Introducing Keyword Adequacy Quotient

Adwords’ Search Query Performance Report could be significantly improved. However, if you’re using Broad or Phrase Match Keywords, run the report in order to identify ways to improve performance, and calculate your Keyword Adequacy Quotient. Track your Keyword Adequacy Quotient over time, and you’ll find that your account performance will improve as your Score improves.

Hats Off to Adwords Developers

We’ve made several suggestions in the past for improving Adwords’ online interface and desktop editor, and Google has actually made several of the revisions. The most recent one was adding “dismiss” to alerts. I imagine that once a dozen or so similar suggestions pile up, a manager in Adwords’ development department schedules the revision for programming.  So I’m adding this post as a sort of Adwords wish list, and beginning it with two suggestions I made yesterday via an online chat with a Google chat representative.  Please feel free to add to the list whenever you have ideas for improving either the online Adwords interface or the Adwords desktop editor.

Building a Scalable SEM Organization

We find the business of Search Engine Marketing interesting from an economic standpoint, only to the extent it can be scaled. The demand for our services is strong, but doing a proper job of managing Adwords (and particularly Yahoo and MSN) accounts is incredibly labor intensive.

Return on our clients’ Ad Spending depends on a lot of technical, detailed, day to day decisions made within a framework for monitoring and continuously improving the performance of ad accounts. So the key to building a successful Search Engine Marketing (SEM) mammoth is to design the organization, at all levels, to provide exceptional client service.

Comparison Shoppers got you by the tail?

For hyper-competitive ad spaces, content network advertising can sometimes convert more efficiently than search advertising.  One reason for this is that when a qualified prospect lands on an Advertiser’s landing page, the browser back button offers more alternatives for search sourced ads than it offers for content network ads.

Keyword Quality Scores

Quality Scores should be monitored weekly at the keyword level.  Include a list of poor quality scores in each report and describe what you will do to remedy the scores (if anything).  Sometimes PPC Analysts struggle with finding recommendations for monthly reports.  However if you are performing your daily maintenance in a thorough manner, you’ll almost always find ways of improving the account by focusing on keyword quality scores.

Framework for PPC Management

We’ve just published our framework for managing Pay Per Click Advertising. We’ve used this framework for the past year to manage Client’s Adwords and Yahoo pay per click accounts and find that it is particularly helpful for our PPC Analysts.

Setup Impacts Quality Score

To set up a new Adwords account you have to understand how Google calculates Quality Score. The decisions you make during setup will ultimately determine what kind of Quality Scores your account earns. Be conservative initially to ensure the account gets off on the right start. Here is how we do it.

No Accidental Positioning, Please!

Denver PPC Management likes to classify position targets (whether they are used as guidelines or in connection with Adwords’ Position Targeting feature) as follows:

• Ad Position One Point Oh! (loosely = ad position 1 or 2)
• Above the Fold (ad position 3 to 5)
• At the fold (ad position 4 to 7)
• Below the fold (ad position 5 to 9)
• Lost in space (ad position 10+)

Deleting Keywords Destroys Value

If you delete keywords and add them back, you may be destroying value. Aside from this, you’re most certainly destroying history. It’s not that you should never delete keywords, but if you’re going to delete them, make sure you have a valid reason for doing so.

Deleting Ads Can be Costly

If you understand how Google calculates Quality Score, then you may know that an account can build Quality Score Equity over time. Much of this Quality Score Equity is stored in your ads. If you delete your ads, then you will destroy some of your Quality Score Equity. Not sure what that means? Just walk over to the toilet, drop in a couple of bucks, and flush. That’s what destroying Quality Score Equity means for an advertiser.