Vipul’s blog

In continuation to improve the quality of it’s text advertisement and make it more relevant and efficient, Google is adding another dimension to it’s famous attribute Quality Score.

It’s very critical from user point of view and very important for advertisers to know that Google will be introducing into the quality score component of your ad rank, the landing page load time i.e. the time taken for your landing page to load. If you have a slow landing page load time, your Google AdWords ads will cost your more or you could even see a sharp decrease in your ad position i.e. ad rank if corrective actions are not taken. So, be ready for it.

Google AdWords has started showing your landing page load time at keyword level in your Google AdWords keyword detail section. Here are the quick steps on how to see your landing page load details:

• Sign in to your Google AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com
• Go to Campaign Summary tab
• Click on any AdGroup
• Click the Keywords tab above the Ad Group Details table
• Take your mouse over the magnifying glass icon beside any keyword and then click Details and recommendations link to launch the Keyword Analysis page. You can also see an overview of your Quality Score and ad visibility by pointing your cursor over the icon.

At the time of this writing, Google has still not started using this for quality score. And it is showing you this data so that if your page load time is poor, you can take corrective action to speed things up and improve your quality score. Per reports, sometime in mid-June, the landing page load time score will start impacting your overall quality score and may cost you a lot of money. So be prepared and start monitoring your landing page load time.

Another important point to note, Google will also be looking at your demography before really assuming whether your page load time is poor! This is to make sure you don’t lose out because of slow connection in your location. Sounds trivial? But it’s a very important factor.

Google AdWords provides a very important tool in the form of Negative Keywords list to safeguard your marketing campaign from any unwanted impression and subsequent click. It allows you to define negative keywords both at campaign level as well as adgroup level and your ad will not be shown if any of the keywords in your negative keyword list appears in user query. Thus saving an advertiser from any unwanted visit and making it’s ad more relevant to user search.

It becomes more important if any of the keywords in the AdWords campaign are broad or phrase-matched. Having a proper negative keyword list results in following positives:

1. Your ad will not be shown for user searches that are not relevant. This results in your ad being shown for more relevant searches hence fewer click-throughs that do not convert to sales.
2. The overall CTR (click-through rate) will be higher because there will be fewer instances of user viewing the ad but not clicking as your ad is now more relevant to user search. The higher CTR will cause the ad to get a higher position without requiring a higher CPC (cost per click). Hence lesser CPC and increased ROI on your Google AdWords marketing campaign.

Let’s look at an example to make things more clear. Suppose a lead generation company in education space generates leads for students looking at options to study in UK. This education company’s Google AdWords campaign has an ad group with following broad-matched keywords:

• study uk
• uk study

This company uses couple of keyword generation tools to generate more keywords that are searched and contain the phrase uk study but may not be related to study in uk. For example, using the Google Keyword Tool yields following results for the keyword uk study:

• uk study information
• uk study visa
• uk study scholarships
• uk study loan

It’s unlikely to benefit the education services company that’s generating leads for students looking for ’study in uk’ options to display ad for user query “uk study loan” or “uk study visa”. Adding “visa”, “loan” to the AdWords campaign or adding “-visa”, “-loan” to the AdGroup will prevent the ad from being displayed for these user searches.

Include both the singular and plural forms of negative keywords as people often search using both. Adding the negative keywords should not be considered as one time activity rather list of negative keywords should evolve. Start with a list derived from a handful of keyword tools but add to the list over time. Web server log files are an ideal source for discovering new negative keywords. Gradually build up your list of negative keywords to avoid receiving traffic that will not convert.

Google Inc said on Wednesday it has introduced image ads for mobile phones, in a bid to extend beyond the computer-based Web market into the emerging market for advertising on phones.

In a statement on the Silicon Valley company’s Web site, the company said it had designed mobile images to look like standard graphical display ads for desktop computer Web pages, but made them smaller to fit on mobile phone screens.

The company said all mobile image ads are targeted according to the keywords users type into phones to search for information. The ads are priced on a cpc (cost-per-click model) basis, and must link to Web pages optimized to work on mobile phones.

Only one image ad is displayed on each mobile page, a move to that appears designed to limit clutter on small screens.

“For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good click-through rates,” Alexandra Kenin, a product marketing manager, for Google Mobile Ads said in a blog post on the company’s site.

Mobile image ads are available in 13 national markets: Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the United States, Google said.

Google has provided the advertisers and web site owners a very sound web analytics tool in the form of Google Analytics. Google Analytics provides with a great insight into your campaigns and also provides all the supporting data for fine-tuning and perfecting these campaigns.

So, make sure you don’t forget to track this data. There are lot of metrics provided by Google Analytics. And below are few important ones which should of interest for any one:

• Bounce Rate
• Avg. Time on Site
• Page Views
• Goal and
• Funnel Visualization

For advertisers who are using Analytics in tandem with their AdWords Account, the process for tracking data is very simple. Google has an auto-tagging feature which will automatically add all the Adwords data into Google Analytics. But make sure you have enabled auto-tagging.

Auto-tagging can be enabled from Account tab. Auto-tagging makes sure Analytics has all the Adword data i.e. Camapign, AdGroup, Ad, and even Keyword level data.

Do share your experience of Google Adwords and Google Analytics integration.