AdWords Initiation - Jumping through Google’s hoops

Discussion in 'Google AdWords' started by ProAux, Dec 4, 2007.

  1. #1
    Have you gone through Hell yet? I think I have. I am totally frustrated with AdWords because I cannot seem to find what is causing such a poor Quality Score. (I know what you must be thinking, that I am just another noob who could not be bothered with reading the directions.) But let me tell you where I have been.

    Week 1 – The Rude Awakening:
    I started up a new campaign for ProAux.com. (This is a niche auction site for audio gear only.) I used keywords regarding online auctions, audio equipment, buying and selling used gear, and some common industry shop talk. (No prob, right?) My 60 or 80 keywords ran fine for the first hour or two, but then suddenly stopped with all words demanding $10. (Sound familiar?) I cannot afford anywhere near $10 per click so, I simply had to find the problem.

    I spent the whole first week making minor tweaks to the ad, keywords, and content on my landing page. I could not get any keyword to become active short of buying my way there so I had to dig deeper.

    Since I enjoy reading, I spent much time reading Google’s instructions and their help section, reading offsite guides, articles, and blogs, writing emails to support staff, and even complaining in a forum or two. Everyone kept telling me to optimize, optimize, optimize. I ran the “Optimize Campaign” tool and it reported that it has no suggestions to make for my campaign.

    Week 2 – Analyzing Keywords:
    I decided there must be some keyword that Google doesn’t like. I started deleting keywords until I saw something change. Over the course of several days I got all the way down to one single keyword and it still showed poor QS and inactive for search. Nothing changed.

    Finally I deleted the entire campaign and created a new one with a single keyword. It still gave me the same inactive results. I started creating new (and unique) keywords again to see what would happen. I went through close to 100 new relevant words and phrases. It seems that no matter what keywords I choose, they all instantly jumped to inactive for search status with a required minimum bid of $10. Even when I typed an entire sentence as a long-tail keyword, it wouldn’t budge.

    Eureka! This would indicate that the Keywords are not directly the problem. Ok, moving on...


    Week 2 ½ - Relevance:
    According to the docs, low QS can be from poor CTR performance, poor landing site quality, or ad text and landing site relevance. So I took a closer look at these topics one at a time.

    1. The CTR column shows zero or “no data” which means this keyword has not been active, at least for this day. Actually, it’s never been active in this new campaign. I am not sure but I am thinking that it is impossible to raise my CTR if all keywords are inactive for search. It just may well sit at zero forever.

    2. My ad text has the entire first keyword phrase in it exactly verbatim. I'm thinking that means that they are closely related.

    3. To prove that my keywords are relevant to my site, I used the “Site Related” keyword tool. I believe this tool goes to my landing page and scans for relevant content and then suggests keywords based on its findings. I had chosen all the most relevant keywords and phrases from that list. I am satisfied that I now have several good long-tail key phrases, in quotations.

    4. The last problem I am left facing would be the general quality of my landing page. I am not sure, but I think it is a good user experience. It does have a busy homepage but then that is the nature of online auctions sites. Auction shoppers want choices and variety.

    I don’t want my ad clicks to land on any inside auction pages because I am not selling the auction merchandise, I am only selling auctions. Registering and creating auctions is the desired action and that starts from the home page. So, that must stay the same.

    Again this week, I ran the “Optimize Campaign” tool and it reported that it has no suggestions to make for my campaign.


    Week 3 – Organize AdGroups :
    I spent some time expanding my campaign into several organized adgroups. Since my site does have different categories, I focused my groups on those topics. I put together 7 or 8 different groups and split up and allocated my keywords to respective groups. Using the keyword tool, I refined and expanded each list even further.

    All these adgroups together now make up a large drag net of sorts that I can easily analyze in the future. I kind of like it better this way but alas, they are all set to inactive for search. Someone told me to give it time. Wait several days after making changes to see results. I did just that.

    I have also been exploring the campaign options settings all along. I had been trying different combinations of Search Network, Content Network, Unique content bids, Aggressive ad rotation, Daily budget and whatever. I even tried that damn “Optimize Campaign” tool and it keeps reporting that it has no suggestions to make for my campaign. Humph!


    Week 4 – The Landing Page:
    I can’t help thinking that my landing page must be the problem. This week, as an experiment, I built a completely new campaign along with its own custom landing page. The page is simple and to the point. The content is spot-on discussing only the subject matter in the new campaign and visa-versa. There are no affiliate links, unconnected content, or anything that would get me spanked. I also cleverly added all my best keywords throughout the code tags. Between my META tags, ALT tags, HREF-TITLE tags, and anchor text, I must have 300 or more keywords blended in and many of them repeated two or three times. All keywords are very closely related to my subject matter. (I hope the bots see that as content. I asked that in a few forums but no one could tell me.)

