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Comparing Quality Score Across AdWords & AdCenter
Comparing Quality Score Across AdWords & AdCenter
A Universal Quality Score?
Quality score has always been an elusive creature for many people in the search marketing industry. What is it? How is it calculated? How does it affect my account? These are just a few of the questions that deserve more clarity. I believe this additional clarity becomes particularly important with multiple versions of quality score in play. Google has been utilizing this metric in their bidding system for a while now, but it wasn’t until recently that Microsoft improved their own version of QS as well. This leaves us with two seemingly ambiguous metrics that require a better understanding. Are they the same? In this post, I would like to take a look at the quality scores of AdWords and AdCenter, and attempt to distinguish the two.
Google AdWords QS
There are a few different kinds of quality score in AdWords (you can read a great post from Rob about account-level quality score here), but for the purposes of this post, I’ll be focusing on keyword-level quality score. Google defines this type of quality score as:
“A dynamic variable assigned to each of your keywords. It’s calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad group and to a user’s search query.”
In other words, this is one way in which Google gauges your relevancy in the keyword market, in order to ensure that Google is providing the best possible user search experience. This is good because searchers are more likely to find what they are looking for.
As I mentioned earlier, keyword quality score has been part of the AdWords system for a while now, but continues to be somewhat of a “gray” area because of how it is calculated. These are the factors we know Google takes into account:
CPC x Quality Score = Ad Rank
It is important to note that this score does not remain static. Rather, this is a dynamic number that is constantly adjusting itself. From the formula above, it should become apparent that Google’s quality score can be beneficial to your account by bumping your ads into better positions with less spend. QS is an integral part of the AdWords bidding system. For more information, check out our Quality Score Handbook or the AdWords Help Articles.
Microsoft AdCenter QS
Bing has recently released their own keyword-level quality score, which is calculated and used much differently than AdWords’ keyword quality score. Bing’s definition is as follows:
“Your quality score indicates the competitiveness of your campaigns in the overall marketplace. Microsoft provides a quality score for each of your keywords to help you understand the relevance of your keywords to search users’ queries and the degree to which your ads are eligible to be displayed in response to these queries.”
In essence, this is similar to Google’s keyword QS because both versions attempt to gauge the relevancy between your keywords, ads and users’ search queries. This is good for the user because it optimizes their search experience. Also similar to AdWords, adCenter keyword QS is on a scale of 1-10. Outside of these similarities, however, these two quality scores have little in common.
Microsoft’s version of QS is designed to represent how competitive your keyword is within the marketplace, with three sub-scores for keyword relevance, landing page relevance, and landing page user experience.
These criteria are judged as follows:
Performance Effects
So, are these two versions of keyword-level quality score the same? Not really. While they are both measured on a scale of 1-10, the factors used to calculate them are different, as discussed above, and, most importantly, their purposes are completely different. AdCenter’s keyword QS is used simply to show the competitiveness of your campaigns in the overall marketplace; these scores do not directly influence your ad rank. The purpose, rather, is to help advertisers see where they’re behind competitors in regard to landing page experience and keyword relevancy, and you can use this information simply as a gauge to help you improve your overall quality score and, therefore, improve ad position. AdWords’ keyword-level quality score, on the other hand, directly influences ad rank.
So what does influence ad rank in Bing? It’s your bid, overall keyword relevance to a user search query and click-through-rate. And this is the biggest difference between AdWords and AdCenter keyword-level quality score: AdWords QS influences ad rank, while AdCenter’s does not.
Similar Nonetheless
Regardless of their differences in performance effects, Google and Microsoft are essentially looking for the same thing with their quality scores: they want users to have the best search experience possible. As both quality score versions keep a close eye on relevancy, an optimized user search experience is made possible.
Although quality score will probably always carry some degree of ambiguity, it is certainly a topic that requires revisiting every so often. Google and Bing love to change things up, so it’s our job to stay ahead of the game by exploring every nook and cranny to understand how quality score is calculated. Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the similarities, differences, and functionality of QS across Google and Bing. What’s been your experience with the new adCenter QS? Have you seen any major changes in your accounts? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
By Dave Rosborough
- Historical CTR of the keyword and the matched ad on Google.
- Account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account.
- The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group.
- Landing page quality.
- The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group.
- The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the users search query.
- Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown.
- Other relevance factors.
