AdWords Quality Score – Not all CTR is created equal

It’s very clear that CTR is the dominant factor when Google is deciding the adwords quality score. Therefore it’s key to frequently monitor and optimise the CTR. If you’re using the standard Adwords interface, you are however treated to a blended CTR column that doesn’t provide much granular insights.

Google search marketing campaigns can run on either Google or the Search Network (search partners). In addition there are the display properties on the Google Content Network. Since these three networks behave very differently, Google is separating the CTR data to only impact the individual networks. In short, Google CTR only impacts Google listings, Search Network CTR only impacts Search Network listings, and Content Network CTR only impacts Content Network performance.

Regardless, when navigating Adwords, from a search perspective, you are presented with the total CTR from both Google and the Search Network. E.g. if you are looking at keyword level performance, this will be the blended CTR. As we can see below (by zooming in at an Adgroup level from the network tab), they are performing very differently so the blended CTR is not of that much use as an indication of performance for optimisation.

There are two workarounds for this problem:

• Create separate campaigns for Google and Search network
• Pull a bespoke keyword report

While the first option might seem like a good solution for many scenarios, if this is not an option, here’s how to pull a report to the same effect:

1. Create a new keyword level report
2. Tick the boxes for “ad distribution: with search partners”

The resulting report will contain the keyword phrase twice, one for Google and another for the Search Network.

Note, while analysing a couple of reports like this I still haven’t encountered any keywords that are actually having different quality score’s (as presented on the 1-10 scale) between Google and Search Network. What are you findings?

Related posts:

1. High Quality Score Adverts Requires Creativity
2. The Biggest Google Quality Score Secret Revealed – There is no Secret!
3. SES London – Affiliate Marketing Doesn’t Equal Search
4. Google AdWords PPC Personalisation through Session-Based Broadmatch
5. Should you take the Google Adwords and Analytics Exams?

Tagged as: adwords, ppc