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Alright, buckle up, folks!
It’s time to shatter a common myth
about search ads and give you a reality check.
So, how do you think search ads work,
according to you which company will be at Rank 1?
Rank | Company/Advertiser | Bid |
|---|---|---|
? | ABC | 100 |
? | XYZ | 80 |
? | QWE | 70 |
Oh, look at you, Captain Obvious, with your brilliant observation that
ABC company will be at Rank 1 because it has the highest bid.
And… the NOT so correct answer is
Rank | Company/Advertiser | Bid |
|---|---|---|
1 | ABC | 100 |
2 | XYZ | 80 |
3 | QWE | 70 |
Is this true? Is bid the only factor that decides the ranking?
NO, your bid is not the only factor that decides your ad’s ranking.
The real answer CAN be
Rank | Company/Advertiser | Bid |
|---|---|---|
3 | ABC | 100 |
2 | XYZ | 80 |
1 | QWE | 70 |
Now you will be shocked why it is like this..
So here is a reality check, it does not work like this
This is just half part of the story.
To understand the full story let me introduce you to a (might be)
new term i.e Quality Score.
So what exactly is Quality Score?
Quality score is the score given to check you ad quality and it is given by checking that:
- How relevant your ad is with respect to the keyword you are targeting.
- And user experience from clicking your ad to visiting the destination page.
Also please note that Quality Score is specific to Google Ads and may not apply to other advertising platforms or marketing channels.
Moreover, Google does not disclose the exact formula or weightings used to calculate the Quality Score, making it a proprietary metric.
Why is Quality Score important?
To maintain fair play, Quality Score is necessary.
If ranking is solely determined by the bid, then rich advertisers will be the only ones able to publish their ads in the top ranks, regardless of how good their content is.
New startups won’t rise to the top very easily because they won’t be able to bid as much as big businesses and advertisers.
Minimum Bidding
Each Advertiser has to bid to reach their audience, hence the audience worth or price to reach them is decided by the advertiser who are approaching them.
Hence, a advertiser can not bid below the standar or minimum bid set by the industry or the adverisert who are targetgin the same audience.
Lowest amount that can be bid or offered in an auction or bidding process. It sets a baseline price below which participants cannot place their bids.
And here is the whole story of how to have this minimum bid at a lower cost.
Minimum bidding is Rs.100 for below example.
To understand better first let’s learn about the basics.
CPC
CPC stands for Cost-Per-Click, advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. Mind you, it is not for any conversion.
The Actual Final Bid
Quality Score and CPC decides the Actual Final Bid.
Let’s get back to the ranking system
The actual Final Bid decides the ranking of your ads.
Now, what’s the goal?
The goal is to increase the Quality Score and decrease the CPC.
Who will be given the priority? Actual Final Bid or Quality Score?
The ranking system for Search Ads is based on a combination of Actual Final Bid and Quality Score.
Ads with a higher Quality Score will rank higher than ads with a lower Quality Score, even if the ads have the same Actual Final Bid.
The conclusion
In the example, QWE’s ads will rank higher than other companies’ ads even though their Actual Final Bid is significantly lower.
This is because QWE has a higher Quality Score than the other companies.
So even though the company ABC were bidding the highest they could not grab the 1st Rank as their Quality Score was low.
Quality is priority
Little Tip
Oh, here’s a brilliant secret for you:
Erase the myth of investing huge money into advertising, darling! Instead, channel all that inner genius of yours into creativity and skills to increase your Quality Score.
Now that you know the reality of search ads, it’s time to learn the difference between a normal website and a landing page.
Because without a landing page, your search ads are like a Ferrari with no gas.
Landing Page explained.