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Quality Scores are a vital part of maximizing your profit in AdWords. High Quality Scores can help you get cheaper clicks and increase your Ad Rank.

But Quality Scores can be confusing. Especially, when your Quality Score is not showing for your keywords.

So, today we are going to revisit how Quality Scores impact your advertising.

And we’re going to look at some of the problems with Quality Scores in the new AdWords interface. We’ll talk about where to find your Quality Scores, and why sometimes they don’t display.

We’ll also discuss what’s going on with Quality Scores in general. Why has Google taken away information about this critical metric? And what should you do if your Quality Scores data doesn’t make sense?

One small warning: This is a topic that has me a little fired up. So this video and post may include a few rants. But sometimes you have to speak up to be heard.

Fired up about quality scores? Join the discussion in the comments

I want to hear your take as well! You may or may not be as frustrated as I am with Google’s inconsistency in this area. But, I encourage you to leave a comment about your experience with Quality Score data in the new AdWords interface. The PPC Mastery Course community is a large and growing network. If we have enough comments, we may be able to get a response from Google on these issues. I would love to hear directly from Google about where Quality Scores are headed.

What do you do when your Quality Score is not showing up?

Before we get into how to deal with the absence of Quality Score data in your account, let’s revisit why this metric is so critical.

Why do Quality Scores matter so much?

Quality Score is Google’s estimate of how relevant your keywords, ads and landing pages are to the searches your ads are targeting.

Google uses Quality Scores to help determine Ad Rank and cost-per-click (CPC).

Good Quality Scores work like a discount on your CPC. Inversely, poor quality scores add a tax on to your CPC.

According to a WordStream study, a Quality Score of 10 can discount your CPC by as much as 50%. But a Quality Score of 1 can increase your CPC by up to 400%.

This metric can have a significant impact on your budget. So it’s tempting to target Quality Score as a way to decrease your advertising cost.

How do Quality Scores affect your results

In one of our previous posts, we looked at how your Quality Scores can affect your results. We discussed how ad copy and click-through-rate (CTR) work with Quality Scores. And we examined the effect of Quality Scores on cost-per-conversion.

There’s no doubt Quality Scores are a strong performance indicator.  But, there are some issues with relying too heavily on this metric to guide your strategy.

Why do Quality Scores have to be so confusing? Google?

Google’s definition and guidance on Quality Scores seems straightforward.

1) High scores are earned through relevant ad copy and targeted landing pages.

2) Optimizing every step of your funnel discounts your CPC and improves your results.

Ok, this process makes sense, and it ties into the strategies we share in PPC Mastery Course.

But, Quality Scores have become more confusing now than they ever have been. And Google continually changes our access to information about this metric. They put data about our Quality Scores front and center in our account. Then they roll out a new interface and bury this metric in our settings.

Null Quality Scores

Google made a significant change to the way they handle Quality Scores at the end of 2016. If you have a new keyword, or the keyword has “low activity” you won’t get a Quality Score at all.

Before this change, everyone started with a Quality Score of 6 on new keywords. But now Google has decided you don’t get a Quality Score if your keyword is new or has “low volume.”

Improved Quality Score reporting

Then, in 2017 Google introduced “Improved Quality Score Reporting.” The improved reporting featured new metrics to help you maximize your Quality Scores. Google was offering us seven new indicators, and historical data about our quality score performance. Awesome, thanks Google!

But then the new Adwords interface rolled out, and Google eliminated the improved reporting data. I can’t even show you a screenshot of what these reporting columns looked like because Google erased them from their documentation.

Google has offered us some direction about Quality Scores in the new interface. But it doesn’t mention the improved reporting data that was added to the old interface.

Now that we have some context about how Google keeps changing things up… I am going to jump into my rant.

Google provides transparency, then they take it away

It’s as if Google can’t seem to make up their mind whether they want us to have Quality Scores or not. They even deleted the famous Hal Varian video that explains how the Ad Discounter, Ad Rank, and Quality Score all fit together.

So what’s the deal Google? Why all the constant changes to a critical part of the AdWords environment?

This isn’t me trying to be dramatic or troll you, Google. These are real questions being asked by AdWords advertisers. How much attention should we pay to our Quality Scores? Why isn’t this information always available?

If anyone at Google follows this blog, please chime in here! Set me straight on what’s going on with Quality Scores. We would love to know more!

Ok, I’ll take a break from my rant. Let’s move forward and take a student question about Quality Scores in the new AdWords interface.

PPC Course student question

Bethany, one of my PPC Course students, asks the following question about her Quality Scores:

I went “live”, I have keywords, I have the quality score column activated, and it’s just showing blanks for everything. Does it take time to show up?

Her Quality Scores are not showing any data in her account yet.

Now we know that Google won’t give us quality Scores for new keywords. But, Bethany wants to know how long she has to wait to start seeing some results. And this is a great question.

Let’s go insides of AdWords and see if we can figure this out using a mature account.

Quality Score reporting in the new AdWords interface

This first way I’ll approach this problem is to use Adwords Editor. However, when I attempt to download all my Quality Score data into the editor, I get nothing. Even after following Google’s support documentation, I am still not seeing any data.

So, even though it’s not my preferred method, we’ll have to check this data out in the AdWords interface.

As we examine my Quality Score data in the interface, I see some curious inconsistencies. The majority of my keywords are displaying a Quality Score.

