5 Key Elements of Google AdWords

CPC - Cost Per Click This is simply how much you pay when someone clicks on your ad. This number can range anywhere from as little as a cent or two, to ten dollars a click and up. The competitiveness, the market, and how much Google perceives a market to be worth affect how much you should look at paying per click. How much you bid for every click influences the position of your ad. All else being equal, the higher you bid, the higher your ad appears.

Click thru rate, CTR, is the measure of how many times your advertisement gets clicked on given how many times it was shown. It is expressed as a percentage (number of clicks over the number of impressions, which is another way of saying the number of times an ad was shown). So lets say your ad showed 200 times and it was clicked on twice. That results in a CTR of 1% (2 divided by 200). Your goal, by the way, is to achieve as high of a CTR as possible.

Quality score is defined by Google as: Your Quality Score reflects your keyword’s CTR and the relevance of your ad text and landing page. Keywords with high Quality Scores are more relevant for users, more effective for your ad campaigns, and have lower cost-per-clicks (CPCs). It can have one of three Quality Scores. Great: Your keyword is very relevant and your Quality Score needs no improvement. OK: Your keyword is relevant, but you can still benefit from a higher Quality Score. Poor: This keyword isn’t very relevant to users, and your Quality Score needs improvement. Aim for Great.

Relevancy: How relevant Google thinks your keywords and ads (and campaign) are to the market you are trying to dominate. How does Google determine that? Well, that’s the million dollar question. A lot of factors come into play in helping Google determine this. For example, Google looks at your CTR, are your ads getting clicked? If not, then odds are, your ads aren’t relevant (i.e. your market/audience doesn’t care for your message) and this hurts your relevancy (which in turn hurts your quality score).

Google Slap:  Ahhh yes, the very thing that strikes fear into every Google AdWords advertiser’s heart. Google Slap is the infamous action that happens when Google essentially decides that they don’t like you or your campaign. When you get Google Slapped, you see a HUGE spike in your minimum bids (this is Googles way of saying, Fine, you want to play with us? Either Ante up to the tune of $10 a click or get the heck out.) Whether you get Google Slapped depends on many factors including your relevancy and your quality score.

There you have it! Five key concepts to Google AdWords. Did I mention that there are a TON of other equally important concepts? You didnt think you were done after spending only 10 minutes reading about AdWords did you? Fact of the matter is, what we covered just scratched the surface. Keep your PPC studying going and rock on!