. Incorporate keyword synonyms within your ad copy using Google Sets and reviewing results from Google Suggest.
- Smarten up. Familiarize yourself with how the bidding process works. Watch “Introduction to the Google Ad Auction”
- Get negative. Including negatives (exclusions) where appropriate. Use negative keywords to reduce unwanted impressions.
- Think smaller. Organize your keywords into smaller, specific keyword groupings. Once you’ve selected your keyword niches, compose your ad text and design your landing pages specifically around those keyword groupings.
- Educate yourself. To learn more about optimizing your keyword’s Quality Score, visit Google AdWords Help for Optimizing your PPC Campaigns or Maximize your account’s potential with free tutorials from the AdWords Online Classroom.