But there a few things that don’t add up. My lowest Quality Score is for the keyword that’s earning the highest CTR. I have Quality Score of 5 on a keyword that’s generating a 28% CTR.

I also have a Quality Score of 5 for a keyword with a 16% CTR.

What’s the deal with this data? Is this metric just 100% percent algorithm driven? Is nobody monitoring the quality of Quality Scoring? You can see why I’m frustrated.

Now, we started this effort examining the occurrence of “Quality Score not showing.”

We know that we need to be patient with new keywords. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for data on keyword quality scores, because it seems to be out of your control, regardless of keyword volumes.

Here’s why. The highest impression, click, and cost, keyword in my test account is not displaying a Quality Score. Yet, I have a keyword with zero clicks, and that keyword has a Quality Score. These inconsistencies don’t make any sense.

 

What do you do when your Quality Score is not showing?

We need to do our best with the data that we have. And we shouldn’t rely only on Quality Score itself to optimize performance. We should use all the data and reporting we have available to try to make improvements.

Google’s offered us other reporting data related to our Quality Scores. Let’s add these metrics to our columns and see how they can help us.

Reviewing the feedback from these new columns makes me question Quality Score reporting even more. Google’s data is telling me that my expected CTR is below average for a keyword with an actual CTR of 28%. What type of CTR would make the expected CTR above average, 50%, 70%?

This feedback does not seem accurate! In fact, it’s got me even more confused. Why would I need to improve an ad with a real CTR of 28%, to try to achieve a better future CTR?

There’s not really much room for improvement, yet Google indicates expected CTR is below average.

What about Google’s other guidance for where we need to make Quality Score improvements.

Google’s published an entire article on upgrading your landing page experience. So, they are providing some direction that we can factor into our plans.

But the problem is, their feedback is not consistent. You can make the suggested improvements. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll see a real impact on your Quality Scores.

Quality Scores have become like a black box

Quality Score wasn’t supposed to be a mystery metric. This metric was supposed to help you see how you could improve your funnel. And it was supposed to reward advertisers that put effort into following Google’s direction.

Of course, I understand that Google’s not going to publish the exact details of their Quality Score algorithm because that is an open invite for advertisers to try and game the system.

But if you’re not going to reward advertisers for making the optimizations needed to produce a good quality score, why even have a quality score display?

If you’re going to bury this metric in our accounts because there’s not enough data to calculate it, then how important is it?

The take away here, to me, is that Quality Scores are critical. But not so important that you should obsess over them, especially when Google takes away transparency.

When you focus too much on this metric, you put your advertising strategy on Google’s schedule. Operating on Google’s schedule puts you in a less ideal position. You wind up waiting on Google instead of taking control of your advertising.

Don’t wait for Google’s permission to take control of your accounts

Your business, your client, your company, is not going to wait around for a Quality Score to show up.

Use the other data you have available to make improvements. “Quality Score not showing” is even more of a reason to follow the guiding strategy we subscribe to in PPC Mastery Course.

Continue to build out your campaigns, and test your real, tangible results. Prioritize your conversions over other metrics that can be a distraction. Optimize your ads, landing page copy, and funnel for the experience your customers want.

Quality Scores are great when they work. But, if your Quality Score is not showing, use the other tools you have at your disposal to optimize for conversions.

What do you think about the Quality Score display in Adwords?

I mentioned at the opening of this post I want to hear from the community. What’s your experience with “Quality Score not showing?” If you have answers to the functional problems I’ve laid out in this post, please share them.

And if you’re confused about how to improve your Quality Scores, also leave a comment. Hopefully, your comments will urge Google to provide more guidance and transparency.

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This post and video was episode 79 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

2018 brought some big changes to the AdWords certification process.

This past January, Google moved their certification resources from the Google Partners platform to the Academy for Ads.

Today, we’ll take a quick look at how these changes have affected the AdWords certification process. We’ll track down where to find your certification records. And we’ll review what’s available to us on the new Academy for Ads platform.

Google Partners individual certifications have closed

You may recall hearing from me in December about changes to your Google partners profile.

Well, those changes have rolled out to all AdWords users. If you’re Google AdWords certified, your records have moved.

In your Google Partners profile, under your certification tab, you’ll find a link directing you to the Academy for Ads.

This link will take you to the Academy for Ads landing page.

 

To access your records, you’ll need to sign in with the Google account that’s associated with your AdWords certification.

When you log in, Google will ask you if you want to share your account information with your company. For most of us, the answer will be yes. Sharing your certification records with your employer or business can help enhance their Google profile. But you should review the disclaimer, and make your own decision.

 

Next, you’ll be directed to the Academy for Ads home page.

How do I find my AdWords certification records?

Once you’re in your Academy for Ads account, click on the profile icon in the upper right-hand corner.

Then, select My Profile from the drop-down menu.

This link will take you to your to certification records.

What’s in the Academy for Ads?

On the Academy for ads homepage, you’ll see a menu of the available training courses.

These courses are brief, animated tutorials about Google’s products.

Most of the courses are broken down into small segments. The information is basic and easy to work through.

The courses are like snackable AdWords resources. The are not very in-depth.  But that are good place to start learning about some the features that exist on the AdWords platform.

Certification Assessments

The Google certification tests used to be called exams. They are now referred to as assessments.

Below the featured courses menu, you’ll find links to the certification assessments.

If you’re already certified, the assessment links will show you when your certification expires.

