Bad QS within one hour on AdWords?

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Sg4

Digital Media Guru
Nov 18, 2006
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Is it normal for QS to jump 100% within an hour? Thats barely enough time to do ad variations, modify keywords, etc to increase CTR.

How does Google expect a good QS if it raises bid prices before you can optimize your campaign?

Tips would be cool. thanks
 


That initial QS hit is often times a result of the adwords bot hitting your landing pages and judging them to be of poor quality, not due to ad performance/CTR.
 
It can also happen initially, as it just 'glances' the page. Next trip back it may offer a better rate. If not, fix your page so you WILL get a better rate!
 
I've seen it go both ways. I can start out with an OK quality score and it jumps to great within the first few hours. On the flip side, it might start out OK and go south pretty quick as well.
 
The bot hit your LP and said it wasn't relevant enough. Throw some keywords in there that are directly related to your search keywords.
 
To All: When I was at Ad:Tech NYC in November I attended the QS session hosted by Google. They explained quite clearly and openly that a poor QS can have nothing whatsoever to do with your campaign or your landing page (of course it can but thats not necessarily the case). They explained how for keywords that they have extensive history on they might automatically give out a bad QS. The reason for this is that they know campaigns using this keyword or keywords in the past performed poorly as far as CTR so they would actually rather you not run a campaign on these words. HOWEVER (and this is how they explained it) they give you the opportunity to "Prove Them Wrong" by making you pay more per click. If you can hack it at the higher click price and produce a good quality experience and high CTR on the word they will reevaluate the quality score. So basically for certain words you need to start at a poor QS and work your way up.

Don't shoot the messenger here just trying to relay what i heard from Google themselves.
 
narsticle said:
To All: When I was at Ad:Tech NYC in November I attended the QS session hosted by Google. They explained quite clearly and openly that a poor QS can have nothing whatsoever to do with your campaign or your landing page (of course it can but thats not necessarily the case). They explained how for keywords that they have extensive history on they might automatically give out a bad QS. The reason for this is that they know campaigns using this keyword or keywords in the past performed poorly as far as CTR so they would actually rather you not run a campaign on these words. HOWEVER (and this is how they explained it) they give you the opportunity to "Prove Them Wrong" by making you pay more per click. If you can hack it at the higher click price and produce a good quality experience and high CTR on the word they will reevaluate the quality score. So basically for certain words you need to start at a poor QS and work your way up.

Don't shoot the messenger here just trying to relay what i heard from Google themselves.
Click to expand...

Word of warning on this - spending all that money to 'prove them wrong' is shooting yourself in the foot: Wait for someone else to do it - then jump on the lower clicks.
 
Google is strong arming advertisers and I think its BS. I shouldn't need to have to prove them wrong at a higher price. Why shouldn't I be able to prove them wrong at a lower price especially when there is barely any competition?

What CTR is considered to be good? Or, it just depends on the niche and competition? I took and passed both the SEMPO Advanced paid search course and the Google AdWords Professional exam, but the way AdWords works sometimes is still a mystery.
 
Fuzzo said:
Word of warning on this - spending all that money to 'prove them wrong' is shooting yourself in the foot: Wait for someone else to do it - then jump on the lower clicks.
Click to expand...

It might be shooting yourself in the foot but its an evil that we need to deal with if we want to use Google PPC. It is possible to still turn a profit with a bad QS. Im not sure that if someone else proves them wrong that it will effect your campaign in any way. You still might get a bad QS because because the overall history of that keyword is bad.
 
It just doesnt even matter anymore at this point. Ive struggled with these pieces of shit for so long, its nearly impossible to start a campaign and have it run at 5 cents or less anymore, no matter what your ctr is, or what your landing page is. I hate them so much, its beyond comprehension.
 
channel that energy somewhere else or pick a different niche. If you cant hack it with over .05 cent bids you might need to find an offer with a larger payout or tweak your landing page to increase the conversion rates. Being angry won't make you any money, get creative and put aside the anger :)
 
havokb8 said:
It just doesnt even matter anymore at this point. Ive struggled with these pieces of shit for so long, its nearly impossible to start a campaign and have it run at 5 cents or less anymore, no matter what your ctr is, or what your landing page is. I hate them so much, its beyond comprehension.
Click to expand...


wrong.
 
I'm having problems with QS as well. I don't understand why they're being so strict, I guess they want to try to make more money from raising bids. I was running a campaign on Yahoo and making about $3K a month. I brought it to Google and I can't get past the QS. Even on some keywords where the QS is great, there's still no traffic which I don't understand since according to SEObook.com those search terms are getting more traffic on google than yahoo.

I'm even making a few dollars here and there from MSN and ask.com. Yet, I can't make anything with Google. It's pissing me off since I could be making much more money, as I'm exclusive to this offer and the only affiliate running this offer for the merchant.

