Good Adwords Quality Score Doesn’t Equal High Traffic

4 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on April 17, 2007 in Google Adwords, PPC  

I received a question concerning Google Adwords Quality Score and that they have good QS but don’t get any impressions. I am going to address this issue in todays post but first here is the email i received:

When running campaigns on adwords I sometimes notice that I have a quality score
of ok or better for all my keywords however only 1 or 2 of them get any real
amount of impressions. I know these keywords have a good search volume as they
are either quality keywords or I can verify it through google/wordtracker/yahoo.
Is their a way to tell adwords to give all my keywords equal impressions?

Right now I have a campaign with about 200 keywords for the finance market. Out of
all of them only one is showing any real amount of impressions and its probably the
most obscure one out of my list. I’d love to get more impressions out of the others
to see which ones can convert.

First off congrats on getting Good or Great Quality score many people have trouble even accomlishing that. I noticed you said you have a campaign that is in the finance market. Well the finance market can be pricey which is why even though you have Good Quality Score you are not getting any impressions especially if you are bidding the bear minimum to keep the keyword active. This would make perfect sense as to why your obscure phrase is getting impressions as many people are probably not bidding on that single phrase. The solution to get more impressions is bid more, just because google gives you a good quality score and says your minimum bid can be .05 that doesnt mean that bid you will get impressions. OR try to gather up more obscure keywords and bid directly on them for cheaper. This all depends on how much your spend VS return formula comes out as you don’t want to bid so much that you are not making a profit. I will say this though, many times i have had to bid a little more knowing that over time (not always but usually if your CTR is good and QS is good)  you payout per click will decrease even though your bid is higher as Googles system starts recognizing your site for those searches as a better match than other bidders.

Lastly, don’t limit yourself to just Google Adwords look to other sources of Search Engine Traffic. Even though most people stick with the top 3; MSN, Yahoo, and Google, you can get return from other search engines out there.

What NOT to do with a New PPC Campaign

13 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on March 1, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Google Adwords, PPC  

Over the years of me doing business online I have made my share of mistakes and hear from others about their mistakes.The key is learning from your mistakes or better yet learning from OTHERS mistakes. This mistake is one that occurs usually with a new person just getting into utilizing PPC advertising via adwords, Yahoo search marketing or MSN Adcenter. What you don’t want to do is setup a campaign an leave for hours without checking things out, as you would be surprised how fast your money can be spent. Especially if you are utilizing content or targeting high traffic terms like myspace, ebay etc… So on a new campaign check every few minutes to make sure everything is going right and you are turning a profit, or set your Adwords spend for the day of what you can afford to really spend.

This is VERY simple thing to do but you would be surprised how many new people contact me saying they burnt their budget in an hour. I know, I know where is the rocket science post that tells you how to make millions… well this isn’t it but if this post helps one newb not to blow their budget within hours on a new campaign and lose money this post is worth it.

Here is a second tip free of charge. Double Check your URLS!!!! About a year ago i was helping a friend over aim getting a campaign going in a high volume market and he had accidentally made a typo in his urls and was sending traffic to someone elses site the good news is he had only wasted 50 bucks before he noticed it.

Tell us about a mistake you made in PPC or CPA promotions by leaving a comment.

High Pay-Per-Click Bids does always not mean High profits

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 26, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Google Adwords, Ringtones  

I was asked recently what my high bid was for Ringtones PPC campaigns and I gave an honest answer of .75 per click is my highest bid. The guy was like great ran off and started a PPC campaign on Google Adwords before I could say anything else he was logged off of aim. Well for him I hope he is reading this post, as I stated my highest bid for PPC in ringtones is .75 BUT majority of my bids are less than .20.

Remember my PPC bids are from information and ROI statistics from this past year of promoting ringtones. So I know for each target audience I got after what my return is and what I should bid. People should not be asking what is your highest or even lowest bid is they should look at their own campaigns and their ad placement.

I have found the sweet spots to be in top 3 or bottom 3 with the middle spots giving the lowest return. It is as if they do not even see them or the people that do are just clickers and not a buyer. Note this may not be true for ALL campaigns but I have found this to be true on 97% of my campaigns.

So take the time and look at your placements as I have had some campaigns I was sitting in position 6 and was getting poor returns but did not want to up my bid, as the jump was drastic so I lowered my bid. The results were great, I was showing at position 10 and the ROI was way up. The great thing is I was getting the same amount of clicks as when I was in 6 position but paying less and getting an increased return.

So next time you go to cancel your PPC campaign try lowering your bids and see what the results will bring. They may just surprise you!

Adwords and Landing Page Only Sites

1 Person Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 16, 2007 in Google Adwords  

Since several months ago Google Adwords started updating the Quality Score system and sites / landing ages seem to get hit with the $5.00 and $10.00 bids. From emails and comments I am getting it appears Adwords made another round. Surprisingly I wasn’t really affected. Here are a few reasons why I am glad for the update and why I am frustrated by it.

I am glad for the update mainly because it knocked out some of my competition. This change has been coming and those just standing by and praying they don’t get hit by the QS system have noticed the system isn’t swayed by prayer. So in turn it has knocked out some of my competition, but I am sure some will be back with keyword stuffing, redirects and probably even some black hat methods to get back up in PPC.

I am frustrated by the update because in the past I have had target sites or landing pages providing people with what they were searching for and it got hit by the QS system. I mean if someone wants to buy a blue widget and I send them to a page for them to buy a blue widget and it converts well, why should I get hit with 5.00 bids. My CTR is great 10% or better, and I provide what the user wants. I think this is where Google is messing up. They are applying more blanket rules across the board when sometimes those blanket rules don’t need to be applied. 

So looking forward as a person promoting CPA offers you have to look into building more of a mini site or other techniques to trick the QS system. What are your thoughts on Adwords Quality Score System?

« Go Back