For the most part, our previously disabled keywords were deleted while keywords placed on hold were moved into the inactive column. These inactive keywords are now tagged with a short message similar to the following:

...in which case that particular keyword required a bid increase from $0.50 to $1.00 in order to be reactivated (we declined). At any rate, most of our inactive keywords required only a few cents bid-increase to be reactivated. In cases where the ROI justified the slightly added expense, we proceeded to reactivate our on hold keywords.

It appears that being able to easily reactivate on hold keywords by spending just a few cents more per click (as we mentioned, there were exceptions) is possibly the most valuable aspect of Google's new keyword management system.

Take note that Google states within the reactivation link, increase quality or... suggesting that you can also reactivate keywords by "improving quality." However, exactly how they are judging quality is still a bit vague since, as you may recall from last month's report, Google's new ad-ranking formula is less straight-forward than their original one.

The old formula to determine ad positioning was your Click Through Rate (CTR) multiplied by your Cost Per Click (CPC):

The new ranking formula is far less objective:

Clearly, the new formula is comprised of elements that are unknowable to anyone outside of Google's inner circle. Regardless, click-through rate (CTR) is still a vital component of the formula so, obviously, you should continue to write compelling ads that entice clicks. Doing so remains the single most important element within your control to lower your overall cost per click.

One major drawback could be that obscure terms may become much more expensive to run—not in every case but certainly in some. Previously, one could bid on obscure and overlooked terms that attracted small amounts of traffic for an extremely cheap cost per click. Finding enough such keywords could generate a nice little traffic stream. Now, however, these keywords could become much pricier, due to the small amount of traffic they typically generate causing them to have poor historical keyword measurements.

The flip side of that rational is that these obscure or ignored terms generated so few clicks that they were often disabled under the old system anyway. So one could reasonably say the change probably won't actually have much effect on your ad campaigns.

Suspicious people might argue that the subjectiveness of terms like relevancy factor could tempt Google to manipulate algorithms in a self-serving fashion. However, thus far we've found the changes have actually made our own campaigns slightly easier to manage with very little effect on what we're paying to run our AdWords ads.

On the whole, AdWords remains to be the relevancy-based, CTR-driven advertising program it's always been. Only now there's less confusion about how to get your perpetually on hold and disabled keywords out of limbo.

Related link:
The Google AdWords Performance Monitor: How to Maintain Quality, Cost-Effective Keywords

The above article is reprinted with permission from Planet Ocean's SearchEngineNews.com, copyright 2005, and distributed with permission by WebTrends maker of WebPosition, the award-winning software that helps track and improve your search engine rankings. You may download a FREE trial copy of WebPosition from: http://www.webposition.com/trial/

                 ← What is this?

---