Although these elusive “other relevance factors” are currently kept secret, the rest of the list is sufficient enough to grow your QS if you modify your account accordingly. Based off of these criteria, each of your keywords is then assigned a value between 1-10 (10 being highest). This value becomes your keyword quality score, which ultimately affects your CPC and ad position. This becomes clear using Google’s QS formula below:
These criteria are judged as follows:
- Keyword relevance (ranked by Bing as good, no problem, or poor)
- Landing page relevance (no problem, poor)
- Landing page user experience (no problem, poor)
Based upon my experience in the adCenter interface, a keyword with No Problem sub-scores in all three areas yielded a QS of roughly 5-8. On the other hand, a keyword with Good/No Problem/No Problem scores yielded a QS between 9 and 10. Of course, there is no set scale for which quality scores correlate with each sub-score, but hopefully you get the general idea. For more information on Microsoft’s quality score, check out the AdCenter Help Desk.
By Dave Rosborough
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Top Ten Ads on Yahoo! in 2010
There has been a lot of talk about going beyond the banner in online advertising this year—and our Top Ten ads for 2010 show that not only are we moving beyond the banner, we’re also leaving behind the constraints of the Web page itself.
In our team’s picks for the best ads on Yahoo! this year, ads exploded from their niche on the side of the page. Bugs walked on to the Yahoo! front page, and the pages themselves folded, tore and crumpled. Banners turned into magazines and catalogs where people could buy stuff.
Entertainment ads made the best use of our canvas this year, but more traditional brands did great stuff, too.
Below are our top ten ads for 2010, in no particular order. (They’re all first place in awesomeness, though.)
Alice in Wonderland
This is the ad Carol Bartz mentions when she talks about the potential of advertising on the Web, and for good reason: People liked how the page opened up and pulled them down the rabbit hole so much that lots of them clicked on the ad four or five times. Is it advertisement or entertainment?
Nissan Qashqai
My wife literally gasped when I played this ad for her. The Nissan crossover dodging paintballs on the front page of Yahoo! France is cool enough. But press the play button marked “Voir la Suite” and the car seems to leap out of two-dimensional space, the front page transforms into something out of “Inception,” and the Qashqai zooms between buildings that used to be columns of text. My French is rusty, but I’m guessing “Voir la Suite” stands for “Blow your mind.”
Discovery: LIFE
Discovery wanted an online campaign as epic as its new series LIFE, and it got it with a front-page ad that had customizable wallpaper, video footage from the series, and a green bug that scurries around the “back” of the home page and into the ad. The results? People who saw the ads were 28% more likely to see the series than those who didn’t.
Drew Brees in Dove Men+Care
Not everyone loves Drew, but you had to love the way the Yahoo! Sports page opened like a shower curtain to see the New Orleans Saints quarterback singing the William Tell Overture (OK, the Lone Ranger theme in our house) at the top of his lungs. And other people loved it, too—the ad won the IAB Mixx Bronze Award for Rich Media Execution.
You Again
Not surprisingly, the new “mosaic” ad format we created for omg seems tailor-made for movies, and You Again is one of the best examples of it. Flashbulb pops replace celebrity photos with images from the ad. When the actresses tear pictures of each other in half, the ad tears itself in half, too. If that’s not enough, there’s a great faux behind-the-scenes catfight where Sigourney Weaver taunts Kristen Bell by saying “Avatar!”
Toyota Avalon
How do you reintroduce your luxury car model online? It helps to have a well-groomed man walk across the Yahoo! News page and invite viewers behind a curtain to look at it. Toyota piqued curiosity for its redesigned Avalon by showing that luxury awaited—if they only pulled the golden cord. In another example of great branding, Avalon also helped launch our new video series, Who Knew?
Discovery Shark Week
Discovery’s ad for Shark Week may have taken advantage the visual space of our Log-in Page ads just a little too well, judging by a handful of user complaints about the image of a soaked geek with shark teeth. But it also showed the cult appeal of Shark Week, and the lengths to which its fans will go to watch it.
TRON
TRON just managed to zip in before the end of the year—and we mean that literally. When the famous TRON lightcycle zooms out of the video screen on Yahoo! Movies and everything goes neon blue, you know you’re in the world of TRON. For another bonus, check out our video about the TRONification of Yahoo! Search.
