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"Increase quality or bid $5.00 to activate" - Solutions For Google Adwords

If you have done Google Adwords, you probably have received this message. Here are three solutions.

Peter Grundner

May 28, 2007

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If you’ve ever done a Google Adwords campaign, you might have come across this message for one of your keyword which reads “Increase quality or bid $5.00 to activate.”

First, let’s look at the reason for this.  When Google looks at any placement, it looks at relevancy (perceived relevancy in this case) as discussed in previous Marketing Insight ezines.  The reason you have gotten this message is that Google feels that your ad does not relate to the keyword - so it de-activates that keyword.  What this message is also saying is that, if you don’t know how to use Google Adwords, you should be paying 5 times more than necessary.  So what do you do?

WHAT NOT TO DO:
Google make fortunes from people who are so desperate to have their ad shown on that keyword that they agree to the given price.  That is a huge mistake and will cost you big.  Imagine your lead cost going up by 5 times for that keyword! 

Here are two better options for you:

1.)    Remove the keyword from that campaign and place it into another ad group that is more relevant or create an ad group campaign that has the keyword in the headline.  This is what you should have done from the beginning - group related keywords together so they make sense.

Here are some examples:

·         GROUPING THE WRONG WAY – keywords like Home Business, Earn Money, Online Business, Make Money Fast with an ad that reads “Make $20,000/mo From Home”.  The problem is, even though the ad might be good, the keywords are too different and do not match the ad, therefore your ad is being de-activated.

·         GROUPING THE RIGHT WAY – The right way to do it is to set up 3 separate ad groups for the above keywords and add related, similar keywords to it like this – Home Business, Home Based Business, Business from Home, etc. – The ad would read – “Best Home Based Business” or “$1,000/Day-Home Business” (some of the keywords are in the title)

Create another ad group for your other keywords like - Earn Money, Earn Money from Home, Earn Extra Money, etc.  Your ad would include some if not all keywords in the title like – “Earn Money Fast”, “Earn Money While Sleeping” “Earn $3,000/Day”, etc.

In other words, when you have the keywords matching the selection of words used in your ad, and your keywords appear in the headline, your ad will rarely be deactivated.

You just accomplished two things…not only will you not have to pay the higher price , instead, more likely, your cpc will drop even lower than what you paid before they asked you to increase your bid.  Plus your click rate is even higher because the ad is more relevant.

2.)    The other thing you can do is just delete the keyword for a few days and put it back up.  Most likely, you’ll be back to the original bid price.

Bottom line, Google will reward you for relevancy and will charge you extra for generality.  So, next time you get this message, do the smart thing and retool your adwords campaign and don’t just pay the requested increase.

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