Google Adwords Testing: DKI Vs Quality Score?

[italian_job]

Hello All,

I mainly use Adwords for my demand generation initiatives.

I remember some time ago Perry Marshall (PPC Gudu) said that in his opinion using the Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) command can hurt one's adword quality score.

I have built a mini site (13 pages) following all google's landing page quality score and I was very surprised to see that 2 of my targeted keywords were actually judged as "poor quality" after only 10 days of putting my adwords ad live.

Since I always build my adwords ads with DKI, I now suspect that DKI (while might increase my CTR), it actually hurted my quality score.

What do you guys think?

Thanks for your reply

PS: I understand this topic might be relevant only to advanced PPC advertisers, so if you are not familiar with DKI, just google "dynamic keyword insertion" and you will understand what I mean.

[blackhatontherocks]

Would you might consider adding some data to your post?

Poor Quality can be based on CTR, your adgroup-structure, average position, and a number of other variables. Best add an average example for your good performing ads, too.

Considering you mentioned this is more of an advanced topic, I think it's safe to assume that you won't bore anyone to death by a bunch of numbers ;)

Cheers,
Bhotr

PS: I don't use DKI and often manage to get a great or equal rating (did you see that google now lists x/10 ratings for the qs? Very cool stuff).

[italian_job]

hello

sure, no probs in sharing some data re this very specific campaign, where I am the owner of the product (no affiliate marketing in this case, even though obviously I did start my testing as an affiliate for another publisher).

I have built a very targeted minisite which is "SEO" optimized for just 3 keywords that have proven profitable (H1 tag, keyword tag, image tag, business contact pages, privacy policy, sitemap, content articles...everything is in order). I am already in page 1 in yahoo for my main keyword, but not in a decent page for google and msn (yet)


I am running the ads on both search, content and placements I chose. Google tech support has confirmed me that running the 3 tactics on the same ad group (which obviously perform very different CTRs, as I will explain below, does not hurt my overall ad positioning). I will post here my september to date stats. The ad copy does contain Dynamic keyword insertion.

1) SEARCH: overall CTR 4.46% (with single keywords with CTRs of up to 33%)

up until yesterday I kept increasing the minimum bid on my best keywords, because they were judged by google as "poor" in term of quality score.

Yesterday I had to increase the minimum bid cause some of my best keywords were rated as "poor' quality score. Today those very same keywords are "OK" (with a quality score of "5"). When I created the ad, I was bidding $0.11, now I am bidding $0.51 (but the actual cost is only $0.17, so it is not so bad at all, since my keywords convert into sales at a 1:85 ratio and my profit is $50 per sale)

Keyword relevance, landing page and landing page load time are all rated "no problems found", but the quality score of my top keyword is just "5", as said above.

2) CONTENT CTR 0.15%

The low CTR as you know it is not an issue on the content network

3) PLACEMENT I targeted CTR 0.98%

same comment as per the content network


In term of quantity of clicks generated by the 3 tactics, this is what I have september to date:

search: 275
content:446
placement:548


I have other online businesses where my sites are considered as an authority site: there in fact, I have adwords ads that have been running for 2 years, with a quality score of GREAT...and with dynamic keyword insertion ads!

I guess Google really loves 50+ pages websites...

Would appreciate your comments.

ciao!

Dan