SEMplicity

Quality score is actually calculated at three different levels. These are: the account level, the ad level and the keyword level. It’s useful to note Google’s new way of describing this now, which is “the CTR on the keyword and the matched ad”.

So, it’s actually now a combination of the keyword level and the specific ad we are considering showing. All this says to me is that the keyword CTR is still paramount. A secondary concern is that changing ads will “reset” Quality Score to the default. And a minor factor is account wide Quality Score.

The data shows that keywords with three or greater words in them convert at least two times better. It’s also consistently better with additional keywords being added into the phrase. This means a better ROI for your program.

By simply adding a “+” to the beginning of any word in a keyword phrase, that word or its very close relatives becomes a required element in the user search string. BMM can be used on multiple words within a keyword phrase, and using BMM on all words in a phrase gets us back to good old broad match from 2004/early 2005.

When you have two or more keywords that can be triggered in your AdWords account from a search query, Google tries to show the most restrictive option. The constraints go beyond just match type to include geography, time of day, etc.

However, Google does not always show exact match over phrase match and phrase match over broad match. They also look at ad rank (max CPC x Quality Score). If you have an exact match term bid at $0.25 and the broad match bid at $1, Google will generally show the broad match term.

As an advertiser, you will likely find that your exact match converts higher than your phrase or broad match. You should control the ad serving so you know which ad copy and keyword will be displayed for any search query. You can control the ad serving through the use of bids or negative keywords.

There are several ways your can organize your match types within your paid search account. None of the strategies are better or worse than each other – they are just different. In today’s column, we will examine the three most common match type organizational techniques and show the pros and cons of each.

The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.