Today I was studying one of my Google Adwords accounts and was somewhat surprised to discover I have several 10 Quality Scores.
Google Adwords Quality Score 10
Now if I could only increase the search volume to this particular keyword while lowering its average cost per click, I might be satisfied.
Google Adwords Editor update 7.0.0 is available for download now.
Google Adwords Editor 7.0.0
I don’t know what improvements have been added yet, but will report those I discover.
Update 12-17-08: For more information about specific improvements found in Adwords Editor 7.0 including keyword Quality Scores and First Page Bid estimates visit the Adwords Editor Forum.
My first YouTube Sponsored Video advertising campaign is up and running.
YouTube Sponsored Videos
YouTube sponsored video ads work similar to Google Adwords campaigns.
Conversion tracking isn’t available and most likely won’t be for some time.
The highest bids appear to get the sponsored video ads position in yellow atop the search results much like they do in Adwords although I don’t believe relevance or Quality Score are factors used to rank ad placements within YouTube at this time.
As YouTube gains more advertisers, I would imagine ad quality and keyword relevance will be taken into consideration when calculating a sponsored video’s position within YouTube video search results.
I will continue testing this new form of video advertising – YouTube.com Sponsored Videos.
The following are promotion statistics from my video advertising campaign’s first day of activity:
I was surprised to learn today searches for googletestad continue to rank high in Wordtracker’s top 200 long-term keyword report.
GoogleTestAd ranks #119 in Wordtracker’s long-term keyword list.
About Wordtracker’s top 200 long-term keyword report:
“Our current database contains 290,313,559 search terms and represents the complete queries from the largest metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc.) for the last 150 days.”
What is the “GoogleTestTad”?
A search in Google for “googletestad” doesn’t produce a Google.com explanation page but does produce the following Google Adwords sponsored links result :
GoogleTest Ad
However, a search for “Google Test Ad” in Google produces a suggested spelling correction from Google – “Did you mean: google text ad.”
Google Test Ad
Not to digress – but I wonder why Google asks the question – “Did you mean:” but doesn’t punctuate their question with a question mark?
Anyway and as far as I can tell – the GoogleTestAd has always had the same ad text:
Headline = Congratulations
Description 1 = This is a family safe ad
Description 2 = All systems are go!
Display URL = http://www.google.com.
Interestingly, clicking on the ad for googletestad takes me back to Google’s home page.
Google Home Page
Although Google continues testing and bidding on searches for googletestad, I am not sure whether its score is being kept or who is keeping it.
If the Google Ad for googletestad were like all others wouldn’t it too have a Quality Score?
To place ads in its behalf wouldn’t Google have to have an in-house Adwords team marketing Google’s products?
Otherwise, who is managing and bidding on keywords in their behalf?
If there is an in house advertising team – How many people are in Google’s advertising group?
How many products do they market, how many keywords do they manage and how much do they spend annually promoting Google products?
Wouldn’t Google’s buying their own ads also constitute brand management?
Does Google have a “brand manager”?
If so, who is Google’s brand manager?
In a previous post, I requested Adwords provide Quality Score reporting options from within Adword reports.
Quality Score data are now available from Google Adwords reports.
Google Adwords Quality Score Reporting
By providing Quality Score report data to their advertisers, Google Adwords has taken the first step toward making Adwords Quality Score Management a reality.
Thanks Google Adwords!
There are many tactics search engine advertisers can use by design to either induce searchers to click or not click on their ads until after the ad viewer has self qualified their interest in the advertisers’ message.
Placing an offer’s price in the ad is one tactic often discussed.
Placing a lower price than other visible or known offers can reduce pay per click ad friction with its audience and tends to increase an ads click through rate. However, placing low prices in a pay per click ad doesn’t necessarily translate into more qualified searchers or buyers nor will it translate into high transaction volume.
Another tactic not mentioned as often is placing high price points in the pay per click ad which increases click friction. High price points within pay per click ads purportedly dissuades dis-interested and the budget conscious from clicking through to view the advertiser’s offer.
Today, I came across the most extraordinary example of an advertiser’s use of premium pricing to qualify search traffic I ever recall ever seeing.
Pay Per Click Friction
Theoretically, in this example placing their minimum annual fee requirements of $150,000 in the ad would create click friction and cause searchers unwilling to spend $150,000 a year to pass the ad over – thus sparing the advertiser unwanted clicks and costs from disinterested searchers.
However, by placing such a high barrier into their ad this particular advertiser will more than likely experience extremely low click through rates which in turn will create the ultimate form of pay per click advertising friction for instead – the advertiser… lower click through rates, lower ad quality score and ultimately an ad that requires higher bids just to be shown at all.
Will the above example prove to be a successful marketing strategy for the advertiser or will their ad’s premium pricing cause fewer clicks and lower click through rates – ultimately bringing their pay per click advertising campaign to a screeching halt?
Adwords new Quality Scores have been live since September 17 according to Ophir Cohen.
Nuno Macedo of Páginas Amarelas Portugal has provided me with a screen shot of his Adwords Quality Score of 10 in Portuguese no less.
Quality Score 10
After digging further into my accounts, it appears Google Adwords will continue assigning Quality Scores to just Search Network only distibuted ads – not Content network ads – per this message:
Quality Score Content Network
Also appearing in my Adwords account for the first time are “Bid Below First Page” notifications:
Bid Below First Page
Each “Bid Below First Page” notice is accompanied by Google’s recommended bid for achieving first page placement.
Now if only Adwords would provide Quality Score reporting options from their Report Center, large and small advertisers alike could begin to manage their Adwords account’s performance by its most important metric – the Quality Score.
As promised on the Inside Adwords blog, Adwords accounts are now showing Quality Score data for each ad and its keyword.
I first noticed the Quality Score data across all of my active accounts yesterday.
Each ad and keyword’s Quality Score shows its status – whether the ads are showing or not as well as its numeric Quality Score.
I have found Adwords Quality scores ranging from 9 down through 2.
I am not sure whether Adwords assigns a Quality Score of 10 to any ads and keywords performance. Nor am I sure whether they score any ad and keyword below 2.
If Adwords does, I haven’t yet found any examples to share.
Within the new Adwords Quality scoring system, ads and keywords which score 9 and 8 are considered “Great”.
Adwords Quality Score 9
Adwords Quality Score 8
Ads and keywords showing 7, 6 and 5 are “OK”.
Quality Score 7
Quality Score 6
Quality Score 5
Ads and their keywords with Quality scores of 4, 3 and 2 are considered “Poor”.
Quality Score 4+No
Quality Score 3 No+Poor
Quality Score 2 No+Poor
I have found examples of OK Quality Scores where the ad and its keywords weren’t being shown for numerous reasons.
Additionally, I have found examples of ads and their keywords being shown while still having a Poor Quality Score.
Having numeric Adwords Quality Scores for each ad and keyword will surely help Google Adwords deliver more relevant and targeted advertising while also helping their advertisers score more targeted search traffic.
Search Marketing Communications 
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