Quality Update Live at AdWords

The new quality score column over at AdWords will now begin factoring into minimum bid rate calculations. After last weeks’ debacle which sent our team and many other advertisers clamoring for the phones Friday morning and AdWords subsequent adamant denial that it was related to the new algorithm, Google will be instituting an attempt to increase ad relevance and quality to searchers over the next 3-4 days. (Yet another working week-end…) If you have delayed optimizing your account to this point now is the time to hop-to-it and get those ad groups themed out. If you are like some of the clients we take on who have previously structured their accounts based on search behavior, it’s time to shift to a keyword based structure. I see this whole...

Google’s “New” AdWords Algorithm

*** Updated*** Here is a look at the Quality Score indicators now showing in the AdWords panel. Looks like a “Poor” Quality Score can really put a hurting to you. Honestly I am not too sure how helpful these are going to be in the big picture but it is interesting to see how Google feels about your ads. Some testing is in order… Oh yea, and you can now pause keywords, sites, and ad creatives! This I like! **End Updated** Well it looks like Google is taking a cue from Yahoo! for once – or should I say once again. Google AdWords will be shortly releasing some more features for advertisers using their product, a column for “ad quality” determination. In an effort to create transparency there will be a new Quality Score column...

Yahoo Helps the Rich Get Richer

Like most good application service providers, Yahoo Search Marketing sends out tips from time-to-time to help you learn how to best utilize their product. Some of you may have received an email yesterday from YSM entitled… 3 Key Steps to Take Advantage of the New Ranking Model On the other hand, you may have received an email entitled… 5 Key Steps to Take Advantage of the New Ranking Model Or, if you are like Virante, and manage several accounts for clients, you may have received both… While I cannot say that the steps provided were of really any value, and certainly would not be “new” to anyone who had spent any time doing CPC, it is interesting that Yahoo is taking the time/energy/budget to separate its clients into low-spenders...

Yahoo! Sponsored: Relevancy Smack-down

The time of coasting thru Yahoo! Sponsored is over. Dealing the one-two punch to the Overture schematic they have announced a date for the implementation of their new quality algorithm we all knew was coming, February 5th, 2007. Yahoo! Sponsored is adopting a similar strategy as Google AdWords and will start using the quality and relevancy of the ad’s to determine ad position and therefore bid price. Here is an excerpt from the announcement: Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad’s rank in search results beginning February 5, 2007. This will replace the current method, in which ads are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position). This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the...

Doing Google AdWords’ Homework

So an interesting thing happened the other day on the way to cornering the market on a keyword in Google AdWords. The situation began like this: I had been watching the sponsored scene for a product keyword for one of our clients for about 3 months. All of my search queries for the term during that time resulted in perhaps 3-4 sponsored results appearing along side the organic results. It was the prefect opportunity to take advantage of a very low competitive market on a high profit margin item which our client sells. I convinced the client that the time was right to enter into this particular keyword market and they agreed. So I set off to do my keyword discovery; In addition to utilizing our own research methodologies I also incorporated the tools that Google...