Category: Kate Trgovac

By Kate Trgovac

Editor's Note: This "Inside the Marketers' Studio" post, where we ask savvy marketers for their take on the burning marketing questions of the day, is inspired by a panel on quality scores for paid search ads at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference.

Getting good insight and information about the quality scores that are assigned to keywords used in paid search campaigns can be difficult for the uninitiated. I asked a couple of experts in this field for their thoughts about this key component of Paid Search campaigns and to answer the following questions:

1. What mistake do you see marketers making most often as it relates to paid search?
2. What is the top tip you can offer marketers who want to optimize their paid search ads?
3. What are your top 2 or 3 favourite resources/tools/blogs for marketers who want to be more effective at search marketing?

They've shared their experiences and insights below – we'd be delighted if you shared YOUR answers in the comments!

First, though, I thought we should get clear on what a quality score is and why it matters.

Editor's note: this was originally a description of Quality Score from Rob Jones at Search Engine Watch (thanks, Rob!), but we just received a definition and explanation of Quality Score from the moderator of the panel – Anne Kennedy.

Anne Kennedy is the Managing Partner of Beyond Ink

Quality score is an algorithm Google uses to determine rank AdWords listings, in general by which ones are likely to produce revenue; this of course from Google’s point of view, is the purpose of AdWords. Quality score has two main factors, the maximum bid an advertiser makes, combined with the potential for the ad to draw clicks, which Google determines with complex predictive calculations. 
 
Relevance is as key a factor in this as it is in organic search success. AdWords listings as well as landing pages should contain the same keywords as searchers’ search phrases. Quality score now means that while it is easy to set up a campaign in Google, creating ads that gain successful exposure on Google SERPS requires skill and diligence, especially for new entries to a market.
 
To be sure, quality score has eliminated a lot of trashy bidding on any old keyword, and improved searcher experience. At the same time it has served to make sure precious space in increasingly competitive first-page paid results produces revenue for Google.
 
Kind of like organic with money, you could say quality score introduced art and science to what once was a pretty straightforward advertising process.

Andrew Goodman

Andrew Goodman is on the SES Advisory Board and is Principal, Page Zero Media

1. What mistake do you see marketers making most often as it relates to paid search?

Tough question! I'm currently working on a guide to the top 21 mistakes, actually.

In the past, I would have said that people tend to control their spend with the overall budgeting, such as the daily budget set at the campaign level. But that should be done by other means, such as appropriate bids. Low daily budgets combined with high bids and high ad positions result in poor ROI *and* limited delivery during the day.

Equal time must go to vastly underestimating the power of ad creative in driving performance. Keywords and account size/complexity get a lot of ink today. Not enough people are fascinated by the amazing triggers we have at our disposal in terms of direct response. Primarily, ad copy.

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By Kate Trgovac

Editor's Note: This "Inside the Marketers' Studio" post, where we ask savvy marketers for their take on the burning marketing questions of the day, is inspired by a panel on comprehensive visibility challenges at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference.

I often hear
questions about search and multiple media indexing – how do we show up
in YouTube, does Twitter show up in search results, how can we get our
product images to be indexed, etc. With search engines now indexing
several forms of content, marketers need to understand how to get ALL
of their content indexed.  I asked folks from the leading search
engines to share some insights into this emerging and important aspect
of SEO and answer the following questions:

1. As a result of blended search results, what do you think is the most pressing change that  marketers will have to make?
2. For your particular search engine, what is  the top tip you can offer marketers who want to optimize for your engine?
3. What  are your top 2 or 3 favourite resources/tools/blogs for marketers who want to  be more effective at search marketing?

They've shared their experiences and insights below – we'd be delighted if you shared YOUR answers in the comments!

First, we asked moderator Mark Grehan for the definition of "universal and blended search" that he used to launch the discussion:

Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board &  Global KDM Officer Acronym Media

Google’s
(and other search engines)  move to blended results is a natural
progression to provide a much richer end user experience. And as Google
changes to provide the most relevant results from a number of sources,
so the search marketing industry must change with it. Now, we see a
move away from the solid bedrock process of SEO to a newer process of
digital asset optimization (DAO). This allows us to provide our clients
with numerous different ways of connecting with their audience via
everything from a pdf document to video as well as other channels such
as news, finance and blog results. It’s more about visibility than it
is about ranking static web pages.

Bill Tighe, Agency Business Development AE, Google Canada

1. As a result of blended search results, what do you think is the most pressing change that marketers will have to make?

With the inclusion of local data, video, images etc it becomes more and
more important to participate in your key search result pages.  Video
search alone is fast becoming a very large part of how users are
searching, and you want to ensure that your video is either uploaded or
created in response to this.  Name and describe your video accurately
with "search" results in mind and upload it to YouTube.  You may or may
not be featured in blended search results but at least you are active
and participating in a medium that is growing very very quickly.  The
same applies to your local data – ensure that you are represented and
have updated the most recent and accurate data of where you are locally
(https://www.google.com/local/add/).  "Images" are harder to
participate in but it is something that many site and business owners
overlook – enrich your site with valuable images that contribute
information and context to your site or business (a picture of your
store front, products, logo etc).

Always a good idea to keep a firm eye on your competitive and most
lucrative search result pages and keep things active, fresh and
relevant.  This has always applied to your text ads but as consumers
evolve and expect more – so does Google (and its algorithm) and so
should you.

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