AdWords Account Management – Page 23 – McCord Web Services The Web Authority

December 11, 2017December 8, 2017

Depressed Activity in AdWords – What to Do First

Nancy McCord a Google Partner and Bing Partner

Are you seeing depressed activity in AdWords? What should you do first to try to turn an AdWords account around?

As a professional AdWords manager and Google Partner, I troubleshoot AdWords accounts all the time. This December has been particularly troublesome for many businesses in a diverse set of sectors. Many are experienced depressed activity in AdWords accounts.

Here’s what I do to try to move an account back to profitability when activity has started to slide.

Check the bidding algorithm.
If you are using Maximum Clicks move to eCPC bidding. Set your ad group bid to the lowest common denominator of first page bids, then run a filter to show the keywords that are below the first page bid. Select all the words and in bulk choose the highest bid you want to use and then in the drop down for change the CPC bid, select bid to first page and cap the amount with your desired figure.

Check your daily budget.
If your bid has been raised make sure you have a high enough budget to afford to get clicks during the day. I will routinely do budget sharing between account campaigns. I will sometimes break an account into one to three budget shares to assure that areas that need clicks are getting them.

Review that you are using eMax Clicks or eCPC bidding.
When possible, but that does not mean always, let Google enhance your bid to get better results. Understand that Google does not have a specific bid cap anymore when using the e component to bidding. I will weekly look at the max bid for each keyword in the account to assure that I am not spending more than I would have wanted to by turning on that feature.

Start trimming your keyword list.
When activity is depressed look to see if your clicks have come in on broad match keywords. Check the actual search queries that triggered the ad and then decide if you want to pause broad match keywords due to being too untargeted or if you need to add some if you are only using exact match and phrase match terms.

AdWords accounts are exciting and challenging to manage. Knowing what to do when activity is depressed in an account is crucial to keeping happy clients.

I invite you to find out more about our Google AdWords Manager Services and to review our program pricing.

November 29, 2017November 24, 2017

AdWords: Understanding Quality Score

We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing, Mobile, and Display. — We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing,, Mobile, and Display.

AdWords ad serving is complicated by the Quality Score. Quality Score is a coefficient that AdWords does not reveal to you in full in your Account, but it drives your costs and ad placement on the search results page.

Click Through Rate, ad relevance, ad text, landing page, website content, account history, your bid, and extensions used all impact your keywords Quality Score.

The Quality Score of each keyword will, over time, factor into your ad’s position on the page and is recalculated each time your ad has the opportunity to show.

In your account you can see your Quality Score by keyword, your first page, above search results page, and top of page bid. Additionally you can see your website’s Quality Score by mousing over the bubble next to each keyword.

The key is to try to get the highest (out of 10) Quality Score you can over time. Every new account will start out with a keyword Quality Score of 5. Over time some keywords will drop as low as 1 and some as high as 10. Google recommends pausing keywords with a low Quality Score as it will typically not serve ads for these keywords no matter what your bid.

What is even more confusing for AdWords newbies is that a website gets a Quality Score, landing pages get a Quality Score, and keywords get a Quality Score. AdWords then uses all these figures as part of a very complex algorithm tied to your bid and extension, and user’s location to determine when and where you ad will appear.

If you are struggling with a low Quality Score, you may need professional help. In some cases a new AdWords account should be created and an old one closed due to a very poor keyword and Quality Score history which negatively impacts ad servicing.

I invite you to visit our website to find out more how we can help you with AdWords today.

November 27, 2017November 24, 2017

AdWords: Understanding the First Page Bid

AdWords first page bid is determined by your Quality Score. If you have a low Quality Score, your bid to be on the first page of search results will be high.

AdWords makes every effort to force you into good account management techniques. One of its most important measures of account health is the Click Through Rate (CTR) which is Google’s measure of account health. Couple that together with Quality Score (of which CTR is one important factor) and Google determines how much your personal account will pay to show ads on the first page of search results by keyword.

Want your ads to appear above the organic results on the first page? Be prepared to may sometimes as much as 1/3 to 1/2 more of your fist page bid to get above the organic results. And then you can get there, only if your bid and Quality Score are high enough – by Google’s standards.

AdWords will show you in your account the first page bid, bid to appear at the top of the first page and top position bid. This will allow you to identify just where you want your ad to be placed and gives you metrics for improvement of your Quality Score and relevance over time.

More often than you would think, clients will think that they can pay their way to the top of the search results page. Think again! The AdWords Quality Score of each keywords in an account is a unique dollar figure to appear in these important positions. and changes at each and every keyword auction when your ad has the availability to appear.

It is very hard for new accounts to appear at the top of the page in part as their Quality Score starts out by default at a 5 out of 10. This pushes the top of page and above organic results bids high. Typically a keywords with a Quality Score of 10 or 9 will see lower bids for these positions, but the Quality Score is established from account history over time, tied to ad relevance, and the keyword’s CTR.

For new accounts I recommend bidding to page one and then developing account history and make sure to use conversion tracking. Over time, I will start to boost to above the organic results, when financially possible, keywords that convert for an account.

AdWords first page bids are all about account history and Quality Score. If you need an experienced AdWords Manager on your side to position your program for visibility, I encourage you to check out our AdWords Management Services.

November 22, 2017November 17, 2017

The New AdWords Interface – I Hate It!

The new AdWords interface – I have used it long enough to hate it. Hate is a pretty strong word, so maybe really, really dislike it is better.

AdWords flagged my account with a note that early next year it is forcing all clients and account managers into the new interface. Bummer!

Couched as faster and better, the new interface requires you to have a computer screen now wider than 23″ diagonally measured computer screen. My screen is 23 inches across and I still have to scroll to the right to see all my columns even with the left navigation panel shrunk.

Faster, smashter – it is not, I am spending way more time finding things even though I have had training in two seminars and routinely use the interface for accounts.

Have you tried to set up your custom columns yet for Call Rail tracking or other things you thing you want to know about as a conversion, well first you have to dig to find out what Google has categorized that as, is it source, conversion or other? Find that first, and then try to add the column – not intuitive at all. Want to see graphs your way, noooo, you have to now have red and dotted lines with no key as to what is what. Tried to look and compare the last 14 days fast – well you have to set up that date range each time, then you’ll really have to scroll right to see your info.

Clearly I am not happy. I do not see this as a good change. There is one thing I do like, I do feel that the account recommendations are helpful, and I have yet to figure out how to see the bid adjustments yet. I personally find the interface so incredible complex that it will drive more customers to me as they will simply no longer be able to do anything in AdWords themselves.

AdWords, please get more training out for managers and fix this issue of the screen not sizing properly. I do not feel I should have to go with a double monitor spread to use AdWords or use a magnifying glass to read text on the page.