Is it really about the money?

[tonynoriega]

Quality score. Copy. Title. Landing page.

But is it really only about the money?

Are all of these nuances for "competing" really for not?

If im bidding $10 US dollars more than the 2nd closest bidder, would it even be a matter of my landing page conent and quality score?

Would i really be getting a #2 - #10 position?

Someone just sent me a thought that said "the higher the bid the higher the position"

and i was about to reply with the typical, "well its more than just how much we can bid. we have to take into account the keyword match type, landing page content, quality score, content network"..etc..

and thought, well... maybe it is all about the bid.

can i outbid my competitor, and get #1.

thoughts?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

But is it really only about the money?

I am fully aware that there are folks who do not believe this - but, no, it is not only about the money.

It is also about creating an ad program in which the ads are known to be of high quality - meaning relevant and useful - to the folks who search for free on Google.com. As opposed to ads that are known to be low quality, off-topic and useless.

In the first case, people will trust the ads over time, and click on them because they expect to be taken to a useful site related to what they were searching for. This, obviously, is good for both the advertiser and Google.

In the second case, users would likely come to distrust and disregard the ads over time, and would eventually neither 'see' nor click them any longer. This (also obviously, I hope) is good for neither the advertiser nor Google.

So quality matters. Because quality is to be preferred over a lack of quality - and, yes, because quality ads do lead to long term success for both advertisers and Google.

As a point of interest an advertiser with a great quality score can appear above an advertiser with a lesser quality score while paying less per click.

This video with Google's chief economist Hal Varian explaining the AdWords ad auction in layman's terms may be of interest, as it goes into the above point among others:

Introduction to the Google Ad Auction
[youtube.com...]

(Mods, if this link is somehow not appropriate for me to post, being a Googler and all, I invite you to make it go away. :)

AWA

[LucidSW]

I discovered that link on Youtube myself just recently. Best explanation of the bid process I've ever seen. I also did a few "what ifs" on some scenarios such as what if someone outbids others by a lot. Do it yourself, a real eye opener. It confirms what I've known for years: the best use of your resources is improving your ads, not throwing money at a problem.

[tonynoriega]

Agreed. very good video.

which is what i thought, but i had to question it.

so can i ask... do you prefer or have better success with phrase match or exact match?

i have alwyas felt broad just brought too much junk, lowered my CTR thus, throwing off my ROI.

[ogletree]

I have a keyword that is pegged at a $100 bid and we hit anywhere from 1-4 all the time. It is a very low traffic keyword like 80 impressions in 6 months with a QS of 7.

[tonynoriega]

@ogletree is that an exact match keyword or phrase match?

[ogletree]

Exact

[LucidSW]

Tony, I agree that in most cases broad match brings too much junk. I use broad match (2 to 3-word keywords) to gather data on what kinds of searches are actually done. Use the Search Query Report for that. I refine my keywords, including negatives, from that. My goal is to have only phrase and exact matches in a group and, usually, trying to get at least 33% of impressions coming on the exact match keywords. I may keep long-tail broads (4 or more words, sometimes 3 depending on the niche) if they perform well but they usually get "promoted" to phrase and exact. But that's just me. Others have their own systems.