In any case, it’s definitely THE starting point for understanding the components of Quality Score, especially the key role Click Through Rates play, and the VERY specific economic impact Quality Score has on bid price.  It’s something which EVERY AdWords advertiser should watch.  (Especially since it’s under 10 minutes!)

In my humble opinion, Quality Score is all about “Getting them there and keeping them there with relevant content”… which means (mathematically) a high Click Through Rate, a Long Time Spent on the Site, and a Low Bounce Rate.  What that means in Plain English, however, is that you simply have to know what your best prospects want, on an adgroup by adgroup level, if not down to the keyword.  What’s the best way to do that?  Join the hyper-responsive marketing club of course!

Things which Google themselves point out in the depth of their documentation…

Which have dramatic implications for how you manage the content network… it’s a real paradigm shift.  Without question, it’s the most valuable thing I’ve learned about Adwords this year, and it’ll only take you 15 minutes to go through.

Highly Recommended,

Glenn

Rocket Clicks PPC Management |    Beat the $20/mo Price Increase (2/26/10)

PS – The thematic shift Jered presents is entirely consistent with the focus of my hyper-responsive club.  Essentially, you need to start thinking THEMATICALLY, which requires you to more tightly define what your entire site is about than ever before.  In fact, one way of understanding Quality Score is a recognition that if you don’t take the time to clearly outline your exact place in the world of keyword conversations, Google will define it for you!

I’ve thought long and hard about the best way to define your space, then conquer it with focus and determination in Google (both Search and Content) and beyond.   This is NOT  a technique or a fad, but a set of principles you implement with a step by step over-my-shoulder system.

I’m implementing one last price raise on February 26st, jumping from $77 to $97.   So if you’ve been on the fence following me, consider this your limited opportunity to LOCK IN YOUR RATES FOREVER.  (Note: I never raise rates on active members ) Beat the $20/mo Price Increase (2/26/10)

Enjoy

Rocket Clicks |    Beat the $20/mo Glenn Club Price Increase (2/26/10) |  Coaching Priority List

But what about getting higher scores on keywords which are already performing for you?

What about moving from 6s and 7s to 9s and 10s?

And more importantly, how do you maximize your PROFITABLE IMPRESSIONS on keywords which are already performing well for you?

Other than Google, I think perhaps no one knows better than Rob Sieracki, recently promoted to Chief Operating Officer at Rocket Clicks.

If you’ve got even one keyword which runs profitably in AdWords, I guarantee you’re going to kiss me for putting this interview together. (No complaints about the beard please)

Enjoy!

Dr. Glenn

Glenn Club |   Coaching |  A to Z Product for Newbies |  Advanced Adwords Seminar

It goes something like this:

MARKETER:  ”I think Google’s become entirely too random and unfair with their Quality Score system, so I’m just going to focus on SEO”

GLENN: “OK, well, where does SEO Traffic come from?”

MARKETER: “Uhm, well, I guess it comes mostly from Google”

GLENN: “So, what you’re saying is, you’re going to ignore Google and focus on Google instead?”

MARKETER: “Yeah, but on the organic side, you don’t have to deal with their crazy landing page quality scores, and it’s free so you beat the constantly rising bid prices”

GLENN:  ”Why would Google clean up one side of the street (paid ads) and not eventually apply what they learn to the other (organic)?”

MARKETER: “Um, OK, good point.  But Google’s not the only source of traffic.  There’s Twitter, Facebook, Article Directories, Digg, StumbleUpon, and more…it’s a very big internet out there”

GLENN: “Very true.  But are you talking about using these things because of the power they have to get indexed in Google, or in order to attract the people who come from them directly?”

MARKETER: “Both”

GLENN: “About what percent of traffic comes directly from the social media vs. from the indexing power social media provides in the search engines?”

MARKETER: “I don’t know.   Let’s say it’s 50%”

GLENN: “Which converts better, traffic from social media, or traffic from search”

MARKETER: “Oh, definitely search, because they’re looking to solve a problem, not interact with friends”

GLENN: “Right.”