Google AdWords Fundamentals training

The Google Adwords Fundamentals courses offer 3.7 hours of free content.

And if you take a further look, you’ll see the courses themselves are only 2.2 hours long.

The Adwords Fundamentals Assessment accounts for 1.5 hours of the training content. (Most people finish this exam in well under 1.5 hours).

Overall, the Academy for Ads offers a quick walkthrough of AdWords basic features and structure. These tutorials are a good starting point if you have limited AdWords experience.

You can complete the tutorials, and if you’re ready, pass the assessments in less than half a day.

But, keep in mind, learning this way will only prepare you for the test.

It will not prepare you to deliver high quality results managing an AdWords account.

AdWords Infomercials

The Academy for Ads training courses are like commercials. They provide background on what you can do in AdWords, and Google makes you feel great about getting started right away with your advertising!

Unfortunately, what you don’t get from the Academy for Ads is the knowledge that makes a real difference.

You don’t get:

• Strategic guidance or advanced techniques
• Real world budget optimization examples
• In-depth conversion tracking guides
• AdWords Editor training
• Detailed keyword research plans
• Blueprints for building granular ad campaigns

You won’t find any of this information because Google leaves the hard work up to you.

And you can’t blame Google for this. It’s not their obligation to train you. They provide the greatest advertising platform in the world. But it’s up to you to learn how to use it appropriately.

It’s on you how to figure out how to maximize your budgets and outmaneuver your competition.

You get what you pay for

So, my take on Google’s free training hasn’t changed. The Academy for Ads is a solid free resource.

But, if you want to learn how to maximize your return on ad spend, it won’t be free.

If you do nothing more than the Academy for Ads training, you’ll pay Google in wasted ad spend. These losses can add up to $100’s to $1000’s a day.

Without good training, Google will take you to the school of hard knocks

There were no comprehensive training programs when I started with AdWords. So, I had to learn everything the hard way.

I created PPC Mastery Course to help people avoid getting taken to the school of hard knocks by Google.

Now, this post isn’t about selling you on an AdWords training program. I bring these points up because I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you of the PPC Mastery Course ethos!

PPC Mastery Course Strategy

My PPC Mastery Course exists as a premium program beyond Google’s free training. A program where I teach you a strategic approach that gets profitable results in AdWords.

Google’s more than happy to show you where the buttons are in the Adwords interface. Why? Because the sooner you get started advertising, the sooner Google makes money.

But, a thoughtful, strategic approach is how you gain success in AdWords. The strategy we practice in PPC Mastery Course… The strategy we’ve been building on in these blog posts every week… That’s the strategy that led to my agency producing amazing results with AdWords.

If you follow the PPC Mastery Course strategy, you can achieve results that are 3 to 5X better than your competitors.

But, if you only follow Google’s guidance on how to use AdWords, you’ll wind up lighting money on fire. PLEASE don’t do this!

Use Google’s free courses to get started. Then purchase a premium course like my PPC Mastery Course, and blend that information with the strategy we focus on in our course!

If you haven’t started PPC Mastery Course yet, you can join us in our Free Mini-Course. Our Free Course includes a walkthrough of the AdWords Fundamentals exams.

What do think of the move to Academy for Ads?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Google’s new training platform. Have you updated or taken your certification recently? What changes did you notice? What did you like about the Academy for Ads? And what didn’t you like? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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This post and video was episode 72 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

Working in AdWords is all about control and efficiency.

You want to take control of your advertising, and you don’t want to let Google choose how you spend your budget.

In AdWords, keyword match types determine how much control you have over the searches that trigger your ads. There are four different keyword match types.

• Broad Match
• Broad Match Modified
• Phrase Match
• Exact Match

Plus there are negative keywords that you can use to prevent certain words or phrases from being associated witih your search query.

Broad match offers the least amount of control over your keywords. But, sometimes, when you’re just starting an ad campaign, you need to use broad match keywords to test the market and gather data quickly.

In these cases, where you are testing the waters with PPC, you can gain more control over how Google displays your broad keywords by using the broad match modifier.

Today, we’ll look at how broad match modified keywords work in AdWords.

Then I’ll show you how to quickly add the modifier to your keywords, using AdWords Editor. And we’ll check out how to make single keyword ad groups that use three keyword match types.

Broad keywords are bad

One of my 10 Commandments of PPC Management is “Broad is Bad.”  The 10 Commandments are my guiding rules for PPC advertising.

This past November, I gave a presentation on the 10 Commandment of PPC Advertising at the DMSS conference in Bali.  You can watch the full presentation in the video below.

Why is broad match bad?

Broad keywords give control of your advertising to Google.

If you were to advertise on the keyword “werewolf novels,” using broad match, your ad could display for all sorts of unrelated search terms.

Your ad could rank for searches related to:

“werewolf costumes”, “travel novels”, “prince concert tickets”, and “scuba equipment.”

And when a searcher who’s interested in travel novels or werewolf costumes clicks on your ad, you pay for the click!

The result is that you pay for lots of wasted clicks. Or no one clicks your ad because it’s not related to the search. Then your Quality Scores tank and your ads don’t display at all.

Those results? They are bad! Using simple logic, that implies that broad match is bad!!

Broad Match Modified

One way to make the broad match type more targeted to your keywords is to use the broad match modifier.

Adding the broad match modifier to your keywords is a simple as placing a “+” before each word you want to modify.

The modifier tells google that there must be a close variant of your keyword in the search for your ad to display.

