We tried bidding for several keywords today. We got a minimum bid of either $0.50 or $1.00 per keyword phrase. We never saw anything under $0.50. (These are keywords in a very specific niche market for which there is very little - in some cases no competition.)
At $0.50 or $1.00 per click I don't anticipate we can make money. So my question are along the lines of how we can get the quality score such that we can get the minimum bid down much lower.
Questions:
1) Is there any way for us to see what our quality score is?
2) Is $0.50 minimum, pretty bad, typical - what do we expect to see? Can we deduce what our score must be if we are getting this kind of pricing?
3) We are just starting to run these - will the minimum bid tend to go down once Google has experience with click through rate to our site?
4) How can we improve our quality score? I've read what I can find on this and it all seems very esoteric - can anyone provide specific actionable answers?
5) As we make changes to our site how long will it take Google to update the quality score?
6) We offer a newsletter on the landing page? Is this negatively impacting our quality score?
7) We offer a monthly subscription to our software services - this is what we do - this is our business. From what I've read google may penalize us for this. Is this the case? Is there any way to reduce the penalty> (Specifically we offer a 10-day free trial and a $19.95 monthly subscription thereafter. We provide a link to this signup on the landing page/ home page but do not ask for any information on the landing page.
8) We do not have a page dedicated as a privacy policy - we do address our email privacy policy inline on the signup page. Is this hurting our quality score?
9) How come some minimum bids are $0.50 and others are $1.00. How do we know how ebay calculates this?
10) Is there anything else you can share that I don't know how to ask on how to improve the quality score as it relates to a minimum bid?
11) Can you provide links to resources where I can learn more about how the quality score is determined and what we can do to improve ours?
Thanks a million for any information that you can provide.
Thanks,
Brian
It's kind of a misnomer at this point when Google says your ads are up and running in 15 minutes. Yea, they usually are. But not always at the price you want to pay, and they're going to jump around a bit until your account and campaigns settle down - like I said, about two to four weeks. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Hope this helps.
I'll try to answer your questions as best I can, based on my own experience.
1.) When looking at your keywords, click "Customize Columns", then select "show Quality Score". This will show your keyword-level Quality Score. Ads, ad groups, and campaigns also have quality scores, but there is currently no way of seeing those.
2.) $0.50 isn't a bad starting point, but it varies significantly. You'll see minimum bids ranging from $10.00 to $0.02, so you're in decent shape. Google will say that anything above $0.30 is "Poor", though.
3.) As long as your Click-through rate is good, you should see significant improvement within a few weeks. Should.
4.) The most effective way of improving Quality Score (in my past experience) is improving click-through rate. Use Phrase or Exact matching instead of Broad matching. Write compelling ad copy, and use dynamic keyword insertion. Bid higher than you normally might to start with, so you'll rank higher and get more clicks.
5.) According to a Google Rep I spoke with, Google reviews landing pages quarterly. My past experience seems to indicate they review within 24 hours landing pages for brand new campaigns. Landing page improvements are *not* a fast way of improving QS.
6-8.) I don't know - without personal experience on these subjects, I just don't feel qualified to answer.
9.) Unfortunately, Google won't share the exact formula with us. From what I've seen, though, there is no minimum bid between $0.50 and $1.00, so these keywords are probably very close in terms of QS.
10-11.) You're starting off in the right place. Check out lots of forums and websites, and ask Google Support if you have specific questions - they can give advice specific to your particular account.
I hope this helps!
[...]How do I lower my minimum CPC?
To achieve the lowest possible minimum CPC, make sure your keywords, ads, and landing pages provide an excellent user experience for those who search for those keywords, click on your ads, and visit your site. There is a great deal of useful information to help you reach this goal in the Ads Quality and Performance [adwords.google.com] section of the AdWords Help Center -- so much so that we've heard advertisers say it takes a fair amount of time to read and absorb it. However, for those who truly wish to improve their Quality Score, improve the experience of potential customers who click on their ads and visit their sites -- and lower their Minimum CPCs -- this is likely to be time well spent.[...]
AWA