MARKETER: “OK, I see where you’re going, but even if social media doesn’t convert as well, there’s a LOT of FREE traffic there, and you can always roll it out on the paid contextual networks”

GLENN: “So, you’re going to work with a very broad and diffuse audience while they’re  socializing, develop a website to convert them even though you can’t really pin down their core conversations and objections, and then go buy more traffic for that system?”

MARKETER:  ”Well, there’s affiliates too.  I can recruit an army of affiliates.”

GLENN: “Where do they get THEIR traffic?”

MARKETER: “Well, I could get into one of the CPA networks with an offer.  Have you seen the flood of traffic you can get there?”

GLENN:  ”Sure.  If you can build a website that converts like crazy, you can definitely do that.   How are you going to do that?  What traffic are you going to test it on?”

MARKETER: “I want my Mommy!”

—

I’m exaggerating above for illustration, and of course there IS traffic you can convert which never touches a search engine (especially blog visitors on other people’s sites, participating in forums, and/or good article writing–not the crappy seo articles everyone tells you to write), but here’s the point…

Google’s got the BEST leads.

Google’s got the PUREST leads.

Google’s got the MOST MOTIVATED leads.

Yes, Google’s very hard.

Yes, it’s getting more expensive all the time (that will stop only when it becomes cheaper for marketers to find equally good leads for less money in similar volume… a fact of life in a Darwinian economy).

And sure, we all pine for the days when you could just put up your money and slap up a one page site.

But if you suck it up and learn their system, you get the opportunity to build a site that converts, and you learn which keyword conversations really work for you. (THEN, if you really want to,  you can turn off your Adwords account and take it to the contextual networks.  THEN you can focus on social media.  THEN you do all your article marketing, etc.  But if you do it all right, you won’t want to stop buying PPC)

Because, despite what everyone says, Quality Score is NOT random, it IS fair, and you CAN master it.   Not by looking for techniques and tricks, but by learning certain principles of marketing which, in the end, actually benefit you more than Google.   (I know that’s a controversial statement which is going to earn me a lot of hate mail, but 8  years of PPC marketing experience, thousands of customers, hundreds of direct reviews, and dozens of agency employees  give me the confidence to make it, and it’s in your best interest to seriously consider what I’m saying)

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say it’s something you MUST master if you want to succeed online.

The internet as a whole used to be the Wild West.  But the Sheriff is coming to clean up the town.    He’s gonna make his rounds everywhere Google’s got tentacles.    We can try to run and hide, but Google’s got REALLY BIG tentacles, and they keep getting bigger. (The analogy kind of breaks down here because we’re not really criminals… but you get the point)

Beyond this, I predict the organic side of the street is going to shrink this decade as Google figures out how to make sure people can find exactly what they want from paid advertisers, and learns how to minimize searcher complaints.

I’ll be turning my focus to Quality Score Principles (not techniques) in coming months, and you can expect to hear me say things no one else will tell you.

I know it’s hard to understand (because Google’s sheriff is more like Stephen Hawking than John Wayne) .

I know it hurts.

But we can fix this, and it’s good for us.

Suck it up,

Glenn

Glenn Club |   Coaching |  A to Z Product for Newbies |  Advanced Adwords Seminar

PS – The AdWords account banning spree is also NOT random or evil, but principle based.  It IS possible to develop a stable, secure AdWords account and still sleep at night.

PPS – If you’re spending anything significant in AdWords and you’re not coming to the Advanced Adwords Seminar, may I ask why?   (Comments below please).  In my mind, this is one of the very few seminars where you might learn something during the day, go back to your hotel room at night and immediately implement it, then start seeing financial improvements the very next day while you glance at your account on your laptop in the seminar room.  Plus, Perry’s good for his guarantees, I can tell you that.   (Thru the middle of the second day you can bail out and request an extra $500 plane fare).

I’ll be there personally with Sharon, and so will Rob (who is now the Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Clicks by the way).  But you know who you really need to see?  Bryan Todd.   Bryan’s Perry’s co-author, and is generally the quiet man in the background.