I've tried a few different landing pages, I've even had content written and created a mini-site with an about, privacy, etc.. to see if that would help and nothing is working. The only thing I haven't done is what everybody says to raise my bids high for a while and drop the bids slowly, but I'm going to end up losing a bunch of money which is what you're supposed to do, but I don't know if I should risk it, or how much I should lose. I remember raising the bids to a $1.00 (my payout for this offer is $2) briefly, but then I quickly ran up $50 and no conversions so I decided to change it back and haven't messed with it.
 
narsticle said:
They explained how for keywords that they have extensive history on they might automatically give out a bad QS. The reason for this is that they know campaigns using this keyword or keywords in the past performed poorly as far as CTR so they would actually rather you not run a campaign on these words. HOWEVER (and this is how they explained it) they give you the opportunity to "Prove Them Wrong" by making you pay more per click. If you can hack it at the higher click price and produce a good quality experience and high CTR on the word they will reevaluate the quality score. So basically for certain words you need to start at a poor QS and work your way up.
Click to expand...

I can confirm this, I recently added a few keywords which were "bad" and very expensive immediately although being extremely relevant to my ad. The existing ads on the keywords by competitors were not very relevant. It cost me quite some money. In a few days though I got the keywords to "excellent" and 1-2 cent minimum bids because of their high click percentages. I just wished Google would refund the initial extra spending required to proof them wrong when I succeed. I really hate Google and all their procedures and algorithms sometimes.
 
ubaidabcd said:
I'm having problems with QS as well. I don't understand why they're being so strict, I guess they want to try to make more money from raising bids. I was running a campaign on Yahoo and making about $3K a month. I brought it to Google and I can't get past the QS. Even on some keywords where the QS is great, there's still no traffic which I don't understand since according to SEObook.com those search terms are getting more traffic on google than yahoo.

I'm even making a few dollars here and there from MSN and ask.com. Yet, I can't make anything with Google. It's pissing me off since I could be making much more money, as I'm exclusive to this offer and the only affiliate running this offer for the merchant.

I've tried a few different landing pages, I've even had content written and created a mini-site with an about, privacy, etc.. to see if that would help and nothing is working. The only thing I haven't done is what everybody says to raise my bids high for a while and drop the bids slowly, but I'm going to end up losing a bunch of money which is what you're supposed to do, but I don't know if I should risk it, or how much I should lose. I remember raising the bids to a $1.00 (my payout for this offer is $2) briefly, but then I quickly ran up $50 and no conversions so I decided to change it back and haven't messed with it.
Click to expand...

Yep, pretty much man, it really is a fantastic world isnt it? Ive done everything youve said i have so many new domains, so many adwords accounts, it doesnt matter my ctr, my pages, it always gets raised
 
narsticle said:
channel that energy somewhere else or pick a different niche. If you cant hack it with over .05 cent bids you might need to find an offer with a larger payout or tweak your landing page to increase the conversion rates. Being angry won't make you any money, get creative and put aside the anger :)
Click to expand...

I do appreciate your words, i do, unfortunately what you dont understand for having not been here so long is that my ideas are ridiculous, and ive been doing this for 5 years, and in fact, my ideas are the most creative shit around, and i have in fact just reinvented myself again, yet the fact is i do need 5 cent bids or under, and if i could, I would certainly reach my million dollar goal for this year.
 
My theory from what I've seen with my own Adwords campains is that it is not useful really to keep on tweaking your landing page to increase your quality score.

I think that pages can either be "bad" or "good enough" with nothing in between. So if you see multiple dollar minimum bids on all relevant keywords, your page is bad and needs work. If minimum bids are just a bit high but not multiple dollars, work on the ad text instead (to increase CTR).

Of course, I could be wrong as everything with Google's algorithms is educated guessing. But I am pretty confident this is how it works. And I do succeed in getting most keywords to sub 5 cent minimum bids eventually. (although I do end up paying more most of the time because of the competition.)

By the way, @my own post earlier: "excellent" should be "great". Translation confusion, I work in Dutch language mode. So anyone who thought there is anything beyond great, sorry :Yahoo_29:
 
ubaidabcd said:
I'm having problems with QS as well. I don't understand why they're being so strict, I guess they want to try to make more money from raising bids. I was running a campaign on Yahoo and making about $3K a month. I brought it to Google and I can't get past the QS. Even on some keywords where the QS is great, there's still no traffic which I don't understand since according to SEObook.com those search terms are getting more traffic on google than yahoo.
Click to expand...

What he said. If you are frustrated with Google, you try YSM or MSN for awhile. Right now, I am much more on the plus side with them.

When my quality score dips with YSM, I just delete the keywords that get lots of impressions and no clicks and then YSM likes me again.

MSN's interface makes me want to rip all the hair out of my head, but I can manage my account at a profit by increasing bids on performing keywords and decreasing or deleting dogs. What a concept. It makes sense.

LOL - whenever I do get a campaign to work on Google, some big fish comes along and tells me I'm violating their trademark anyway. That's my current frustration - it seems as if I use a word that BEGINS WITH THE SAME LETTER AS THEIR COMPANY, they feel as if they can jump on me!

Apparently they aren't watching Y or M or don't consider it worth the trouble.
 
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