AdWords help! Dealing with low QS

[BobDolemite]

I'm running a CPC campaign on AdWords for my new business (not affiliate). I have few dozen keyword groups and a total of about 700 keywords. A lot of the keywords are in non-competitive niches. So if I search for them, one or no ads will show up.

When I first started the campaign, my QS was generally about 6 or 7 (can't really remember) and I put some relatively low bids in. I got some impressions, but some of my CTRs were on the low side (under 0.1%). I paused the really poor performing KWs and ads to try to increase the CTR.

But by the next day, I got the dreaded "Below first page bid" message for more than half of my keywords! I checked to see what had changed and noticed my QS dropped to about 3/10. For keywords with no ads appearing, they are telling me I need to pay up like $1.20! So, I suck it up and increase my cost to the suggested bid. Actually, I even increased many of them higher than the suggested bid, basing it on their bid simulator. Fortunately, impressions increased and my CTR did start to go up (ad groups averaged 0.37% for that day) and I got a decent amount of conversions.

Next day, I check on the campaign and what do you know. "Below first page bid." First page price increased again. Same story here (QS still at 3/10), and the following day, the cycle repeated itself. Cost per conversion was getting really high!

About the QS, I'm assuming it's a lot to do with my landing page. Right now it's just a general landing page (my homepage). For reasons I won't get into, I can't do a whole lot to it, nor can I create new landing pages right now. I will probably do this later, but for now I'm stuck with my existing homepage lander.

It kills me that I have a keyword that I got clicks at $0.08, and now they are telling me I need to pay $1.20 (with the price seemingly going up each day)! Today I lowered all of my bids significantly, ignoring Google's remarks. Impressions have definitely gone down drastically, but at least I'm not blowing through my budget. Anyone have any suggestions? Will copying my campaign and creating a "new" one help at all? Are there any other factors that affect QS?

Thanks in advance!

[Lucid]

If you are following Adwords guidelines and policies (you likely are since not following them gives you a QS of 1) and your keywords are relevant (check them under Status column), Quality Score is about getting a higher click rate than the historical average. More details in Adwords FAQ but that's the gist of it in one sentence.

You are being asked to bid more to get on the first page because of your low QS. Note it doesn't mean you don't show up at all. You may be on the second page or lower.

Doesn't matter if you're the only advertiser. The system calculates based on all advertisers all-time, whether they are active or not. It also does not take geography into consideration.

Increasing your bid does not change the underlying problem which is a poor ad getting low click rates. In fact, I'd say your QS is going down since after it re-evaluates, your minimum first page bid increases.

[BobDolemite]

Ouch, that sucks. I guess I'll try to change up my ads, but I have some keywords with pretty good CTRs (around 3%) and they're still really expensive (QS is now 4)!

If I recreated the campaign, would that help? I mean, would it put by QS back to around 6/7 before eventually going down? Or could that potentially get me in trouble?

Originally Posted by Lucid

If you are following Adwords guidelines and policies (you likely are since not following them gives you a QS of 1) and your keywords are relevant (check them under Status column), Quality Score is about getting a higher click rate than the historical average. More details in Adwords FAQ but that's the gist of it in one sentence.

You are being asked to bid more to get on the first page because of your low QS. Note it doesn't mean you don't show up at all. You may be on the second page or lower.

Doesn't matter if you're the only advertiser. The system calculates based on all advertisers all-time, whether they are active or not. It also does not take geography into consideration.

Increasing your bid does not change the underlying problem which is a poor ad getting low click rates. In fact, I'd say your QS is going down since after it re-evaluates, your minimum first page bid increases.

[Lucid]

Like I said, the problem is probably your ads. Create better ones. Recreating the campaign with the same ads is not fixing the problem.

[fanatic123]

I also faced the same problem some time back, but then I recreated the ads, and it's working fine now!

[BobDolemite]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Like I said, the problem is probably your ads. Create better ones. Recreating the campaign with the same ads is not fixing the problem.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot!