I picked up a campaign 6 months ago that had been running somewhat on autopilot for about a year. After increasing CTR, getting rid of the content network, re-structuring the campaign (recently) to be geo-targeted (we're local), and going through a series of A/B ad copyright tests, I have yet to obtain keywords above 7 QS. I have a lot of 4 and a lot of 7. Because it's a geo-targeted campaign, we need to include some modified broad match and 2-word phrase match which results in lower QSs. It is my understanding that QS considers the performance of your competitors before giving you a grade. BTW, How much of an influence on QS is your competition? My question is...Will I ever be able to hit an 8 QS for these keywords that are receiving high CTRs or is there just too much of a poor history attached to the campaign to prevent that?
Quality Score is based on variety of factors and is a measure of the relevance of your keyword to your adgroup and to users search query. since you have already restructured the campaign and conducting A/B testing i do not foresee why you could not have a better QS. You could have descriptive ads that each of the keyword in the ad group closely relating to the ads with strong call to action, evaluate site design and content, have right landing page and optimize for conversions. This will help in improving QS.
Hi Alx-Vallejo, Just a reply to a few of your questions/queries: Your competition doesn't affect QS at all. As things stand, there doesn't seem to be an 8/10 QS and 9/10 is rare (and usually only lasts for a day or 2) - your next step is 10/10 which is attainable certainly, but usually only for your own branded keywords e.g. wwwdot-example-dot-com and keyword "example". 7/10 is a very good QS for most campaigns so don't beat yourself up about that - you must be doing something right! If you assume (correctly) that your competitors will have no higher than 7/10 for the vast majority of keywords, you'll see that you are not actually being punished financially, so no problems. A historically poor account performance can be an issue, but with a lot of remedial work, usually a lot of QS will be re-evaluated within 2 weeks with the new data. Yours does not seem to be a problem in this regard. As for your 4/10 words, you just need to make sure they are relevant to your landing page and your adverts, and as has already been mentioned above, have closely matched keywords in small groups. Hope this helps, good luck! Mike
In my opinion QS has to be affected by competition since it depends on CTR. And how can Google quantify a good/poor CTR if it doesn't look on the competition? Would you consider a 4% CTR for 1st position under the keyword [home insurance quotes] high or poor? Hard to say, unless you have a benchmark. And that benchmark is the competition.
For QS purposes, 2% for 1st position is seen as fine by Google, regardless of industry. I see your point of course, but this benchmark has presumably been set by Google based on years of data in every field. If you have a competitor with an incredibly high CTR, that will naturally leach your potential CTR, but as long as you're getting a decent rate, your QS won't suffer. I think the original question was based on general performance of competitors and their QS rather than just CTR, but you do make a good case for individual benchmarks.
What Natively says a couple of posts up is correct. The benchmark of a CTR is how you compare to competitors. It doesn't matter what your actual CTR is, 1%, 3% or even 10%. It is compared to the CTR others have achieved for that keyword at that position. So to those who keep saying "2% is what you need to achieve" are wrong and should stop looking at absolute CTR. QS is a calculation comparing your rate against that of competitors. Nothing more. Doesn't matter if you think a 2% rate is "decent", it may be in your mind but if the average is 4%, you are below average and your QS will reflect that. High CTR is relative. The OP is implying he's getting a high CTR yet his QS is 7 or lower. Well, his QS is saying that he's doing better than average, that average being a QS of 5. Can he get a higher score? Of course, by increasing his CTR further. Download and read this for details on how QS is calculated.
You've touched the AdWords paradox: On one hand it must be simple in order to attract small business owners etc. On the other hand it evolved into a monster in order to attract more savvy marketers. Compare it to MS AdCenter, which is falling way behind. Google is trying to promote AdWords among small business owners (what do you see on AdWords' homepage?) - this is an important sector where they can still grow. They launched AdWords Express for that purpose. Nevertheless, when a small apparel boutique owner bids against the big fish most chances are he'll make all those horrible mistakes: only Broad match keywords, mixing Search with Display, large ad groups, lack of tracking etc. Often they fail and stay unsatisfied, as expressed in this cool site.
Starting from scratch IS a paradox indeed. You would need a completely fresh account from Google since your historical performance follows you at the account level, not just the profile. Correct?
You don't need a new account. Just use your current one, even if you start over. The historical performance of your account is grossly over estimated.
Interesting, then that means it there is increased value in bidding on top spots during times of the year that are peak seasons for whatever industry you are in. Presumably the CTR will be higher for flowers during the week of mothers day than say Halloween. So your QS will go up. Unless of course they reset this score periodically? anyone know?
No, QS isn't supposed to be affected by seasonality. Google tries to normalize and denormalize according to many factors, such as user's location, time trends, ad's average position, related search terms, competition. Google isn't perfect, so in reality QS may fluctuate, but they try to diminish it as much as they can, so that QS will "really reflect quality".
QS is definitely normalized by position. I don't know about geography, it's possible and makes some sense. Normalizing by season makes a lot of sense and Google likely does normalize by season. By time of day would be taking things to extremes but they could do it if they wanted, it's just an extra calculation. All this means that QS will not fluctuate very much. By this, I mean fluctuate wildly from QS 4 to QS 8, once enough data is accumulated. Even changes of one QS point is not that common unless you are sitting right on the edge. You would not notice it anyway unless you check it like a hawk. Once a QS established, it will most likely remain there no matter your bid, your position, the time of day or time of year. Normalization ensures that.
I'm not sure I like normalization Good luck trying to guess market and social trends. But if there is anyone who can do it, Google is certainly a prime candidate. Can you sell high QS add campaigns?
What do you mean sell high QS campaigns? As a campaign manager, I set up accounts and create ads, hopefully they'll have high QS, that's why people hire me. Most people make QS more complicated than it really is. It simply is a measure of how good people, those who click, think your ad is compared to others. Once you understand that, it doesn't really matter how Google makes the calculation, the nuts and bolts. It's not just Google too, all PPC work in roughly the same way. Normalization is just part of the process to smooth things out and put every one on an equal footing. They are using the same principles mathematicians have been applying in many different fields for decades, more than a century really.
Well to clarify my question, i wonder if theres a market or ability for selling ones adwords account along with landing pages? It may be an absurd proposal, i don't know just looking for someone to tell me I'm either stupid or a genius.
There is definitely a market for those with abilities to optimize an Adwords account. Not just Adwords but any PPC account. It's like much of every thing else in life, you can outsource every part of your business to specialists. I and many others actually do this. It's not selling an account per se, simply setting up and manage on behalf of the account's owner. But I see where you're getting at. One would create a site, set up and optimize an account and then sell it to whoever wants to take over that business. Not different really than selling your online business, you just add the Adwords account into the mix.