Frustrated with AdWords - Can anyone help?

[bryncllc]

Hi Everyone,

I've got a really frustrating problem I was hoping someone might be able to help me with. I've got a site that I'm running an Adwords campaign for. Its not profitable because my CPC is high - due to low quality score for my keywords.

My page is extremely relevant - and my ads are targeted down to individual pages. The speed of my page is incredibly high and the attached picture tells me that my relevancy is fine - landing page and loading time also don't have any problems.

Hell, to ensure keyword relevancy, they keywords I have in my campaign are the keywords that Google tells me the specific page is relevant for in the Keyword Tool!

I've read through quite a few threads here in Warrior Forum about quality score, but I haven't seen anything that will help me out (though certainly possible I've missed something and would appreciate being pointed in the right direction).

I've been working on this site on and off for quite awhile now - with little bits of success to keep me going over the years - but overall this has been a money loser for me. I'm determined to get this working and would really appreciate some help so I can get out of the red and in to the black!

Thanks so much.

[dburk]

Hi bryncllc,

Quality Score is based primarily on CTR as compared to your competitors. If your CTR is low, as compared to your competitors, then you QS will be poor. If your QS started higher and then dropped, a relatively low CTR is the likely cause.

The way to fix that issue is to delete any keywords that have really poor QS. Then pick your best performing keywords, write very targeted and compelling ads for the exact match only version of the keywords. Anything that doesn't get relatively high CTR should be immediately removed and replaced with more compelling ads.

[bryncllc]

Thanks so much for the reply dburk!

I've known that CTR was a factor, but as this was a brand new campaign, I thought the it would be a fresh start. Does that mean that with a new campaign, I start at the bottom and need to work my way up?

Literally every keyword in the campaign has either a 3 or a 4 QS so there aren't some words that rank highly that I can leave in and delete the others. In some of my older campaigns, I have some keywords with QS of 7. I did exactly what you suggested with that campaign, but those keywords get such low impression numbers, that I haven't been able to improve the account in any way that I know of.

[dburk]

Your AdWords account has an overall account QS, if it has been historically poor then all of your new campaigns will start with relatively low QS. Also, each keyword has a historical CTR and starting a new campaign does not reset the history.

The good news is that the historical bias is weighted toward the more recent results. So, if you get rid of all of your poor performing ad groups and build a few new ad groups, that have very targeted and highly compelling ad text, you should be able to change it in a few days time. You are going to need to bid very high to ensure that your ads are displayed at position #1 and this will help turn your recent poor history into recent well performing ads. As each day passes with high relative CTR you will begin to push your QS higher and higher.

Shut down everything except your top 3 converting keywords. Create a separate ad group for each of those top 3 keywords. Limiting your ad group to just one keyword (exact match only) and write 2-4 compelling ads as a test. Set the ads to run equal time. Run the test ads until you have reached 1000 impressions. Keep only the ad with the top performing CTR and run it until you see your QS improve. Then choose a few more keywords and rinse and repeat.

Once you have a few days of improved CTRs, you will begin to see your QS rise. The historical bias toward recent CTR will help you improve the account historical QS. If you are not seeing your QS rise, then your ads are not compelling enough to generate relatively high CTR as compared to your competitors.

Give that a try and let me know how it is working out. If you get stuck `send me a PM and I'll try to help you work through it.

[stevebeans]

When you guys say shut down poor ad groups, do you mean pause them or delete them entirely? I have a lot of ad groups that I don't use, but they're on pause. Perhaps deleting them could benefit my groups.

Thanks

[bryncllc]

Great question Stevebeans - I was wondering the same thing. I have TONS of adgroups and keywords paused.

Dburk, thanks so much for your last response. I didn't have enough data for the adgroup I was currently testing with. I was doing research and then decided to just start from scratch - I'm going to build a new site and a new adwords account and campaign to start fresh. The site needed a lot of things it didn't have so I'm going to make my life easier with a new one. Too many bad memories with this one

That being said, I'm still going follow your instructions on my exiting site to see how that goes with a different adgroup.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by stevebeans

When you guys say shut down poor ad groups, do you mean pause them or delete them entirely? I have a lot of ad groups that I don't use, but they're on pause. Perhaps deleting them could benefit my groups.

Thanks

Hi Steve,

Deleting your ad groups, or campaigns, will not effect your historical account QS nor the historical keyword QS. It is permanent, but weighted heavily toward recent results. You need to shut down the poor performers to mitigate the damage to your current keyword and account QS. It doesn't matter if you pause or delete, as long as you stop them from running and tainting your current account QS.

Personally, I would look at the ad group and decide if it could be improved with better ad text, if so I will pause it immediately until I get a chance to write new ads. If it doesn't look like a good candidate for further testing and improvement then I just delete it and move on to better candidates.

[stevebeans]

Ahh ok, so don't bother touching the old paused ones because deleting will have no impact.

What I may do as a test is take one of my poor performing groups, and like you said, delete all the weak keywords that don't get any traffic or even impressions. Stick with 1-2 major targeted keywords using [exact] and jack the CPC up for a few days.

In order to off-set this, can I put the campaign at like $5-$10 / day so I don't go broke bringing my quality score up? Will it effect my QS if I'm only getting 20-50 clicks a day due to high CPC but low daily budget?

Thanks for the tips

[dburk]

Hi Steve,

I wouldn't set the budget too low as that will just stretch out the time it takes to improve your QS. Instead select your top converting keywords, that way it will generate sales to cover much of the cost, perhaps even generate a profit.

[stevebeans]

Also, when you get your campaign going with your 1-2 exact match words, do you expand to phrase? If so, how? By creating a new group or adding the phrase match to your relevant exact match group?

[dburk]

Hi Steve,

Ideally, you want as much of your traffic as possible to come through exact match keywords. You can add phrase match to pick up some of the keywords that you haven't thought of, but do this carefully, you will likely need to add negative match keywords to prevent any poor choices from triggering your ads.

Create separate ad groups for your phrase match keywords. Monitor the ad groups to gather the keywords that are triggering your phrase match keywords and create new ad groups with the exact match versions of those keywords, if they are good choices. Then add negative keywords to the phrase match ad groups to prevent them from competing with those exact match keywords.

[stevebeans]

Thanks Don. I've been doing Adwords since 2004 and you're probably the most open I've ever seen anyone with help. It seems most who do AW keep their cards very close to their vest for fear of competition. I appreciate the advice and will sure give that a try

[stevebeans]

I read a blog post about a pretty clever way to go through your phrase match keywords just using adwords and see which keywords are actually being triggered and clicked. Does anyone know how this is done exactly? I can't remember what the post said. It was some tool adwords provides...

Thanks!

[bryncllc]

I think it used to be the keyword phrase report - though I haven't used it in awhile...

[dburk]

Hi Steve,

You are looking for the Search Term Report. This link will guide you in how to generate the report.

How can I see which search terms triggered my ads? - AdWords Help