By Monica Wright
Practice Director of Search Marketing
I recently downloaded an eBook called 21 Secret Truths of High Resolution PPC by ClickEquations. And there was one component that really resonated with me as an Internet marketer: quality scores.
While digging deep into PPC campaigns, search marketing professionals understand that it’s imperative to look at quality scores. A quality score is how Google rewards relevant and well-performing keywords in an ad group, specifically using factors such as click-through rate, landing page relevancy and other criteria. Keywords that have a quality score above 7 receive more impressions, higher positions and CPC discounts. Yes, discounts! Up to 30%!
But what about those keywords that score 6 or lower? Because they are not as relevant, these keywords are penalized with fewer impressions and lower positions. But the harsh and eye-opening news is about the CPC penalties: you could be paying up to 600% more for each click.
There is even more bad news. Low quality scores do not stop at the keyword level. These low quality scores bleed into the campaign, affecting the entire account.
PPC is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing effort. It involves serious management. Without it, you will lose money – resources that could be used to make your Internet marketing work harder for you. Even if a keyword has a passable quality score of 7, why settle for a 12.5% discount? Use those savings to test more options, which could lead to doubling or even close to tripling your discounts. Given that approach, the long-term impact of optimizing one single keyword across a campaign can be quite worthwhile.
Not bad for one little word.
4 Comments
Thanks for sharing this insight, Monica.
Quality Scores of 1 could result in paying up to 600% more for each click. Glad you shared the chart, an eye-opener for those of us who don't spend as much time on the PPC side of the house.
This shows the importance of focused efforts.
QS=the fuzzy black box in the corner where Google manufactures all or most of it's profit. The operative word being manufactures.
Nice post Monica.
I like how Webmaster T called the QS the "fuzzy black box". It's true. No one really knows how Google calculates QS. And how they calculate it makes no sense.
I've had campaigns where the campaign is optimized to the hilt according to Google's standards and still some keywords would average at 4/10 or 5/10 QS. While other campaigns where it wasn't possible to fully optimize the campaign (ie. client couldn't host custom landing page), and those keywords averaged at 7/10 or 8/10 QS.
I miss the good old days where PPC campaigns were actually profitable.
Hey Dana, Webamster T and Patti. Thanks for yor responses.
Dana, these advanced PPC "truths" are quite revealing to me as well. Like you, I come from the organic side of search. But PPC is truly fascinating, and need to find time to really dig deep into some internal testing.
Yes QS is that fuzzy undefined black box. I could not have said it better. In fact I read in this same report that although the relevancy of the landing page is a factor for quality score, it is NOT a factor for the QS determining Ad Rank. How's that for fuzzy?