So if your keyword is “werewolf novels,” then “novels on werewolves” and “werewolf cheap novels” are still acceptable searches for your ad to display on.

But, “travel novels” and “scuba equipment” are ruled out because there are no close variants in these searches.

Broad match modified strikes a balance between broad coverage and control of your keywords.

Here’s where broad match modified falls on the spectrum of all the keyword match types.

Keyword Match Types

• Broad Match: Keyword and all it’s synonyms as interpreted by Google.
• Broad Match Modified: Searches that include the keyword, and/or close variants of the keyword.
• Phrase Match = Exact Keyword, with other terms before or after you keyword. And your keywords can appear in any order within the search.
• Exact Match = Exact keyword only

Why should you use broad match modified keywords?

1) Because these keywords produce valuable data in your search term reports.

Modified broad match can help you learn how people use your keywords in search. Broad keywords populate your search term repot with lots of data about the searches that trigger your ads.

Mining your search term data will show you which keyword variations are working the best. You can use this data to adjust your keywords to target the searches that are resulting in conversions. You can also add search terms that are resulting in wasted clicks to your negative keywords list.

2) Google doesn’t like it when you go too granular, too quickly (from my experience).

In my experience, when you start off with a super refined ad campaign, Google doesn’t like it. If you go 100% phrase and exact match from the get-go, Google doesn’t display your ads, and you get little to no results. I’m not talking bad results. I’m talking no results at all. 

So when you build out your ad groups, consider including broad match modified keywords to round-out your search term reports.

PPC Course Student Question

One of our PPC Mastery Course students asked the following question about using the broad match modifier:

Modified broad match. Do you place the + in front of your key word/s in Adwords Editor in keyword edit screen? And it automatically makes it modified broad when you post back to Adwords?

Shelly wants to know how to use the modifier in AdWords Editor.

So, Let’s jump inside Adwords editor and see how this is done.

Inside AdWords Editor

One of the great things about AdWords Editor is you can make changes in bulk. Adding the broad match modifier to your keywords using the Editor will save you loads of time.

Let’s look at how to add the modifier using AdWords Editor.

As you can see, I set up an ad group with a bunch of broad keywords.

Some of these keywords are very specific, bordering on, well… Creepy. (Hopefully, no one is actually doing these searches.)

I put way more keywords into this ad group (plus creepy keywords) than I usually would for a single keyword ad group (skag). But, I wanted to show you how to refine this ad group quickly, using the Editor.

Adjusting match types using AdWords Editor

The first thing we’ll do is copy our entire keyword list. Then we’ll paste these keywords into our ad group twice, creating two sets of duplicate keywords.

Next, we’ll change one set of duplicates to phrase match. We’ll repeat this process, and change the second set of duplicate keywords to exact match.

You’ll receive some warnings in the Editor while you’re adjusting your match types. The red warning will disappear as you make the adjustments.

I always ignore the yellow warning about having the same keyword in my ad groups. Google’s been offering this warning for years. But I don’t see that it has any validity. The whole point of a skag is to put your different match types for the same keyword in one ad group.

Now, we’ll change the broad match keywords to broad match modified in two simple steps.

Adding the “+” to your keywords

First, select all the broad keywords. Then, right click to choose “Append text.”

Next, add a “+” to “Before existing text.”

Our first step added the modifier to the first word in our keywords. But it didn’t add the modifier to the other words in our keywords.

So, with our broad keywords selected, will use the replace text command.

Using this command will replace the spaces in our keywords with ” +.” Remember to add one space before your modifier so that your keywords format correctly. If you screw this up, like I did in the video above, you can always hit “ctrl z.”

That’s it! With two quick steps, and maybe 15 seconds of work, we modified all our broad keywords to be modified broad match.

My co-founder at MN Search, James Svoboda, first wrote about this technique in 2010. You can check out his article about this Adwords Editor hack here –https://www.webranking.com/blog/how-to-change-keywords-to-broad-match-modifier-using-google-adwords-editor.

AdWords Editor has changed a lot over the years, but this trick still works.

Building single keyword ad groups in AdWords editor

We recently published a full tutorial about how and when to use single keywords ad groups (skags) on Jeffalytics.

Here’s how we could quickly refine this ad group down to a skag using AdWords Editor.

Just select and delete the keywords you want to remove. Or move them to a new ad group.

If you want to create a “pure” skag, you’ll be left with your root keyword and that’s it. My version of SKAG is your root keyword with 3 match types. This level of granularity tends to produce very precise results.

Using these techniques, you can have pinpoint targeting for your keywords, as well as more data to optimize in your search term reports.

Let recap the steps we used to bulk add the broad match modifier.

1. Fire up AdWords Editor
2. Enter your keywords as broad match type
3. Copy and paste keywords, changing match types for phrase and exact
4. Highlight just your broad keywords and append + to the beginning of string
5. Replace spaces with space +

Pretty painless!! That’s the power of Adwords Editor. You can make bulk changes to your AdWords campaigns in seconds.

Adding the modifier to your keywords gives us more control than broad match. The modifier makes your advertising more efficient than regular broad match. And it pulls lots of good data into your search term reports.

Using AdWords Editor is an ultra-efficient way to bulk ad the broad match modifier. The Editor saves you time and helps you manage your ad groups efficiently.

Do you use the broad match modifier?