Macy’s Memorial Day Circular
Advertising isn’t always for flash—sometimes, just sometimes, you want to sell stuff, too. Macy’s used our new pullover ad format in Yahoo! Mail to create a Web version of its Memorial Day circular that customers could flip through and use to order the items they wanted. And our Smart Ads technology helped serve up custom versions of the ads to people based on location, demographics and interest. The result was an ad that kept users around and engaged for a lot longer than a normal display ad.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
I’ve always had a thing for movie storybooks, which is why I loved the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 ad that seemed to have everything, including a book that lets you flip through images from the film. If they’d one of those when Star Wars came out, I could have saved my parents $4.95.
Are there any other ads that you liked this year? Let us know in the comments. And if you want to try something like this yourself, contact us. See you on the Top Ten in 2011!
By Jeff Sweat
In our team’s picks for the best ads on Yahoo! this year, ads exploded from their niche on the side of the page. Bugs walked on to the Yahoo! front page, and the pages themselves folded, tore and crumpled. Banners turned into magazines and catalogs where people could buy stuff.
Entertainment ads made the best use of our canvas this year, but more traditional brands did great stuff, too.
Below are our top ten ads for 2010, in no particular order. (They’re all first place in awesomeness, though.)
Alice in Wonderland
This is the ad Carol Bartz mentions when she talks about the potential of advertising on the Web, and for good reason: People liked how the page opened up and pulled them down the rabbit hole so much that lots of them clicked on the ad four or five times. Is it advertisement or entertainment?
Nissan Qashqai
My wife literally gasped when I played this ad for her. The Nissan crossover dodging paintballs on the front page of Yahoo! France is cool enough. But press the play button marked “Voir la Suite” and the car seems to leap out of two-dimensional space, the front page transforms into something out of “Inception,” and the Qashqai zooms between buildings that used to be columns of text. My French is rusty, but I’m guessing “Voir la Suite” stands for “Blow your mind.”
Discovery: LIFE
Discovery wanted an online campaign as epic as its new series LIFE, and it got it with a front-page ad that had customizable wallpaper, video footage from the series, and a green bug that scurries around the “back” of the home page and into the ad. The results? People who saw the ads were 28% more likely to see the series than those who didn’t.
Drew Brees in Dove Men+Care
Not everyone loves Drew, but you had to love the way the Yahoo! Sports page opened like a shower curtain to see the New Orleans Saints quarterback singing the William Tell Overture (OK, the Lone Ranger theme in our house) at the top of his lungs. And other people loved it, too—the ad won the IAB Mixx Bronze Award for Rich Media Execution.
You Again
Not surprisingly, the new “mosaic” ad format we created for omg seems tailor-made for movies, and You Again is one of the best examples of it. Flashbulb pops replace celebrity photos with images from the ad. When the actresses tear pictures of each other in half, the ad tears itself in half, too. If that’s not enough, there’s a great faux behind-the-scenes catfight where Sigourney Weaver taunts Kristen Bell by saying “Avatar!”
Toyota Avalon
How do you reintroduce your luxury car model online? It helps to have a well-groomed man walk across the Yahoo! News page and invite viewers behind a curtain to look at it. Toyota piqued curiosity for its redesigned Avalon by showing that luxury awaited—if they only pulled the golden cord. In another example of great branding, Avalon also helped launch our new video series, Who Knew?
Discovery Shark Week
Discovery’s ad for Shark Week may have taken advantage the visual space of our Log-in Page ads just a little too well, judging by a handful of user complaints about the image of a soaked geek with shark teeth. But it also showed the cult appeal of Shark Week, and the lengths to which its fans will go to watch it.
TRON
TRON just managed to zip in before the end of the year—and we mean that literally. When the famous TRON lightcycle zooms out of the video screen on Yahoo! Movies and everything goes neon blue, you know you’re in the world of TRON. For another bonus, check out our video about the TRONification of Yahoo! Search.
Macy’s Memorial Day Circular
Advertising isn’t always for flash—sometimes, just sometimes, you want to sell stuff, too. Macy’s used our new pullover ad format in Yahoo! Mail to create a Web version of its Memorial Day circular that customers could flip through and use to order the items they wanted. And our Smart Ads technology helped serve up custom versions of the ads to people based on location, demographics and interest. The result was an ad that kept users around and engaged for a lot longer than a normal display ad.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
I’ve always had a thing for movie storybooks, which is why I loved the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 ad that seemed to have everything, including a book that lets you flip through images from the film. If they’d one of those when Star Wars came out, I could have saved my parents $4.95.
Are there any other ads that you liked this year? Let us know in the comments. And if you want to try something like this yourself, contact us. See you on the Top Ten in 2011!
By Jeff Sweat
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