Comments on: Getting Quality Score Right From The Start

By: Elias Dabbas

Elias Dabbas — Mon, 30 May 2011 11:32:00 +0000

That’s a typical request from clients. Several options: n- educate them about testing and that it’s an integral part of any campaign, based on results we can expandn- show them that if they want high visibility, then optimizing the campaign will lower their cpc and get them more impressions and clicks (higher visibility) for their campaignsn- remind them that it’s not just about reaching to anyone and everyone, it’s about getting the right people to come to your site, and performing certain tasksn- invite them for an ‘experiment’ to see if their site delivers, and to check if they need to do changes to the siten

By: Jaap

Jaap — Sun, 29 May 2011 09:10:00 +0000

I also fully agree on the approach. Not only from a AdWords perspective but even more from a conversion optimization perspective. If you do not get good conversion rates on very relevant terms, then go change the site instead of expanding the account. What would you say to clients who want to go immediately full throttle and request high visibilty?

By: Elias

Elias — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:54:00 +0000

I fully agree on the approach. Starting very small and with very tight keywords is a great way to kick off your account. A very small number of exact-match keywords, where you are certain they are relevant to your landing pages gives you a good start. Not only does it help your quality score, it also gives you better control when you want to expand, and you kind of ‘grow’ with your account gradually and get to know what works and what doesn’t, with you target audience. nThanks for sharing!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2011 17:41:00 +0000

You break it down very clearly. I’m really looking forward to reading the book in…June.nnIn regards to QSu00a0carryover pointed to the same domain – do you have any insight on affiliate or malicious competitors impacting QS by pointing traffic to your domain? And if you haven’t done this test let me know.

By: Craig Danuloff

Craig Danuloff — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:11:00 +0000

There are lots of people who work at Google, and they’re not all equally well trained or knowledgeable…nnThere MAY be some bleed due to the keyword’s history in the other account (although I don’t believe any more than from its history with other advertisers) and there is some impact of the target URL domain history, but that’s just one small component. So you have 5 or 10 fresh variables (from the new account) and 1 or 2 bleeding over. I’ve personally created new accounts and seen keywords that formerly couldn’t raise above 4 move instantly to 7.

By: Lauryan Feijen

Lauryan Feijen — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:05:00 +0000

I was told several times by Google that starting over wouldn’t make that much of a difference: if the same keywords are used with the same domainname the system should be able to recognizeu00a0that it is the same URL and thus applies the same QS.nnAny experience with that?

By: Craig Danuloff

Craig Danuloff — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:30:00 +0000

We’ll look at this in the next post – stay tuned. It’s also deeply covered in the book, by the way….

By: Themlsmith

Themlsmith — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:26:00 +0000

What if you inherit a big budget acct with QS averages of 5 or below? This suggests starting over, that’s not an option for a high growth company. It seems like an unfair permanent penalty an expert SEM has to expect. Thoughts?

By: Craig Danuloff

Craig Danuloff — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:46:00 +0000

Yes. Addie Conner did some testing and seemed to prove that their normalization is not perfect. Google admitted as much. Hard to say how much, but it could be a good investment.

By: Richard Fergie

Richard Fergie — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:30:00 +0000

u00a0Do you think there is anything in the idea of bidding high initially to get a better CTR? I know Google say they normalise for ad position when deciding if a CTR is good or not but I’m not sure theiru00a0predicationu00a0of what an ads CTR would be if it were is position 1 is any good.