Are broad match modified keywords present in your advertising? If so, do they affect your results? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

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This post and video was episode 65 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

A standard AdWords text ad only gives you 140 total characters to deliver a compelling message.

Text space is at a premium. And you want to win clicks right?

Well… Maybe. Keep in mind clicks cost you money.

There are times when you can maximize your budget by not getting nearly as many clicks.

I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it can work.

Sometimes it’s better to qualify your leads by putting your prices in the ad than to entice every searcher to click through on the ad…

On the other hand, losing clicks can hurt your Quality Score, and decrease your Ad Rank.

So what’s the best AdWords copywriting approach? Should you include your price in your text ad?

Let’s look at this question from multiple perspectives. And let’s see how qualifying your clicks on price can affect your advertising.

How AdWords works

We all know that AdWords is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform. But, sometimes it helps to go back PPC basics to work through our decision making.

In search advertising, your ad impressions are free. Impressions don’t cost you anything, so you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Of course, I’m not trying to be patronizing with this basic explanation. There is a point here.

You are paying Google for clicks. If you get lots of clicks, advertising can get expensive in a hurry. Often, you will find you get more out of your budget by getting fewer clicks.

A tale of two AdWords copywriting techniques

Let’s look at how this scenario can play out using two different AdWords copywriting approaches.

One approach is intended to drive clicks. The other is meant to qualify clicks.

Example #1 – Hook people with a Free offer

Below is an example of ad and that’s offering a free course. “Free” is a proven copywriting power word. Offering something for “free” creates interest and reduces risk. So when you create a free offer, you’re inviting clicks.

Example #2 – Discourage people from clicking

In this example, we changed our ad copy to display the price. The price is likely to discourage a large part of our audience that would have engaged with our “Free” ad. The result will be a significant decrease in click-through rate (CTR).

Why would we want to decrease CTR? Well, if the goal is to sell a product, paying for every click might not make sense. Our cost per conversion might be lower if we only focus on attracting serious buyers.

Which of these approaches is better? As usual, the answer lies in the numbers.

It’s a numbers game

Let’s work through some hypothetical scenarios to see how they can impact our decision to feature a price in our text ad.

Now, these results are theoretical. They are not from an actual campaign. But these numbers can help us see how qualifying our buyers with a price in our ad can work to your advantage.

In the example below, the advertiser is spending $164 for 100 clicks, equaling a $1.64 cost-per-click (CPC) on Ad #1.

And the advertiser paid $51 for 20 clicks, equaling a $2.55 CPC on Ad #2.

If we look at these results from a pure CPC perspective, Ad #1 is better.

But, when we look at the results in terms of conversions, Ad #2 is the winner.

Ad #2 produced $12.75 cost per conversion, while ad #1 resulted in a $32.90 cost per conversion.

Cost per conversion over CPC

As we’ve discussed before, in previous posts, Google tends to direct us to look at results in terms of CPC. I would encourage you to view your results primarily based on cost per conversion.

There’s only one paid search advertising strategy where CPC is a better indicator of success than cost per conversion. And that strategy is for big brand advertisers working on unlimited budgets.

In our example above, Ad #2 is much more efficient. Even though we lost one conversion, we’re still paying a lot less per conversion.

Get the right clicks

Why is Ad #2 more effective? Because Ad #2 focuses on getting clicks from the right searchers.

Although Ad #2 reduces the number of ad clicks, we get more out of our budget. We gain efficiency by only advertising to people who are in our product’s price bracket.

By putting our price in our text ad, we eliminated 80% of our unwanted clicks. That’s a big cost savings!

Now, we are evaluating using the product price in our ad from a purely theoretical perspective. So, you may still be wondering does this technique really work?

PPC Course Student Question

One of our PPC Course students, Shanan, asks a great question about the practicality of qualifying searchers on price.

If one is selling an expensive product possibly to put the price in the ad. Will this not considerably effect CTR and therefore have a knock-on effect on the ad being shown at the top. Is this not vey likely going to produce a poor result for keyword and ultimately campaign?

He wants to know if reducing clicks will hurt his Quality Score, and in turn hurt his ad campaigns results.

Shanan brings up some critical counterpoints to consider.

And to answer his question – Yes.

If you’re advertising a costly product, displaying your product price in your text ad can reduce wasted clicks.

But, it can also lower Quality Score.

How does reducing clicks affect Quality Score

If your ad is effective at reducing your CTR, it will definitely lower your Quality Score. And decreasing your Quality Score can also lower your Ad Rank.

Bids don’t impact results. Ad Rank Does!

Remember, Ad Rank is based on more than just your bids on your ad’s keywords.

The combination of your bid, your Quality Score, and your ad formats determine your Ad Rank.

Advertisers that use ad extensions and earn high Quality Scores can outrank other ads. Even when they are making lower bids. They can make their dollar more efficient by focusing on Quality Score and utilizing ad formats/extensions.

Fewer clicks results in a lower quality score

Qualifying searchers based on product price almost guarantees a decreased Quality Score.

So, how do we sort this out? We don’t want to waste money on clicks.

But discouraging clicks lowers our Quality Score. And lousy Quality Scores can lower our Ad Rank. Low Ad Rank can drop your our ads out the search results entirley.

There are forces at work in this decision-making process beyond copywriting. Namely, Ad Rank and Quality Score.

We are faced with a catch 22: If you actively try to get fewer clicks, you’ll pay more for click.

Let’s take a look at another set of theoretical results to see how the negative impact on quality score can affect our performance.