But if you push Perry on the point, he’ll tell you that Bryan is better at Adwords than he is.

Bryan’s also become a personal friend of mine (and not the kind of “friend” you hear marketers always talk about, but the kind you share deep personal thoughts with which go way beyond making money), and has given me some of the most profound insights into Adwords and the internet than anyone else I’ve known.

Bryan’s going to be teaching us how to leverage Facebook PPC, and I personally can’t wait.  Because I know this isn’t a presentation he’s just whipping up in a few weeks.  Over the past 18 months Bryan’s been periodically talking to me about his research into the Facebook project, asking me how to integrate it with my methods, talking to me about the psychographic data you get access to and how to use it, and how to integrate AdWords learnings.

I hope I’ll see you there Advanced Adwords Seminar

PPS – Yes, these are affiliate links.

• Don’t judge the success of the content network without cleaning it up first.  Aggressively look for site and category exclusions (in the content placement report AND the standard user interface for the campaign).  As a last resort consider managing effective placements discovered on a CPM basis while you gradually throttle  down the automatic placement campaign (you can drag and drop placements between two campaigns using the Adwords Editor)
• In your most profitable adgroups, don’t necessarily split test a new ad with 50% of your traffic unless you’re very early in the game and you’re fairly sure you’ve got a good change to beat the control. Instead, use the Adwords Editor to make several copies of the existing ad, and change only ONE of them.  This way, you’re only exposing the TEST to a small percentage of your otherwise profitable traffic… if it’s a bomb, you lose a lot less.  If it starts to look like a winner, you can delete many of the other copies to increase the exposure frequency of the test ad (but be careful not to delete the CONTROL copy with all the history until the winner has been firmly declared)
• Don’t be content using just text ads. Local Business Ads, Ad Extensions, and Ad Site Links are very effective yet underutilized media for many businesses.  (And in the content network, don’t forget to test display advertising)
• Test something wildly and insanely different from your existing control ad. I mean, something which kind of irks you to try.   Onesentance.org is a good source of inspiration for ad copy in this light (thanks to David Bullock for pointing this out).   Another good source is to write a controversial ad which goes 100% against all the benefits your competitors are touting.  For example, in the adwords market itself you used to see ads saying “You will make money tonight”… so what you’d do instead is say “Some of these animals are lying!  Be the tortoise, not the hare”… see where I’m going?
• Take advantage of Google’s Betas, especially if you’re a more traditional e-commerce marketing with an actual catalog of products sold through a shopping cart.
• Don’t use the same copy or landing pages  in the content network as you do in search. Content surfers are READERS, searchers are SCANNERS.  (We’ll do more on this in a future audio)
• Go through the reporting center once a week to see if there are new metrics available which could be of use. (These days, new data points seem to be accelerating on an almost monthly basis)

And for heaven’s sake, if you’re not a member of my Hyper Responsive Club already, get out there and join before the price increases forever on Friday (or when I hit 1,000 members, which is looking like it might happen before then since Perry Marshall decided to tell his list of 250,000+ people to jump on board today).

Because without the information in this club, I can virtually guarantee you haven’t carefully defined a very specific keyword target to conquer online with focus and determination.  And if you haven’t done that, I know you’re suffering with much lower click through, conversion, and quality scores than you’d otherwise have. Join now

I know everyone hesitates to join a new monthly club, and no one wants to commit to a new monthly expense. (Note: you can cancel any time, and even the first month is refundable if you decide you don’t like it for any reason, or no reason at all)

But the thing is, hardly anyone is sorry once they’ve joined mine.  Join now

That’s because:

1) YOU’LL SEE A REAL BUSINESS BEING DEVELOPED: This club is one of the very, very few places you can actually watch a real business being developed from scratch. In other words, I don’t only TALK about what to do in some electronic classroom in the sky, I actually SHOW YOU me DOING it as I develop a REAL business.  Join now

