Help structuring adwords campaign + keyword QS (best practices and wisdom appreciated)

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Hey guys,

disclosure: I am fairly new to adwords. I've read a ton on it and also read through all the chapters in the certification course but this is my first actual campaign. A little harder in practice... Basically feel free to slap some sense into me or give any guidance.

Anyway, I have created a campaign for my business as a mortgage broker. I rank well organically for 'Vancouver Mortgage Broker'. Rich, quality content.

-As of now, I have one campaign to start - targeting all devices. Phone extension turned on for mobile. Location is targeting to my province.

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-20 adgroups. About 10 of them are specific to people searching a certain area (e.g. Vancouver Mortgage Broker Ad Group, Richmond Mortgage Broker Ad Group, Burnaby Mortgage Broker Ad Group etc..). All of these adgroups have similar ads but with the location name changed. They all point to my home page (reasoning for no landing page is because the ad groups are targeting people who are actually SEARCHING for a mortgage broker so I thought home page is fine).

-The other 10 groups are other categories (private mortgage broker, commercial mortgage broker, first time home buyer, broker vs bank, low credit, pre-approvals)
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-I have followed best practices for all my ad copy. Main keyword in title, call to action, relevant landing page.
-I think my groups are quite targeted.
-For most of my keywords across the campaign, I am using Broad Match Modifiers (e.g. +Vancouver +Mortgage +Broker OR +private +mortgage).
-I have also made sure to use negative keywords across my campaign/ad groups
-Set default max CPC at .5 and will adjust accordingly as time goes on

The one thing I have noticed right off the bat is that my campaign keyword QS is absolutely horrendous. Out of all my keywords, I have a couple better than 5/10. I dont understand... Even 'Vancouver Mortgage Broker', which I rank organically for, have very targeted ads and keywords, is only showing 3/10.

What is the deal? Am I supposed to cut that keyword then, even though I personally feel like it will be one of the best converting keywords? How can I improve the overall QS of my campaign?

OTHER QUESTIONS:
I know this has been a long post. Thanks for reading.

-I would appreciate any general wisdom or if any one can point out mistakes I have made so far.
-I would actually pay someone to help me structure this campaign... Can anyone recommend a good person (ideally I would like to learn and manage, would prefer someone who could go through why they are doing what they are doing).


Thanks!!
#adwords #appreciated #campaign #keyword #practices #structuring #wisdom
  • Birclore,

    For being new to Adwords, you sure have done your homework. You are doing well with your best practices and there are just a couple things that stood out to me.

    First is your landing page. This is a crucial part of the funnel that users follow to convert on your website. If your home page is appropriate to link to some ads because of the nature of the user’s query and because relevant text is on that page then that is fine. However if in other ads there are specific actions that users are looking to perform (i.e. apply for a mortgage, contact a mortgage company, etc.) you must design a landing page to help them accomplish those goals. Otherwise the entire effort will be a waste. Your landing page must reflect exactly what your ad promised the user.

    Another topic is your quality score which is determined by your keyword relevance to your ad, the click through rate and your landing page relevance. In this scenario, landing page relevance is a small portion of that formula however don’t neglect it completely. Your average click through rate will largely determine how good your QS is. After you have made sure keywords are relevant to ad text, the next step is to ensure you are bidding high enough to make click through rate rise. I’m not sure if you are experiencing this but mortgage and loan keywords are incredibly expensive.

    Other than those things you seem to be doing everything else right. Check out this post on Adwords books and you may find some that can help you along further,

    My Favorite Google AdWords Books

    Good luck!

    Shawn
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  • Profile picture of the author birclore
    Ok so I'm assuming that some of my keywords (e.g. vancouver mortgage broker) just have intrinsically low starting quality scores and I need to wait until I have significant data in my account until those quality scores change?

    So its okay to start with a campaign keyword average of around 4/10? And that's just a necessary evil of choosing mortgage as a keyword?
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