This example is the same as the previous results we used (theoretical – NOT based on my real results), but now we’ve included Quality Score.

And we’ve adjusted our CPCs to account for the effect of our quality scores.

In this example, Ad#2, the ad that features our product’s price, still outperforms Ad #1. Ad #2 retained a Quality Score of 8. So, in this scenario discouraging clicks won’t have much impact on Ad Rank.

High quality scores will help ad rank

Here’s a simplified way to think about how quality score impacts your ad bids:

A quality score between 7 and 10 discounts your CPC. Quality scores below a 6 will increase your CPC.

How low can you go?

Let’s look at our example again, and drop the quality score below the discount threshold.

This time Ad #2 has a quality score of 5. But it’s still performing better than Ad #1. Our cost per conversion is about half the price of Ad #1. And our overall cost is down nearly $100.00.

What happens if our quality score tanks all the way to a 3?

Believe or not, you can still be more profitable discouraging wasted clicks.

In our example, you have to hit a quality score of 2 before this strategy becomes ineffective.

This strategy can be very effective at reducing your costs when it works.

But, our results assume you can get rid of 80% of useless clicks just by putting your price in your text ad.

Let’s assume a more modest reduction in wasted clicks from using the price in our text ad.

What happens when we only reduce the number of bad clicks by 20%? This number might be a more realistic outcome. A lot of searchers don’t even really read ads. They just click on the first result they see. And you also have to factor in fraudulent clicks, which usually account for about 1 to 2% of your total volume.

If including the price in our text only reduces wasted clicks by 20%, then Ad #1 is more efficient.

So putting the price in our text ads could make our ad better or worse.

They are cases where it makes a lot of sense to qualify as many clicks as you can, especially when you’re paying a very high CPC.

But it all comes down to optimizing cost per conversion.

Here are the keys things to remember when using this technique:

1. AdWords copywriting can impact your results
2. Conduct your own experiments early and often
3. Understand how to read your results appropriately
4. Determine which test is the winner
5. Implement the best performing strategy
6. Develop your next experiment

Remember this when it comes to testing AdWords copywriting strategies…

PPC optimization is continuous. That’s what makes it fun!

There’s no end to how many tests you run. And you can always find a way to improve your results.

Ad copy is important, but it’s just one of many tests you can run.

Want to learn more AdWords copywriting strategies? Read our post on the Anatomy of Successful Adwords Text AD, and download our text ad swipe file.

Tell us about your results

Have you experimented with featuring prices in your text ads. How did this strategy work out for you? Did it lower your cost per conversion? Or did it kill your quality scores? Leave a comment below to share your results.

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This post and video was episode 58 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

What’s the #1 goal of advertising on AdWords? – Conversions!!

Conversions should be the main purpose of advertising anywhere, really. Whether it’s getting customers to make purchases, fill out lead forms, or opt-in to our emails campaigns…

Conversions are why companies spent $110 Billion dollars advertising with Google AdWords in 2017.

But Google doesn’t make tracking conversions the focus of your AdWords account. The default settings don’t even display your conversion data.

Instead, Google gives you a blank canvas. They give you the tools to bring in impressions and clicks. But they leave it up to you to tailor the AdWords platform to your sales and lead generation objectives.

So, If you want to live large on AdWords you have to:

“Keep your conversions on your mind, and your mind on your conversions.”

In this video and post, we take a look at how we need to setup our AdWords accounts to track conversions. Then we show how to modify your settings so that your conversion data is front and center in your AdWords dashboard.

How to use Google AdWords conversion tracking

Before we dive into configuring our conversion settings, let’s look at how AdWords works by default. Examining Google’s motives will help us understand how to work in the AdWords system.

Don’t rely on the Google AdWord default settings

If you trust the default AdWords settings, you’ll miss the real picture. The only data you’ll see are clicks and impressions.

By default, Google doesn’t make conversions the focus of the AdWords interface.  To even see your conversion data you have to modify your reporting columns.

To put your conversion data in your columns, select the “Modify columns” icon.  Then choose the conversions menu.  Check the boxes for the conversion data you want to see in your columns.

Now, even after you modify you columns, you’ll still have to scroll across your screen to see your conversion data.

Clicks and impressions are clearly given preference in the AdWords interface.

Which begs the question, are clicks really a sign of success?

I would say there are $110 billion reasons to think that clicks represent success. But that’s success for Google, not for you!

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, made over $110 billion in revenue in 2017.

Source

The primary diver of Google’s enormous earnings is AdWords. And AdWords continues to grow because search advertising is ultra effective.

Search Advertising on Google AdWords is accountable

Advertisers love AdWords because search advertising is accountable. Search advertising offers percise and immediate data about your results.

Other forms of advertising, like TV, radio, and print, don’t offer the same transparency. Also, advertising on AdWords provides the unique opportunity to target specific customers. Customers that are actively seeking a product, solution, or answer.

But clicks don’t equal success for advertisers. And clicks don’t represent accountability, conversions do!

So why doesn’t Google focus on conversion data in the AdWords interface?

Cheeky answer: Google hates how long the word “Conversions” appears in the interface?

You have to admit; there’s probably a UI designer at Google who was furious about trying to jam the word “Conversions” into the AdWords columns.

More reasonable answer: Maybe it’s because most advertisers don’t have Google AdWords Conversion tracking in place.

It is possible Google’s knows most of their advertisers don’t use conversion tracking.