2) YOU GET 6 To 12 HOURS FOR MUCH LESS THAN WHAT OTHERS CHARGE FOR ONLY 1 HOUR: While most other gurus are charging $97/mo for only an hour or two of  THEORY, Glenn’s delivering virtually a whole seminar (6 to 12 hours/mo) for much less.  Join now

3) YOU’LL LEARN FROM AN AGENCY OWNER: I’m not only a marketing educator, I’m a Rocket Clicks founder and I’ve seen hundreds of business models from the inside out. Which means, I don’t just guess about what’s working and what’s not, I’ve seen the dollars in vs. dollars out reports. I’m not talking theory, and I’m not going to pee on your back while I tell you it’s raining.  You’ll get the straight truth, even when it’s not sexy.  Which is what you NEED in order to succeed, rather than just to feel good for a few months while you consume another piece of intellectual entertainment.  Join now

4) I’VE LIVED IN THE REAL WORLD: I’ve consulted for dozens of real companies … Lipton, AT&T, Novartis, Panasonic, Whirlpool, Colgate-Palmolive, Bausch & Lomb, Nextel, etc. I might be known in our circles as “the guinea pig direct response guy”, but my techniques are explosive in these circles because they come from an entirely different industry.  Join now

5) I’VE DONE WHAT I’M TEACHING: I’ve launched over 17 markets profitably, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with the IM crowd. I’m not a guru who’s done nothing but be a guru.

6) I’M HONEST: You won’t get rich next month using my work. It’s not even within the realm of possibility. But you WILL learn how to build a secure foundation for your business so it can grow and grow and grow.  Join now

7) YOU’LL LEARN A DIFFERENT WAY TO THINK ABOUT MARKETING: Perhaps most importantly, I’ll teach you a different way to think about marketing which will last you a lifetime.

BEAT THE PRICE RAISE (On January 1st): Join now

And have a Happy New Year!

Dr. G

Please permit me a quick “Geekgasm” diversion to help you understand the mechanics behind all this (or more accurately,  our perception of the mechanics) and how it affects your Adwords management efforts:

• There are really two major branches of predictive mathematics
• The first is more statistical and normative, and seeks to model data on specific and identifiable variables and factors.  When it’s successful, it not only is able to predict what happens, but it’s able to EXPLAIN the prediction in plain English.  We know not only what is likely to happen, but why it’s likely to occur.
• The other model is called neural networking, and seeks to emulate how the human brain learns via  a network of associations, strengthened or weakened according to trial and error learning.  When this model succeeds, it’s often not able to explain WHY it can predict the data (just like we can’t always explain our favorite recipes beyond “a pinch of this and a pinch of that”), but it’s usually a lot more powerful in it’s predictive accuracy.  (Just like your grandmother’s apple pie tastes so much better than anyone else trying to follow a strict recipe)
• We’re pretty sure Google’s relying at least partially on neural networks and trial and error learning to model their broad match technology.  (I know I would if I had literally trillions of searches and click results to use as trial and error data points)

OK, “Geekgasm” over.

The implication of all this is that the algorithm “learns” over time, and evolves in it’s maturity in much the same way a human being benefits from years of experience.  We can’t say exactly how a 30 year old is different than a 20 year old, but we DO know they’re much more mature and are likely to trust them with much more unsupervised responsibility.

What this means for you as the algorithm matures is more opportunity to avail yourself of it’s power, with less risk, and less time and energy required to manage it.

Rob Sieracki ( Director of the PPC department at RocketClicks.com) wrote a blog post this week on the Ebb and Flow of Google’s Broad Match Algorithm.  It’s definitely worth your attention!

All my best,

Glenn

PS – I might be beating a dead horse, but the whole point of my (still free for the moment) Broad Match Magic technique  is to leverage the algorithm successfully and hit the soft underbelly of hyper-competitive markets like weight loss, credit repair, etc.  And to be most effective with it, you should walk through the step by step instruction in the hyper-responsive marketing club

(The grinning guy in green shirt is Jered Klima, from Rocket Clicks)

How to Do It Yourself | Coach with Glenn | Done For You

In any event, you can download the negative keyword slides here in PDF format.

