B2B Google AdWord PPC Campaigns and Ad Quality Scores

Posted on 18. Aug, 2010 by Daryl Woods in Pay Per Click

Google AdWord Quality Scores

To keep this as simple as possible were going to only talk about PPC on Gooogle’s “Search Network” as the QS (Quality Score) metrics change depending on the ad type. As most of you may know, Google rates the “Quality” of your keywords on a scale from 0 to 10. Many factors weigh into the scoring (many of them Google doesn’t divulge) but in short there are four main areas that Google looks at; Click through rate, the ads keyword relevancy, the keyword relevancy of the landing page and the landing page load time. An entire book that can be written about Google’s QS but explaining the QS process in detail really isn’t the purpose of this blog post.

Is B2B really different than B2C?

The short answer here is a big YES! – Especially in the PPC world… Typically B2B ads compete with B2C ads for space, but the desired traffic is very different. Take for example a wholesaler of widgets and a widget retailer. The keywords used in both campaigns are going to be very similar and overlapping especially if the retailer or wholesaler or both are using “broad match” search terms (a subject for another day). So what is a wholesaler to do so he isn’t buying worthless retail traffic? One effective method is ‘pre-filtering’ or ‘prequalifying’ the clicks they receive by writing ads that drive only qualified traffic; which brings us to QS and B2B campaigns.

Should you chase QS in B2B Ad Campaigns?

On the surface the answer here again is a yes but (you knew it was coming didn’t you) not with abandon. Yes, a QS of 10 out of 10 means you’re going to be paying less per click than someone with a QS of 4….but how many worthless clicks are you paying for to get that high QS? Remember that one of the metrics Google looks at for determining your QS is the CTR (Click-through rate) so to achieve that high QS score, your ad will have to be clicked on a lot, not something a B2B company is necessarily looking for… a B2B must focus on ROI rather than the number of click-throughs or the QS. So using the prequalifying ad writing method will lower your QS score and raise your per-click costs but, if done correctly, will actually lower your overall marketing spend per lead (ROI). You can’t let your QS fall too low so keep an eye on it but keep a closer eye on the “bang per buck” your AdWords Pay-Per-Click campaign is delivering.

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