    Next I used the keyword tool which scans your landing page. As expected it picked out all of my keywords and even threw in a few new ones for good luck. I picked them all up as exact match type and added them to the campaign. Many are phrases.

    I created my ad text using some of the most relevant keywords topping the list. Now the landing page, ad text, and keywords all seem to be aligned perfectly with one another. I can’t see any reason why this would get slapped. Need I tell you what happened?

    I have been slowly bumping the bids higher in an attempt to jar something loose. Some of them are around $6. I can’t afford to leave them there long though. These campaigns are coming out of my paycheck from my day job. (And it ain’t very big.)


    Week 5 – Strength in Numbers:
    It’s been over a month now and nothing has changed since day one. I am up to 4 campaigns, 11 adgroups, and maybe 400-500 keywords total, all still demanding $10. Nothing seems to be working.

    I have noticed however, that a handful of impressions and clicks tend to slip through the cracks once in a while. Even though all keywords remain inactive, some of them even get as high as 50% CTR. Between those 4 campaigns I usually get about 20 to 30 clicks a day.

    The way I figure it, all I need is about 120 more adgroups and I might just have a healthy click count. Who needs the Search Network anyway? I can just let the Content Network straggle them in at 35 cents a click. Clicks is clicks, right?

    Can they make this anymore frustrating? I’ve gone over my site and my campaign dozens of times. I feel like I am stuck in an endless loop analyzing the same problems and not seeing the forest for the trees. I have repeatedly complained to customer support that something in my campaign must be malfunctioning but I get nothing but form-letter replies.

    Question: Do you think the bidding and competition in this industry is just that expensive that I can’t afford to compete? I mean, am I out of my league here?

    Thanks for listening anyway, I feel a little better.
    ProAux
     
    ProAux, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  2. thenetninja

    thenetninja Peon

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    #2
    hmmm, i've been noticing this as well.... but it has been happening for some 8-9 websites I am promoting at the moment. =S
     
    thenetninja, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  3. GuyFromChicago

    GuyFromChicago Permanent Peon

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    #3
    GuyFromChicago, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  4. Masterful

    Masterful Well-Known Member

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    #4
    ProAux, I've heard many times that once a domain is slapped, it's very difficult to be fixed. Some say it's impossible to be fixed, but that's not true. It seems that there's a fundamental problem with your site, and the best thing to do is contact Adwords and request a quality score specialist take a look. Be specific with your request; ask to be told exactly what the problem is, and you should receive some helpful feedback.
     
    Masterful, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  5. ProAux

    ProAux Peon

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    #5
    It tells me to delete the keyword because it has no relevance. It says that for all of them.

    Well, I sort of did that in one of my emails. I told them I totally and flat out disagree with their QS. I asked them to look at my keywords and look at my site and explain to me how they have no relevance. Of course, they just sent me another form letter telling me to consult the help files or optimize or something like that. Oh yeah, and to have a nice day.

    I have not talked to them by phone though. I'll have to look for a number.
     
    ProAux, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  6. GuyFromChicago

    GuyFromChicago Permanent Peon

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    #6
    1.866.246.6453
     
    GuyFromChicago, Dec 4, 2007 IP
  7. CustardMite

    CustardMite Peon

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    #7
    If your minimum jumps to $10 in the blink of an eye, it's almost certainly a problem with your landing page. If your clickthrough rate were the problem, your minimum bids would increase gradually over time. If you had a few irrelevant keywords, these may have a high minimum bid, but they wouldn't have a huge impact on the others.

    Google has looked at your page, and found something they didn't like, in all probability. Changing your landing page won't necessarily give immediate results, it can take a while for Google to look at the new landing page.

    Do you have contact details and a privacy policy? Missing either of those can cause problems...

    What I can tell you is that it's nothing to do with your competitors - this may affect the amount you have to bid to appear on page one, but not your minimum bid.
     
