I was taking a whirl through Google Groups today to see if I could drop any pearls of humble wisdom on the perplexed and pondering over in the AdWords Help Groups. Immediately I came across a couple of posts concerning increased minimum bids. That certainly isn’t surprising. Increased minimum bids/costs is a bugaboo for a lot of folks.
If you are new to AdWords, I highly encourage you to read this section of the Help documentation.
Quality and Performance Factors
It may not mean anything to you the first couple of times through but you might as well start letting it soak in.
Here is what I see so often.
1-AdWords Account Opened.
2-Obvious Keywords Entered
3-Initial Bids are Low, out of caution, uncertainty, and just plain not knowing.
4-Low Position, Broad Targeting, and Competition, result in low Clickthrough Rates which kills Quality Score.
5-Minimum Bid/Cost per click goes through the roof.
6-New AdWordian is upset and confused – Thinks Google is a Rip Off (which is unfortunate, I certainly do not think that is true.)
Am I right you AdWords Pros? Don’t you see this over and over?
Be bold Neophytes!
As you are starting out,
control your spending via your budget controls, not your bids.
It is better to get fewer clicks per $ spent to begin with and establish Quality Score than it is to get more clicks per $ for a few days and then get blown out of the water.
-T
11 responses so far ↓
1 Dave // Jan 25, 2007 at 4:08 pm
So, are you saying that it’s important to put high bid amounts for your keywords early on just so their click thru rates go up? What constitues a high bid amount? Say my daily budget is $5, should I spend $1/click in the beginning?
2 tchale // Jan 25, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Hi Dave,
Not as a blanket statement, but generally yes; I think it is better to bid strong and then back off rather than start off weak and have to crawl your way up. Understand there are exceptions, and some other experts would argue all day long with me on this, but when it comes to the Quality Score twist in AdWords strategy it makes all the sense in the world. As far as how much you bid, I would again say a good rule of thumb, but not absolute rule, is to bid to get a position of about 2.0 to 2.9. But Dave there is an absolute rule, get your metrics in place. AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics. Because the right strategy for you, your website, and your target market is unique. You need your metrics to light the way.
-T
3 Dave Davis // Mar 9, 2007 at 7:56 am
Yup. See it all to many times. We get many clients asking us what’s wrong and hiring us to resolve the issue, so I guess it’s not all bad.
Unfortunately though, with the new quality score algo, it seems Google is promoting a “Rich get richer” mentality. Those entering a particular market for the first time are at a disadvantage because of the history difference between advertisers. Obviously the older advertiser will have a better QS.
4 tchale // Mar 9, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Hey Dave,
Thanks for stopping by.
And your reminder of how hard it is to get a handle on this when you are first starting out is well taken. I guess being a progressive plebeian type I should not forget that.
Still I get a little weary of those that want to label Google as crooks because they do not get the results they want after putting in just a few hours and spending a few dollars.
I bet you paid your dues, as have I.
I’ve added you to the roll Dave, good stuff.
-T
5 Dave Davis // Apr 25, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Thomas, only getting to this now.
Thanks very much. It is really appreciated.
I’ve subscribed to your blog too
6 tchale // May 1, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I know how the “getting to” goes Dave. I have been going to “get to” my blogging for shamefully long now. But clients first, and I was blessed with a flood awhile back. But the flood is about tamed and I will be back to blogging soon I hope.
7 Jens Christensen // Jul 21, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I know for a fact that Google makes mistakes reg. quality score very often.
I am with a company that spends app 80,000 US dollars pr month, and often Google has suddenly made our ads/terms inactive due to low quality score eventhough most of the CTRs were btw 2,2%-11%
We were asked to increase click price with app 300% to get the ads/terms live again.
Everytime I have written to them complaining about the sudden “strange” request to increase quality or clickprice, and every single time they have written back that there has been a mistake, and they activate the terms without having to increase one single cent.
That should give you food for thought.
Best
Jens
8 tchale // Jul 21, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Thanks for the thoughtful tidbit Jens. I’d like to hear more. It would be especially nice to hear Google’s side of the -every time a mistake/always reactivate- anecdote.
I’ll take your word for it, and agree Quality Score is not perfect. But I still respect the need to bring some kind of order to the chaos.
At 80k a month, I bet you do too.
And I also assume Google and AdWords are making you a bunch of dough, or you wouldn’t keep shelling out that kind of money.
-T
Tom Hale
Internet Strategist - AdWords Specialist
http://ThomasCreekConcepts.com/
http://forum.sempdx.org/
9 Darren // Mar 28, 2008 at 7:16 am
tchale
You talk as if its a honour to be able to use googles services.
What you need to remember is google provides advertisers with a service, and we expect it to be 100% accurate for the money we spend.
10 tchale // Mar 28, 2008 at 10:57 am
Thanks for stopping by Darren.
Compared to some of my past professions, what I do now does feel more honorable
Google is far from perfect, Google is a for profit company, but compared to most my life experience both Google and the Search Professionals I associate with are Grade A.
Not sure what you mean by 100% accurate. Can you give me an example of an advertising service that is 100% accurate. Or for that matter any marketing service that is a 100% accurate?
-T
Tom Hale
AdWords Specialist - Internet Strategist
http://www.ThomasCreekConcepts.com/
http://forum.sempdx.org/
11 Josh Orum » Blog Archive » How to maintain a high Adwords Quality Score // Jul 2, 2008 at 11:38 pm
[...] want to spend their budget all at once). This results in a low click-through rate, however, lowering your Quality Score). The key here is that if you’re going to have broad, crappy keywords, pay a lot to at least [...]
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