1. Understanding and Improving AdWords Quality Score Larry Kim, Founder, CTO May 18, 2011

2. If you’ve ever felt that… You’re spending too much on PPC Your competitors seem to be beating you in PPC You’re dissatisfied with your ROI with PPC You’re overwhelmed by Quality Score All of the Above!! Improving your AdWords Quality Score can help improve all of the above! Should you care about Quality Score? 2

3. The Purpose of Quality Score What AdWords Quality Score Means to You How Quality Score is Calculated Example: How Quality Score Impacts Impressions, Ad Position and Cost-Per-Click How to Improve your Quality Score 3 Common Quality Score Myths! Q & A Today’s Agenda 3

4. But First, Let me to Introduce Myself 4 I’ve been doing PPC & SEO for 10 Years! Both In-house and as a consultant Worked for companies like Adobe, Progress Software, Altova 3 Years ago, I started WordStream! Today we’re an industry-leading provider of a PPC Management Platform and Keyword Research Tools We help people get their website found on the internet!

5. The Purpose of Quality Score 5 It’s a measure of Relevancy Insures customers find what they’re looking for Gives advertisers a reward for creating relevant ads Provides search engines with a sustainable business model Quality Score is a set of algorithms that enable this 3-way synergy.

6. How Quality Score is Calculated (in Detail) for Google Search The factors that determine Quality Score (according to Google) are: Click Through Rate Ad Text Relevancy Landing Page Relevancy “Other Factors” In a nutshell, a high-quality ad is one that Is relevant to the search query Accurately describes the product Is relevant to it’s landing page Google gives you a score from 1-10 for each keyword Lets take a look at these components in detail. 6

7. Historical Click-through Rate (CTR) Click Through Rate is the most significant component of Quality Score Relevant ads get more clicks Google uses the “wisdom of the crowds” to infer relevancy Google considers the CTR of your ads and keywords, as well as your campaign and account, and even other competitor accounts Google normalizes Click Through Rate by ad position Low relevancy ads can’t buy themselves a high CTR So the key to Quality Score is getting high click-through rates! There are published best-practices from Google that tend to produce higher CTR’s 7

8. Keyword, Ad Text & Landing Page Relevance Factors The Relevance of the Keyword to the ads in it’s ad group Keywords in your ad group must be relevant to your ads Keywords in your ad group should be repeated in your ad text Relevance of the keyword and matched ad to the search query The search query that a customer searches for must be relevant to the keywords in your ad group and the ad itself Landing Page Factors Relevancy: The landing page should be relevant to the keywords and ad text Content: The website should feature unique content relevant to your ad, have a privacy policy, avoid pop-ups, and load quickly. “Other Factors” Google’s black box - they don’t tell us anything about this… 8

9. The Importance of Quality Score Quality Score affects: Impressions Ad Position Cost-Per-Click It indirectly affects conversions as well We’ve talked about what Quality Score is and how it’s calculated… Let’s do a detailed example to show exactly how Quality Score impacts these important metrics! 9

10. How Quality Score Affects Impressions Google would rather display no ads at all than display poor quality score ads. Quality Score plays a role in determining if a keyword is relevant enough to enter an ad auction Higher Quality Score = More Impressions & Exposure Minimum First Page Bid is the also inversely proportional to your Quality Score, which means even more Impressions A high Quality Score makes your ads eligible for being displayed above the search results! 10

11. How Quality Score Affects Ad Rank & Actual Cost Per Click 11 An Example Calculation of Ad Rank and Actual CPC:

12. WordStream - Summary 12

14. Group together closely related keywords

15. Write relevant text ads and destination pages

17. Shocking Quality Score Truths Revealed Plus tips on how to overcome these Top 3 Quality Score issues... 3Popular Quality Score Misconceptions! 15

18. History of keywords, ad texts and landing pages is preserved when the account is restructured Visible history is reset History to calculate Quality Score is preserved Best Practice: Continuously experiment with improved account structure You can always go back if it wasn’t a success! “A few bad days of test performance will not ruin your Quality Scores. In order to optimize your client’s accounts, we encourage you to run targeted tests on your keywords, ad texts and bids” – Google AdWords Agency Blog 1) Myth: Quality Score is Lost During An Optimization 16

20. Quality Score is normalized to compensate for differences in performance for ads in different positions An ad in a higher position is predisposed to get a better CTR An ad above the search results is predisposed to get a better CTR A low quality ad can’t buy its way into a top position! 3) Myth: Raising Bids Raises Quality Score 18 e.g. expect 20% CTR e.g. expect 2% CTR

21. Summary: Understanding and Improving AdWords Quality Score 19 Quality Score is an objective measurement of the quality of an advertiser’s keywords. It’s a score from 1-10. Higher is better. Quality Score influences your impressions, minimum first page bid, ad rank, and your cost per click, and indirectly, your conversion rates These factors are critical for realizing ROI Take Action – Perform Account Optimizations that Raise Click Through Rate Selecting specific keywords Matching them up with Relevant Ads & Landing Pages! WordStream for PPC automates these and other PPC management tasks.

22. Your Questions 20 Thank you for attending WordStream’s webinar on Understanding and Improving Quality Score. Don’t forget to sign up for our Free Quality Score Toolkit: www.wordstream.com/qstk-webinar Or talk to one of our AdWords Certified Professionals about optimizing your account for Quality Score: www.wordstream.com/assessment-webinar Or contact me directly: lkim@wordstream.com http://twitter.com/larrykim