If the majority of users don’t track conversions, then those columns will be empty in the interface. Could it be that showing no data is worse than showing no conversion columns at all? The AdWords interface is already crammed with information. Simplicity may be the winner here. It wouldn’t make sense to include a default feature that users don’t bother to enable.

Or, maybe Google is trusting that advertisers know they need to track conversions?

It’s possible Google thinks its users will figure out that conversions should be the focus of their account, on their own. But, I’ve found most beginner AdWords users don’t know the value of this information.

I have taught over 6,000 students how to use AdWords. Before taking my training, the majority of my students didn’t know that they needed to set up conversion tracking. In fact, they were trusting Google to show them the data they needed to see. And you can’t blame new advertisers. Tracking conversions is not intuitive in the AdWords interface.

Finally, maybe Google just treats the AdWords interface like a free market economy?

AdWords is like a blank Canvas. It’s the most elite advertising system on the planet. Every PPC platform has tried to mimic the AdWords technology, and few can do it as well.

The tools Google gives you to run PPC advertising are amazing. Google even offers native applications like Adwords Editor and Scripts to help you automate your advertising. And AdWords integrates really well with third-party tools and applications.

So, Google AdWords provides a powerful interface and impressive tools. But they leave it up to the advertisers to figure out how to master the platform on their own.

Going forward, think of AdWords like a blank canvas or a free market economy. It’s the advertiser’s job to create structure within this marketplace that benefits your business.

Let’s talk about how to create that structure.

Setting up Google AdWords conversion tracking

Step #1 – Find the conversion settings.

In the new interface, your conversion settings are hidden under the wrench icon. Click on the wrench and then select conversions.

Step #2 – Review or add new conversions

Once you’re in your conversions screen, you can edit your conversions. Or you can create a new conversion by clicking on the blue “+” icon. For this tutorial, we’ll create a new conversion.

Step # 3 – Create a new conversion

This screen is where you choose the type of conversion you want to track. In this example, we’ll select a website conversion.

Step #4 – Fill out the detail of your conversion

You want to give your conversion a name, select a category, and choose an appropriate value.

Step #5 – Add the global site tag to every page you want to track

Adding the Google AdWords conversion tracking code to every page of your site is a recent change. Before this change, you only had to add tracking code to your conversion page (i.e., thank you page, or purchase confirmation page).

Now you have to add this code to every page on your site.

 

The reasons for the recent change has to do with tracking technology changes on the Safari browser. The upcoming General Data Protection Regulation in the EU is also contributing to changes in visitor tracking.

If you’re curious about the new tracking code, or the changes, check out our recent blog post. We cover these changes and the conversion tracking options extensively in this post – Conversion Linker and First-Party Conversion Tracking in Google AdWords.

Step #6 – Add an event snippet to your conversion page

Your event snippet is another piece of code you need to have in place to track conversions.

You can choose to have your event snippet trigger when you conversion page loads. Or you can have it fire as the result of a button click. This snippet of code is local, meaning it only needs to be embedded on your conversion page.

You must put both the global and local code on your site for the native Google AdWords conversion tracking to work!

If you don’t want to deal with adding a bunch of new code to your website, there is an alternative.

Importing Goals from Google Analytics

If you go back to your conversion tracking setup screen, you’ll notice a tab labeled “Import.”

This option allows you to import conversions into your AdWords account from other platforms.

This tab is where you set up goal imports from Google Analytics. You can import transactions, opt-ins, and other goals right into AdWords from your Google Analytics account.

Importing conversions from Google Analytics is a quick and easy solution.

But, make sure you don’t double up your conversions.

You need to track your conversions using either the AdWords code or the Google Analytics code. Tracking conversions with both sets of code can double up your conversion data.

The bottom line is, choose an option and make sure you track your conversions.

Because…

Tracking conversions = accountability

You might have inferred from this post that I don’t have a whole lot of faith in Google to support AdWords users.

It’s true that I am skeptical of Google. But I still believe Google genuinely wants you to succeed as an advertiser.

That said, they have $110 billion reasons to think they are already doing their job. Advertisers and corporations vote with their dollars. Google is raking in record earnings.

I can rant all I want about how Google might mislead new advertisers.

But the reality is this…

The market says the way Google is running AdWords works.

I subscribe to the notion that AdWords is a blank canvas in a free market.

Google is giving you the opportunity to sink or swim. Those that learn how to swim thrive. They become adept at using the largest and most sophisticated lead generation platform on the planet.

Those that go into AdWords without training or awareness, they usually sink. Then they conclude the platform doesn’t work. Keep in mind, the market says otherwise.

Google’s not going take responsibility for protecting your advertising investment.

Figuring out the AdWords system is up to you!

If you need help navigating the AdWords platform join PPC Mastery Course. You can get started with the Course for free. And you can immediately begin learning Adwords strategies and tips. This course is a step-by-step guide on how to start winning conversion from Google AdWords.

If you have questions about Google AdWords conversion tracking, post a comment below. And if you have questions about PPC Mastery Course, email me at support@ppccouse.com.

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This post and video was episode 51 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.

A saw, a hammer, and a keyword tracker; What do these three things have in common?

They are all tools.

Now, if you work on AdWords accounts, you probably don’t bring your power tools to the office. But, if you built houses for a living, you would.

Just like a builder and their power tools, AdWords managers need to bring their best tools to work with them.

