Posted by: Rosemary Dempsey, Senior Storyteller

Quality Score. Everybody knows it’s an important part of paid search programs run through Google AdWords and the content network. But how does Google calculate these scores, and why are they so important to our pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns?

According to Google, “A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query – that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad.” It’s important because it influences your keywords’ actual cost-per-clicks, determines if your keyword is a potential result for a user’s search query and even affects how high your ad ranks.

What’s the best way to improve your quality scores? Optimize your account! As Google recommends, your ad groups should have descriptive ad text relevant to each keyword in the group.

Visit Google’s AdWords Help section for more information about quality score and tips for optimizing your paid search programs.

Atlas Copco Construction Mining Technique USA was looking for a new channel to sell pre-owned water well drill rigs. They turned to us, 90octane, a Denver-based, conversion-driven marketing agency, for help.

90octane built a custom lead generation microsite to showcase the rigs, which typically carry six-figure price tags, and crafted an associated paid search marketing campaign to drive visitors to the site.

Joanna Canton, Atlas Copco marketing communications director, is pleased with the hundreds of highly qualified leads generated. For the paid search program, “The average cost-per-lead is $28, compared with hundreds of dollars apiece for leads from trade shows and print ads,” she noted.

Because the program has resulted in high-dollar sales, Atlas Copco CMT USA already has plans to expand it.

Read the full Atlas Copco paid search story from a February issue of BtoB Magazine.

Posted by: Shannon Denny, Project Manager

Google has recently launched a new feature for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising that inserts customized site links beneath the ads. At this time, this feature is readily available to PPC advertisers with high quality scores. Google allows advertisers to enter up to 10 sitelinks, and all sitelinks can point to different pages within the site. The higher the quality of the PPC ad, the more site links will be displayed. Below is an example of these sitelinks (highlighted in green) in action:

Sitelinks take up valuable real estate in the Google search results allowing advertisers to “own” the space which will likely lead to an increased click-through rate (CTR). As these links can be modified any time, it is a good idea to keep seasonality and new promotions in mind when planning them out.

Posted by: Leslie Norgren, Project Manager

Yahoo’s Vice President and General Manager of search marketing, David Pann, recently discussed shifts that the company is making to lower costs for paid search campaigns.  Some companies may be seeing PPC clicks discounted as much as 15% depending on the industry.  Pann said that Yahoo has been evaluating cost-per-acquisition numbers for advertisers and that they are now working to change the marketplace so that CPCs are priced “accordingly with the value they deliver to the advertisers.”

Although Yahoo is making swift innovations in search marketing, it may be too soon to determine the importance of their changing pricing structure for paid search.  StatCounter reports that Yahoo’s market share continued to decline in October falling to 8.91%, down from 9.4% in September and 10.5% in August.  With falling market share shifting paid search campaign budgets to Yahoo, to save a few pennies on the dollar may not currently be a wise marketing decision.  Only time will show if Yahoo’s PPC advancements will make a lasting impression on the industry as well as impact the pricing structure for Bing paid search campaigns.

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Marketing Coordinator

Google recently announced that it is making a major change to its organic search results algorithm. The update, expected to give Google the ability to cache pages more quickly and comprehensively, has been dubbed “Google Caffeine.” Caffeine will affect organic search in several ways, but here are three ways you might not have thought of that it will affect paid search:

1. Paid search may become more necessary to supplement your organic listings.  Changes in the organic listings including rank changes and index-size changes may mean that you’re not getting the organic visibility you’re used to seeing. Now would be a good time to begin watching organic results carefully and making up for any decline in traffic using paid search.
2. Paid search campaigns will need to become more nimble. With the changes in indexing speed brought about by Caffeine, being able to adjust paid search campaigns on the fly will become more and more important.
3. Geo-targeting will become more important.  With Caffeine, there seems to be less of an emphasis on news results and a greater emphasis on local results. Geo-targeting will ensure that your ads show up in precisely the right locations, rather than leaving it up to Google to guess if your ad is relevant to local searches.

Search algorithms will always change. Understanding the right mix between PPC and SEO is essential for maintaining search visibility.