Not Your Father’s AdWords: The New Google Ad Formats

You’re very welcome, Andy! And thanks for saying so! I’m so glad to know when something on the blog is being found useful. :)

Hi Gyi,

There was nothing mentioned at this session or around the conference (from what I heard, anyway) about changes to Quality Score calculations. So, I asked one of our PPC analysts, James, what he thought might be at play here. The following is his response:

Without looking at this account and the way it is set-up it would be difficult to see if there are other factors affecting the QS. They can make an assessment of each individual keywords by hovering their mouse over the over the “talk bubble” next to each keyword in Adwords. If there are no problems under the QS section of the info, then all they can do is wait. They have to remember that it takes time to build a quality house, but it can be destroyed in an instant.

Even when it seems relevant to us, Google may see relevancy differently. As an example you can have a good (7-10) QS for “red shoes” but have a poor (2-4) QS for “red shoe” at the same time. You must optimize your Adwords for each keyword or pause the keyword that does not perform well. Also, the history of poor performing keywords tends to stay with you even it is paused. It becomes a part of the account history. Content history has no relevance to QS and will not affect it any way.

There is another factor that they may have no control over. Google actually takes the overall history of a keyword with Adwords into account when assessing a keyword. This is the history that this specific advertiser had no control over at all. Say that the keyword is “red shoes”, and the advertiser has had good success with “red shoes”, but historically all other advertisers had horrible results with “red shoes” then Google will penalize that keyword’s QS no matter who’s account it goes into. The penalty might not be huge, but it may be enough to see a difference. Over time, as more good data is produced for that keyword, the overall QS will improve. It just takes time.

To answer the original question, “any changes to the QS algo?” Not that I have heard, but Google is not known to make quick announcement when it comes to their algorithms. The factors above or testing out new strategies are what should be looked at until they make an announcement of change.

James said he’d be happy to answer any other questions, as well. You can find him on Twitter, @jckimPPC, or I can give you his e-mail if you’re interested. Hope that helps!

Do Sitelinks only pop up on ads displaying for a company’s name?

If not, it creates a competitive advantage for the company that holds the #1 position on certain words.

If it’s only for the company name, then I’m creating a company that resells my product, and the company name will be whatever my most effective keyword is.

Heck, I might create a few spin-off companies. ;)

(Thinking out loud, but I’d love to get Kate and Virginia’s thoughts)

Hey Roger,

No, from what I understand, they show for any ad your account is running if you have them. I still don’t see the option under all my accounts so I am assuming that it’s still in beta. Check out this SEL post:
http://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-sitelinks-now-available-for-some-advertisers-29075

It’s only for “high quality” accounts. But there is nothing about it just being for company names. So no … that tactic wouldn’t work. And if I know AdWords well enough by now, that would even get you banned if they were able to connect the accounts. That’s what has gotten tons of affiliates banned recently.

I think the rep was just using a company name search as an example, but it was a bad one in my opinion. In the comments of this PPC hero post, Matt Umbro has an awesome example using Nike of a good use of AdWords sitelinks.
http://www.ppchero.com/google%E2%80%99s-new-ad-sitelinks-how-you-can-get-them-for-your-account/

Hope that clarifies things. :)

Kate – thanks for the links!

That makes total sense, and I think that SiteLinks are definitely a benefit for eligible advertisers. These new formats really favor the big guys – that can be a little discouraging to the SMBs trying to compete in the same space… not to mention that these formats take up more space on the actual page.

I’ve had plenty of experience competing with affiliates, and I think in a lot of cases, being banned is not something they always concern themselves with much.

It will be interesting to see how Google handles organic Sitelinks going forward if this proves to be an effective format.

Virginia – I always start thinking of how things can be exploited when these things roll out. More often than not, they are things that have already been addressed, but it doesn’t hurt to look at it from that angle in anticipation of how competitors or affiliates might use it.

Kate,

The option to use sitelinks is available to all advertisers and will be offered if you qualify by the number of conversions in your history for your campaign as well as position of the keywords. The sitelinks are set at the campaign level, so it will appear with ads in that campaign.

Since the sitelinks only appear when you are positioned above the organic listing if you want to use sitelinks, you will have to bid for positions 1-3, with a leaning towards positions 1. Some seem to think that you have to be in position 1 only, but I have noticed the sitelinks appearing in position 2 and 3 as long as they were above the organic listings.

Also, you can list up to 10 sitelinks, but only 4 will show with the ad. So far I haven’t seen any of my 5-10 listings appearing in my tests, so you may want to list your top 4 preferences first.

Hope this helps.

Roger, now that’s clever! ;)

Hi Kate! From what I know, it’s pretty tough to get organic Sitelinks. And if you can get a searcher right to the page they’re most likely to convert, seems like a good thing. The Ad Sitelinks only display on *navigational searches*, so it seems like not a bad thing to get them where they’re trying to go with a navigational search. Oh, and as for paying for an ad where the searcher already knows where they’re going, isn’t it similar to buying an ad for your brand name even though your organic result is number one? A safe search practice that insures, somehow, they’ll get to you.