Tools can help us save time and increase our efficiency.

With good fundamentals and the right strategies in place, PPC tools can help us scale our results.

Today I’m sharing my 10 favorite PPC tools with you. Check out my list below, and pack as many of these tools as you can into your PPC toolbox.

Here’s our list of Top 10 PPC Tools.

#10 Adalysis

Want to automate your ad testing? Use Adalysis. Ad rotation and testing is key to good PPC performance. Turning off poor performing ads and doubling down on ads that convert is one of the best ways to increase your efficiency.

Ad testing takes daily management and statistical analysis.  Adalysis tracks, measures, and optimizes your ad selection, allowing you to automate ad copy testing.

#9 Scrape Box

Scrape Box is an old school keyword tool, but it’s still one of the best! This is a desktop application that scrapes search engines and websites for keyword data. You can use Scrape Box to generate 100’s to 1,000’s of potential keyword ideas for your ads.

The best part? Because Scrapebox is a desktop app, it’s a lot harder to get shut down by Google for harvesting the web.

#8 Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) is a must-use AdWords tool. The AdWords interface is great at showing you cost and click data.  But how will you know what visitors do on your landing pages?  That’s where Google Analytics comes into the picture.

Also, integrating GA with AdWords allows you to push conversion tracking, remarketing and cost data back and forth between both interfaces.

GA has eleven reports and counting that are specific to AdWords.

Think of Google Analytics as the jelly in your AdWords peanut butter.

Need help connecting your AdWords account to Google Analytics? Check out our post on conversion linker to learn more about linking AdWords to GA.

#7 KeywordTool.io

Keyword Tool uses Google’s autosuggest to generate 100’s of variations of your target keyword. You can use keyword tool to create comprehensive lists of long tail keywords quickly. This tool is also great for creating negative keyword lists.

#6 SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the most elite all-in-one competitive research tools. This tool allows you to analyze which keywords your competition is targeting. You can also see how much your competition is spending on ads.

SEMrush is the gold standard in digital marketing for competitive keyword research.

#5 AdWords Scripts

AdWord Scripts are the ultimate automation tool. Almost every repetitive task you do in AdWords can be automated using scripts.

You can write scripts to manage your bids, or adjust ad rotation based on conversions.  Essentially, you can use scripts to automate just about any strategy or process that has a set of rules.

Using scripts is one of the bests ways to maximize efficiency in large accounts.

#4 Zapier

Zapier isn’t really an AdWords tool. In fact, it doesn’t even integrate with AdWords. But it’s such a effective tool it still makes our list.

Zapier connects 1,100+ apps to each other. Connecting your tools to each other saves you from wasting time on repetitive file transfers and manual data uploads.

 

You can use Zapier to move your AdWords lead data from a Google Sheet to your CRM. Or you can set up automation to email your leads to clients or co-workers. Zapier can also send you Slack notifications from your sales interface or shopping cart.

Simply put, Zapier can automate almost everything you need to do outside of AdWords.

#3 Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner (GKP) gives you keyword data direct from Google.

Keyword Planner provides search volume, CPC data, and keyword suggestions.

Keyword Planner isn’t the only keyword suggestions tool out there. In fact, it often recommends the most broad/highly trafficked keywords instead of the niche opportunities you can find in Scrapebox and Keywordtool.io. But keep in mind, Google has more advertising data than any other platform. Keyword Planner allows you to tap directly into this data, even if the numbers change as you start to run your own ads.

Killer feature: Keyword Planner allows you to import keywords into your advertising campaigns seamlessly.

#2 Adwords Editor

Adwords Editor is my favorite PPC tool of all time. It has the capability to serve as the central nervous system of all your ad campaigns.

The features inside AdWords Editor allow you to work faster and more efficiently than you can in the AdWords interface.

Did you read our post on creating single keyword ad groups? If you did, then you saw how quickly you can build up an account using AdWords Editor.

Also, AdWords Editor is a desktop application. You can do all the work on your campaigns offline. Then you can import your changes all at once. This saves you from waiting for your browser to load every time you make an edit.

#1 Your Brain

No, this isn’t a cop-out! We didn’t run out of tools to review. We started this post by stating that tools are great if you know your AdWords fundamentals. And that’s the truth!

If your AdWords campaigns are on target, tools will help you work faster and gain efficiency.

But, if you haven’t mastered the fundamentals, tools will only speed up and automate your losses.

The most important part of success in AdWords is strategy. Strategy involves creative thinking. It also involves adding context to your data and your competitive research.

Computers aren’t smarter than us yet.  Maybe in another 10 to 20 years computers will be better at AdWords. But, as of today, your brain is the most powerful AdWords tool.

Look for opportunities where your AdWords strategy is succeeding. Then use tools scale your results in those areas.

Want to amplify your AdWords brainpower?

Join PPC Mastery Course. You can get started for Free by signing up for our Mini-Course. The Mini-Course features a full lesson on using keyword and competitive analysis tools.

What are your favorite PPC Tools?

That’s our PPC Tools Top Ten List. What are your favorite PPC Tools? Leave a comment below about your favorite PPC tool.

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This post and video was episode 44 in our 90 Day Challenge digital marketing series.

To get access to all 90 videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube will send our subscribers weekly emails about all the videos we published over the past week.

Want to know about each video and post as soon as it comes out? Sign up for 90 day challenge email newsletter. The newsletter will be the best way to make sure you don’t miss any of the content.