    CustardMite, Dec 5, 2007 IP
  8. joebloggs

    joebloggs Peon

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    #8
    Custard Mite is right, it's a landing page quality issue. Nothing else makes sense.
     
    joebloggs, Dec 5, 2007 IP
  9. ProAux

    ProAux Peon

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    #9
    I called and talked to an AdWords agent just a bit ago. She took a look at both my campaign and my landing page and we talked about them for a while. She agreed that my keywords appeared to be relevant and that the landing page appeared to be offering what I was advertising. She stopped short of giving me any specific advice about the page quality itself. Instead she read a list of general guidelines about what makes a page more “user friendly.” I kept asking her if she felt that my page met those guidelines but she was reluctant to answer that. Instead she offered to have a specialist look over the campaign and landing page and try to determine more accurately “where” the problem lies. I am waiting to hear back from them by email.

    Of course, I have been thinking all along that it is likely the landing page. But the problem is this...

    That site is so massive and complex that I don’t want to start arbitrarily making changes just to see what happens next. Since the site is dynamic, (and live with auctions,) that may prove to be a lot of work for unknown results.

    I put a lot of thought into that site and I don’t think it is “all that bad” of a user experience the way it is now. But, on the other hand, No one has ever given me an honest review of the site so, if it needs an overhaul then, that’s what it needs. I guess I will just have to face the ugly facts and learn from my mistakes.

    (Waiting with fingers crossed.)
     
    ProAux, Dec 5, 2007 IP
  10. ProAux

    ProAux Peon

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    #10
    Although I have not hear back from the AdWords people yet, in the mean time I was digging though more guidelines for website quality. I had hidden text in my code and I never knew it was a no no. I always thought it was ok to use TITLE and ALT tags anyway you see fit. Apparently the bots see that as keyword stuffing.

    Yikes! Guilty as charged. I never knew that. I removed mine immediately. I had TITLE tags on almost all of my Tables and Images. I reduced the Alt tags down to one or two descriptive words for each link. (Hell's Bells, I should have learned that back in elementary school.)
     
    ProAux, Dec 5, 2007 IP
  11. ProAux

    ProAux Peon

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    #11
    Hey, I got a reply. It wasn't what I expected. Here is the email unedited...

    __________________________________
    Hello Gordon,

    It was a pleasure speaking with you today. I consulted our technical
    specialists on your behalf to see if your minimum cost-per-click (CPC)
    bids were raised to $10 because of a poor landing page quality. They said
    this actually wasn't the issue. Instead, they said your bids are set at
    that amount because your keywords have a low Quality Score. You can learn
    more about Quality Score at
    https://adwords.google.com/support/...15&query=quality+score&topic=&type=f&onClick=

    Thus, what I suggest is trying to improve the quality of your ads. Two
    main recommendations I have are to refine your keyword list within each ad
    group and come up with more compelling ad text (also, consider including
    ad variations within each ad group). To refine your keyword list, make
    sure that keywords within an ad group are very closely related to each
    other, and break out your keywords into additional ad groups as necessary.
    To create more compelling ad text, highlight call-to-action phrases,
    unique features of your business, and any promotional offers.

    The following 'Tips for Success' link should be very helpful
    https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=tips.html

    Gordon, if you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
    https://adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently
    asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at
    http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that
    cover the scope of AdWords.

    We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
    available.



    Sincerely,

    Kirsten Y.
    The Google AdWords Team
     
    ProAux, Dec 6, 2007 IP
  12. ProAux

    ProAux Peon

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    #12
    Week 6 - Keyword Reality:
    Several weeks ago, after I had read some of Google’s suggestions on how to create better keywords, there was one sentence that kept ringing in my head, “Think like your customers would think.” Of course I agreed with that advice, but I wasn’t really sure of quite how to do that. So, I regarded the idea as unpromising or something I might explore later simply because I didn’t know where to begin.

    Early this morning I was browsing through the traffic statistic logs from my site server when suddenly it hit me. Holly Cow! There is the answer staring me right in the face. I already had month’s worth of search words and phrases that people had actually used to arrive at my site. All I had to do was pick out the most common sense phrases and expand on them.

    I spent some time digging through all those odd ball phrases, misspellings, and broken English. I had to chuckle at some of them, but hey, they were way different than my keywords. They did indeed give me some great ideas that I had not been using before. (Maybe some of you already do this, but it was a fabulous new discovery to me.)

    I compiled a long list and inserted them into one of my campaigns. Most of them are at $10, some are at $5, and 8 or 10 of them are actually active at under $1. Hurray! I am finally on to something here. These keywords are still along the same lines as before (same topic) but they are more unique and more long-tail.

    I was intently focused on audio gear up till now but the key phrases that are active include more words like "trade", "post", and "classified." Now at least I have hope.
     
    ProAux, Dec 7, 2007 IP