Many marketers labour under the misconception that bidding increasingly high amounts for AdWords positions, will give them the top spot in the "Sponsored Listings" of the Google search engine.
As some might expect, Google is a little smarter about the way it determines whose ads show first. The Google Quality Score is something every online marketer needs to understand.
How does Google determine the importance of a paid ad ?
These factors all affect your ad's position :
Cost Per Click - simply the amount you actually pay for the keywords/keyphrases chosen in your ad group. Note this is often not as high as your indicated "Max.bid", because AdWords works similar to an auction system, meaning you'll usually only pay 1 cent more than your next closest competitor's bid.
Click Through Ratio (CTR) - this is the percentage of people who see you ad that actually click it. Every time someone sees your ad, that's an 'impression'. When they click the link, that is, of course, a click, or visit to your site.
Quality Score - this is the area most novices misunderstand. Quality score is based on Google's interpretation of the following criteria :
The Quality Score perhaps best demonstrates why certain very large travel organisations (with seemingly bottomless pockets!) appear to have poor-performing AdWords campaigns.
At Unearthed we believe Google AdWords and similar programs have fantastic potential to complement your organic online marketing. Paid ad capaigns are seldom justified as the only online marketing an organisation undertakes, but they are particularly well-suited to short term initiatives, new products and special time-limited offers.
We believe many larger firms 'abusing' AdWords for exposure simply because they can afford to, are usually missing some far greater opportunities from a well-structured Online Marketing Strategy.
Please talk to one of our Online Marketing team if you would like further information (see the contact section).