I got a panicked call from a client, who was worried about the most recent changes on Google Adwords. Google is now using the same "Quality Score" criteria for content listings. They have been using the Quality Score on search listings for several months. You can read about the changes
here .
So, back to my panicked client. He saw a big drop in his volume on some of his campaigns yesterday and was concerned. Should you panic too? The answer is that it depends. If over the last few months, you've seen a big increase in your number of inactive words on search and therefore, increase in minimum bids, then you can expect the same for content listings. While Google won't tell you which words are "inactive" on search, as there is still no minimum bid, if you see volume go down, you'll need to increase your bids.
What's going on here with Google? Over the last year and half, they have been trying to ween themselves off of affiliate type advertisers and aribtragers. This is just the latest step. And other engines have been implementing similar "quality" guidelines. But all hope is not lost. If you are an affiliate advertiser, here are some things you can do:
- Make sure the landing page you are sending people to is as relevant as possible to the keywords you are buying. If you are sending users to your own landing page first, add content, meta tags, navigation and other elements that make the pages more relevant. The engines are increasingly trying to encourage PPC advertisers to have good quality pages/sites.
- Narrow your list of keywords to the most relevant. The days of 20,000 keyword campaigns is over.
- Keep in mind that what works for one category doesn't work for another. The engines have different "quality" criteria for different categories. So you may get affected by the recent changes in different ways for different campaigns/offers.
So, IS all hope lost? I don't think so. The smart affiliate advertisers have always adjusted to changes. These recent changes are just a bit more challenging than previous issues and may take a little more tender loving care to get things working again.
Until next time...
Doug Garfinkel
doug@hotrocketinc.com
Rocket Profit
