5 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
5 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

The impact of Quality Score on Minimum Bid - actual data

by jamesviago
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
If you're struggling to get enough impressions, or your Cost-Per-Click / Minimum Bids are too high, this may shock you!


Does Quality Score really matter?

Here's a review we conducted of the keywords in the currently active campaigns our AdWords account. We collated the Quality Scores of over five thousand keywords and then studied the distribution of Minimum Bids (which is Google's estimate of the bid required to show on the first page), within each Quality Score.

Here's what we found:

Firstly, the Minimum Bids are tightly grouped around a series of thresholds. There may be a few (less than 1% of keywords) under the threshold, about 50% of keywords right on the threshold, and the balance spread above the threshold. It's a skew distribution, with the bulk of the Min Bids clustered just above the threshold.

The results for all keywords:

Quality Score ... Min Bid (median result)
10 (Great) ........ Insufficient data (no active keywords)
9 (Great) .......... Insufficient data to spot a threshold
8 (Great) ............ $0.04
7 (OK) ................ $0.07
6 (OK) ................ $0.30
5 (OK) ................ $0.45
4 (OK) ................ $0.60
3 (Poor) ............. $1.50
2 (Poor) ............. $7.00
1 (Poor) .......... Insufficient data (no active keywords)

I don't like paying $0.60 for the same ad position that you are getting for only $0.07 !

I sure do love paying only $0.07 to get placed above someone who is paying $0.60 or even $1.50!!

The table above proves that you can cut your Cost-Per-Click in half almost overnight by improving your average Quality Score just one or two points.




Newbies: here's the summary:
  • Read all the Google help pages on relevance... and follow it!!
  • Ensure TIGHT RELEVANCE of : Keywords <> AdVaiants <> Landing Page
  • Get your Click-Through-Rate up (CTR has a big effect on QS)
Because, as you can see from the review above - relevance drives ctr and quality score... and quality score REALLY matters!
#analysis #bid #impact #minimum #quality #score
  • Profile picture of the author Ron Annand
    I dunno , it must be me .
    My last campaign I was using keywords Google said should cost $0.08 . I had a great quality score of 8 and it still cost me $1.14 to get a #4 spot . It took me 4 days to get it down that far .
    I am new to PPC and it seems to me you can only get those cheap prices if you have a history with Google but with prices like that I won't do very many campaigns and therefore won't get a history .
    By the way , 2 of my keywords had a 9 quality score and a 50% click through rate .
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[646605].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jamesviago
    Ron - there are a few factors involved, but what you are seeing is not unusual. we have a history with Google and we still see estimated min bids of $0.08 that turn out to be over $1, and we still see estimates of $4 and end up paying $0.15.

    we find that goegraphy has a lot to do with it; we get wildly different prices in different states and differrent countries - most likely due to the competition for ads in that area (geographic targeting).

    if i had a 9 QS and a 50% CTR with more than 100 clicks on that keyword, and the price was still high, then i'd be looking closely at the keyword to understand why. if the keyword contains a seed term or a word that we know google hates (like "free" or "sale") then the price will always be higher.

    and a 50% CTR with less than 50 clicks? seen that plenty of times, and i treat that as a statistical red herring and wait for more data, as most of the time it's down to a more typical level after 100 clicks.

    lastly - got privacy policy and about us links on the landing page? if we ever forget those, we get slapped - and the price goes up 5 to 20x on all keywords in the groups that point to the same page.

    plus, it takes a few weeks to get that penalty removed. some gurus say that's because Google manually checks these before removing the penalty... i don't know about that, but the few times we've made that mistake it has panned out that way: the price stays high (like $12) for 2-3 weeks and then overnight returns to $0.45 or some such.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[647904].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NZ Bryce
    Good stuff

    You can get this sort of data for your on campaign easily if you are using Google Adwords Editor. Simply select keywords for your whole account and export the data to excel and graph it with Quality score on the x axis and min bid CPC on the y axis. These minimum bid becomes blindingly apparant.

    Cheers
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[652991].message }}

Trending Topics