The majority of AdWords accounts we’ve seen have been incredibly under-optimized for negative keywords.   Most people know what they are, and have a few dozen, or perhaps a few hundred.  But an optimized account making good use of broad match will often have THOUSANDS of negatives which can DRAMATICALLY increase your click through rate and reduce your cost per acquisition.

And when you combine the power of  Rocket Clicks negative keyword strategy with the power of the hyper-responsive adwords bulls eye process, you wind up with an extraordinary Adwords campaign, both optimized and easy to manage.  (The bulls eye process relies heavily on identifying the 6 most important keywords in your market, then leveraging Google’s broad match algorithms to expand your traffic around this theme)

Seriously, if your Adwords spend is even $100/mo, the time you spend watching this FREE webinar and studying the slides is a total “no brainer”.    It’s one of the very few times I’m comfortable saying it’s entirely possible you’ll make money TONIGHT with this information.

All my best,

Dr. G

How to Do It Yourself | Coach with Glenn | Done For You

People tend to become very myopic about their Google accounts, and often fail to see the broader picture.

Google doesn’t work the way it does just to benefit Google.  They’ve developed a very granular “peel and stick” reward system because that’s the way marketing works in the real world.  In fact, it worked this way long before we all so easily exchanged electrons at almost-better-than-light speed.  (Listen to the SHORT MP3 at the bottom of this post)

Because most people don’t get this, they don’t fully leverage the REAL conversion power of peel and stick.   Instead they thoroughly master the technical aspects of working within Adwords, but leave their Adwords copy, landing page copy, salesletters, and follow up sequences entirely too broad to take advantage of the targeted, cheaper traffic the Google machine makes possible.

Why?

Their reasoning has to do with market volume.  They want to ensure they can sell to high volume keywords in the market.  But as a result there’s no real specificity in their follow through, so the system as a whole remains dramatically less focused and effective than it really should be.

Here’s the one liner to write inside your eyelids:

“Great things happen when you CONTRACT your message, NOT when you expand it”

To make the concept more palatable, I recorded this short interview with Sharon about marketing success OFFLINE, in the real world.

I thought it might help you to see how big brands (not the big dumb ones Perry always talks about, but the SUCCESSFUL big brands who have launched effective and massively profitable campaigns via well researched and well thought out market positioning) utilize this principle when they’ve got literally BILLIONS of dollars at stake.

Because you’d think of all companies, they’d be the ones concerned about market volume, and would look to target a very broad spectrum of the market with their positioning.

But it turns out the opposite is true, at least for those really well run and successful brands.

This one really fascinated me personally…

And I have to say, after 22 years, my wife still entertains me!

I really hope you’ll listen.  And I don’t just mean I hope you’ll play the interview.   I hope you’ll get the message and consider how it might apply to your market positioning, especially if you think you’ve already got this one covered.  (It’s only 17 minutes, so you can listen right now)

Enjoy,

Dr. Glenn

PS – The central goal of the first month in my Bulls Eye Marketing Club is to achieve this type of focused messaging by developing 100% confidence in a drastically reduced keyword archery target.    (We use a spreadsheet which combines considerations of search volume, bid price, relevancy, and your ideal client definition into ONE number so you can confidently compare candidates).

When you can do that, you leave the “keyword candy store” and zero in on the exact keyword conversation you need to understand better than everyone else in your market so you can begin to achieve dominance.   Click here to join now.

PPS – Don’t really write my one liner on the inside of your eyelids please.  That would just be gross, and I was just saying it for effect.  But I won’t object if you pain it on your bedroom ceiling or your front door.

PPPS – I’d also like people who’ve already joined my Bulls Eye Marketing Club to listen to this interview, especially if you have any lingering doubts about whether you’ve chosen the right target, or if your automated-competitive-intelligence-machine from month #2 is feeding back market requests you’re not sure you can deliver on.