Did you know this about quality score?

[300m]

Did you know ad text was part of your quality score and every time you make changes (no matter how minor) it resets your ad text CTR back to 0%?

This does not hold true just for ad text, it also is true when you change destination URL's.

I am sure some of you knew that, but how many of you knew every time you reset your ad text it lowers your QS and you will in turn pay more in the auction?

[arieng]

To help reduce the risk that an ad change will have an adverse effect on the quality score, I always create an additional ad in the ad group and leave the old ad untouched. Set the ad rotation for the group to show ads evenly. If the ad delivers a sufficient CTR & conversion, you can remove the old ad without risk of a QS drop. If it doesn't, delete it and try again.

[ogletree]

I don't think it goes to zero it goes to default. When you first create an ad group and a new ad you get the benefit of the doubt and you get the default QS for those kw's.

[300m]

I know what you are saying, but regardless if you modify an existing ad or create a new on your QS is lowered because the ad text QS is reset to 0%. The only work around to that is if you rotated the ads, and while that might work for some, it wont for others. In those cases I think you are pretty much stuck with the choice of the old text and old CTR, or face a lower QS and a CTR reset.

[300m]

ogletree: I have a team of Google reps, they told me it resets to zero. meaning I am pretty sure the default is 0%.

[CWebguy]

Maybe it resets for the ad but remains for the keyword.

[300m]

It does remain for the keyword that was verified, but the ad text contributes to the QS score and that will adversely affect your bids.

[ogletree]

So are you saying we should all stop doing a/b testing? Some people constantly do a/b testing. Whatever affect there is it is minor. I change ad text all the time by creating new ads and making small changes for a/b testing. I have never seen a huge change in what I pay per click. Obviously it has a very minor affect on what you pay.

[LucidSW]

If you edit an ad, no matter how minor the change, you effectively create a new one. You therefore start fresh with no impressions and no clicks. The QS is also recalculated. I recommend to pause ads and not deleted or edit them (which deletes them) and create a new ad. You may want to go back to that ad later. Same for keywords.

[netmeg]

I write good ads. I always have at least two (and sometimes many more) ads in rotation both for testing and to combat blindness.

It's never been an issue.

[CWebguy]

This could be a factor if Google calculates in age into quality score as it is assumed it does in SERP's.

Such as, older ads get more weight, but I'm not sure it does. I don't know

So initially you are saying 300m, and thanks for the heads up, that a new ad with a lower quality score will end up costing more for awhile until the system catches up (assuming the ad performs well).

Thanks.

[300m]

ogletree, I am not suggesting that you stop ab testing, thats crazy. What I am suggesting is that before you edit ads no matter how minor the change is that you should be aware your going to pay for that change until the ad text CTR catches up with itself regardless if it is a new ad or if its an existing one.

Lucid, I think thats solid advice and I wish i had done that, but I did not think it would make that much of a difference for some people out there.

Netmeg I also agree that rotating ads is a good thing and I do that too, but my concern has less to do with writing a good ad (I write good ads too :P)and more to do with Google not doing a good enough job to inform people that if they make changes to ad text it might also affect their bids.

I know most here have the opinion that Google is OK, and I have the same opinion, but issues like this cut in to my ad spend and I suspect most do not really see it as a big deal because they are content spending what they do and thats fine, but when I spend well over 100k a month those pennies add up to thousands of dollars and it stands out a lot to me.

[EvilSaint]

CWebguy it is highly unlikely that Google would take into account the age of the ad. If that was the case, no one would ever modify their creative to make it more compelling. People would be stuck for years viewing the same ads which would get boring and eventually lose visitors.

The whole idea of PPC ads is to keep them fresh and up to date so that your visitors have the latest information to make their decisions about your service or products.

IMHO I doubt age of an ad will ever be a factor in the PPC game.

[ogletree]

The cost is minimal. We are talking pennies here. Lets just say I add one word to a display URL. That is not going to affect anything outside of the change penalty you are talking about. When you make that kind of change there is a good chance that the affect to your over all cpc is detectable. One thing you have not mentioned is how much it affects cost. Even if it did it would be hard to tell because there are a ton of other things that affect your cpc. Even if you never make any changes your cpc will be different for every time somebody clicks on your ad. There are a ton of factors that go into the cost of an individual click.

Another question is how long does it take for that change to get back to its normal ctr. Is it 5 clicks or 100 clicks or a day or a month.

[Rehan]

To answer the question in the thread subject -- Yes. And it's mentioned by Google at [adwords.google.com...] and [adwords.google.com...]

ogletree: I have a team of Google reps, they told me it resets to zero. meaning I am pretty sure the default is 0%.

It's not actually "zero". What they should have told you is that it resets to a base level, and it can go higher or lower depending on the future performance of your new ad.

When you update an ad, the QS for the new kw/ad pairs is calculated in the same way as if you created a brand new ad. This initial calculation factors in the past performance of a variety of indicators from not only your account but other advertisers as well.

You can use this to your advantage. If you have an ad that is performing poorly (e.g., low CTR causes min bid to jump to $5), you can sometimes get back to a reasonable min bid by creating a new ad -- and that's because the base QS is recalculated based on past performance from your account and other accounts. I've had many instances where my costs were lowered by the use of a new ad.

And of course you have also found out that you can sometimes lose the benefit of a well-performing ad if you make any updates. But that really should not last all that long. For a little while it may have a lower position (or a higher cost for the same position), but if it really does perform as well as the previous ad then it should be able to get back to the same QS level or get even better.

[tangor]

Google not doing a good enough job to inform people that if they make changes to ad text it might also affect their bids.

We are talking pennies here.

Hopefully I'm not belaboring the obvious. Google's intent is to make money. And "pennies" is how money in billions is made. Like Carbon Tax and Trade Google has developed a way to create something from nothing for the sole purpose of income. If one forgets that one will "invest" more than they wished and will earn less than they might have. As the Google offering stands SOME money is made, both with advertisers and publishers...with Google making the lion's share.

The inequities in the platform are one reason why I've opted for direct advertising and haven't looked back...though I keep looking at the Google offering to see if, perhaps, real profits might be made, rather than "validating" their bogus Quality Score, Auctions, and other platforms made from nothing and non-transparent payment schemes.

Money can be made on line, of course, which is why Internet adverts continue to work; yet, Google has bamboozled millions (a conservative number) of players at the moment. I personally am not convinced. Direct sales (for my commercial sites) works via Google AND BING Serps (users looking for product) better than if I played with Adsense or Adwords. This is a Personal Opinion, and please ignore!

[300m]

Thanks Rehan..
Ogletree, yes it is pennies to some, but the fact is if you calculated all of those pennies for every person that has an ad text change it then becomes a significantly higher number.

The same applies to the size of the account a person manages. If they manage an account that has a high amount of ad spend thos pennies will ad up much faster. I just dont have those kind of pennies to waste. I also happen to agree with you, it not the only factor, but any factor that affects the amount of ad spend is of great concern to me.

[netmeg]

Then AdWords may not be a good solution for you.