Coming soon: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.
In the coming weeks, your keywords will no longer be evaluated as normal, in trial, on hold, or disabled. Instead, your keywords will either be active or inactive, depending on their quality and maximum CPC. Each keyword will be assigned a minimum bid based on its quality. As long as its maximum CPC meets this quality-based minimum bid, your keyword will remain active and trigger ads. Learn more.
[edited by: eWhisper at 12:00 am (utc) on July 15, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't copy entire pages. See TOS. [/edit]
I've been in close communication with the Product Managers on this product and I'm happy to let them clarify a few points. Here are their comments so far, in the "quote" boxes:
All of the changes that we will be making are in response to feedback that we have received from our advertisers. Our goal was to simplify our keyword states and give advertisers more control.To answer one of your questions, the Quality Score, which determines your minimum bid, is a new name for the predicted clickthrough rate which we have used in the past. The Quality Score, like the predicted clickthrough rate, is determined based on the CTR of your keyword, the relevance of your ad text, the historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.
To eWhipser's point, this is not a "number" that will be shown in the UI. However, there is a direct, but inverse, relationship between the Quality Score and the minimum bid for your keyword which will give you a good idea of your Quality Score. Keywords that have a high Quality Score will have a minimum bid as low as USD $0.01. Keywords with a low Quality Score will have higher minimum bids, but the majority of keywords should not see an increase in the minimum bid required to show on Google (currently USD $0.05).
The minimum bid is dynamic and will change based on the Quality Score (calculated using the CTR, relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors).
As in our current system, the minimum bid does not impact your position. It is simply the threshold that must be met in order for your ads to be eligible to run on the Google Network. Now your keywords will run as long as the maximum CPC meets the minimum bid, giving you control to run on the keywords that you find valuable.
Eurydice asks: "So how would I know the required minimum CPC? Will the console tell me that for each KW, or do I just have to increase the KW's CPC until it goes out of Hold status? Just curious about this."
The keyword states, active and inactive, will replace the current keyword states in the UI. If your keyword is inactive, we will list the minimum bid required to run underneath this keyword. You will also be able to pull reports to view the minimum bids for all of your keywords.
I hope that this answers some of the initial questions that have come up, and I'll be watching this thread closely and jumping it to clarify wherever I can.
Actually folks, I think you're going to like this. ;)
AWA
How Google measures it? - is it just the AD CTR or a score is assigned manually when the ad is approved
in other words, is it possible we will have to raise all our max CPCs in the new system just to keep running ads that are currently running under the old system?
regards,
-Gee
I don't think this change is really that confusing. Currently if words are disabled or put on hold because their adrank is too low.There are only 2 components to adrank, CTR and Bid price. Now instead of disabling or putting on hold low CTR words (quality appears to be a fancy way of saying CTR. When you read low quality, just think low CTR).
In the future, if a keyword is "inactive, the user will be able to reactivate it by raising bid, or running an improved ad. This has to be easier than the current system of having to delete disabled or on hold keywords, and then starting up new ad groups to use them.
Actually, that is a pretty nice summary, jim2003. Didn't see it before writing my other post. ;)
AWA
And consider this bombshell, from the Product Manager in AWA's post:
"Keywords that have a high Quality Score will have a minimum bid as low as USD $0.01"
That's what I'm going to focus on! Give me some of that 1 cent traffic.
It is simply the threshold that must be met in order for your ads to be eligible to run on the Google Network. Now your keywords will run as long as the maximum CPC meets the minimum bid, giving you control to run on the keywords that you find valuable
thanks for the update AWA... it seems that one disadvantage of this is that the "threshold that must be met" is a moving target. right now, if we bid 5 cents on a keyword, then our ad is displayed, the only uncertainty is the position of the ad - with the new system, if you bid 5 cents and your quality score drops below the threshhold, it means that your ad will not be displayed.
i interpret this to mean that we will have to either:
a) monitor our accounts a little more to make sure that ads are active, or
b) bid a little higher than the suggested minimum bid to make sure that you dont fall below the threshold.
i sure hope that there will be a way to find all the inactive ads in the keyword tool once the new system rolls out.
I have the same question too
calculated using the CTR, relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors
i wonder if "other relevancy factors" also includes relevancy of the landing page (destination URL).
Is there any chance that Google will make it easier to post more targeted ads more quickly, like a speadsheet upload with a 1-1 relationship between the ad and the creative?
One likely question on many peoples' minds is going to be how much more (less?) it's likely to cost. Is there anything more specific you can say as to what advertisers might expect when this gets implemented?
If your keywords typically get a CTR of xx, you probably won't see much change?
Any info that could be provided so as to be able anticipate in advance what kind of resources should be in place to keep everything seemlingly "normal" to clients would be very helpful.
For anyone who manages tons of AdWords accounts, this seems like it could have quite a large impact.
[edited by: skibum at 2:16 am (utc) on July 15, 2005]
That's what I'm going to focus on! Give me some of that 1 cent traffic
welcome to webmasterworld, one_thing_well!
keep in mind, that to get 1 cent traffic, your CTR is going to have to be VERY high; an advertiser who keeps her bid at 5 cents is going to probably be positioned higher than you, which means that maintaining your high CTR is going to be difficult.
