This Week in Relevance

In the time since our last post we have chosen to focus on 2 specific factors said to influence adCenter QBR. As mentioned previously, with adCenter representing a more meaningful percentage of search share, it is becoming increasingly important to focus on adCenter optimization rather than assume a well optimized AdWords campaign will perform efficiently. Our aim is to design a test that will provide data supported learnings about how much CTR and landing page quality influence “quality” on adCenter relative to AdWords. We have detailed the questions and proposed test methodology here:

1. How does (position normalized) CTR affect the CPC that you pay in adCenter?

It is well documented that CTR is a primary driver of AdWords Quality Score. As a result, advertiser optimization efforts are often targeted at improving CTR to, at least in part, improve QS. It is unclear at this point how much CTR impacts adCenter CPC relative to AdWords:

Testing Methodology:

Isolate a single keyword with significant volume (and a liquid marketplace) in an ad group with multiple creatives and run so each ad reaches statistically relevant volume. If you target a specific position for this keyword through your bid system, then we can use the CTR and CPC deltas to understand how fluctuations in CTR impact CPC for a given position.

An example: let us suppose a test produces the following statistics for our 2 test creatives – how do we interpret the results?

In this case it appears a 100% increase in CTR corresponds to 20% discount in CPC. It is probably not safe to assume similar changes in CTR will impact CPC equally in each KW marketplace. Replicating the experiment several marketplaces, at different bid levels should provide a more educated perspective on CTRs influence on CPC.

2. How much influence does quality of landing page have on CPC (and position)?

As mentioned previously, there has been a fair indication that adCenter is keenly interested in the quality of the landing page experience when determining quality. While it is impossible to know what specific landing page factors adCenter takes into account – and how granular their assessment of a page is – a test structured around 2 distinctly different, yet relevant, pages will hopefully provide some insight.

Test Methodology:

Isolate an ad group with two ads that consist of the same Title, Description, and Display URL but with differing landing page URLs. Equal ad rotation and an ad group level bid should result in similar CTR for each creative. Understanding variations in CPC and avg position should be attributable to QBR due to landing page variation. …

Again, let’s suppose a test produces the following data:

In this case, with the CTR being so similar, it appears the difference in lading page URL is resulting in 10% increase in CPC. At a lower CPC, Creative A should dramatically impact the advertiser’s bottom line over time. Running this experiment multiple times should give a representative set of data on the impact of landing page on CPC in an advertiser’s key marketplaces.

There is obviously a wide spectrum of different landing page experiences for possible use in such a test. One of the more frequent landing page questions we face is to show a category (or sub-category) level page vs. a product level page against Product KWs with some ambiguity. For example, 3M has multiple lines of duct tape – do they drop users on a specific product page – taking a best guess at what a user would prefer – or do they drop users on a more generic duct tapes page? The best answer is whatever landing page provides the best performance against an advertiser’s target metrics, but this test should help us to understand which URL adCenter feels is the most relevant which may provide some guidance on lowering CPCs which should help drive ROI.

The goal of these tests is to move from an AdWords focused knowledge of campaign “quality” towards data supported evidence about the nuance of managing quality in adCenter. Answering these 2 questions well should go a long way towards building an adCenter specific knowledge base and optimization best practices. Marketers can then start to make clear decisions on how to spend their limited resources optimizing their adCenter campaigns. We will be conducting similar experiments over the next few weeks and hope to have a more definitive point of view in a future post on how both ad relevance (CTR) and landing page relevance can drive cost savings in adCenter….but for now, we hope this framework helps in your efforts to demystify adCenter QBR.