In the business of PPC management, we spend a huge amount of our time in AdWords- by necessity. Google has the lion’s share of the search market, so we generally spend a lot of time working on ways to better match our customers with qualified buyers searching in Google. That said, I can’t stress the importance of keeping in touch with AdCenter trends. AdCenter ads do serve a significant portion of the market, and it is important to remember that different search engines and search engine users may behave differently. With that in mind, we suggest that you keep informed about changes and opportunities in AdCenter.

One change we’re very interested in is the recent introduction by AdCenter of it’s own Quality Scores. You can now check your quality scores within AdCenter by clicking into a campaign and ad group. I’ve found that by default, my keywords now have this column included. I’ve included in the graphic above a helpful info box that you can click to in AdCenter to read over how they define quality score.

I have been interested to see that AdCenter looks at quality score differently than Google does, and uses the scores in a different way. Both look at the relevance of your keyword, keyword performance, and landing page relevance; however, Google will use some of this data to determine if your ad will display, and how much your CPC will be.

AdCenter, on the other hand, seems to be using this data to make it possible for advertisers to have additional insight into how to improve the performance of their campaigns. Getting the scoop on your AdCenter Quality scores – in depth- is easy. Just go to the reporting tool, run a keyword performance report, and customize your report to include the columns “Quality Score”, “Keyword Relevance,” “Landing Page Relevance,” and “Landing Page User Experience”.

Once you’ve created your report, you should have something like the image above. This report gives us insight into the overall quality score, ranked 1 through 10, with 6 being average, and anything 7 or over representing a very competitive keyword. The Keyword Relevance score is rated 1 through 3, with one being poor, 2 being average, and 3 representing good. Landing Page Relevance and Landing Page User Experience are ranked as either 1 or 2, with one being poor and two having no problems.

Although AdCenter’s quality scores are said not to affect the way that AdCenter displays your ad, or the cost you pay per click, they do give you some very straightforward information on how to improve your campaigns. Making a few quick changes can make a big difference in your quality score in AdCenter and will update very shortly after you’ve made your changes to let you know right away if they are effective. To improve keyword relevance, adding a few negatives to improve click through rate can up your score. For Landing Page Relevance, checking to make sure that your keyword is included in the landing page can improve the score. You can also review your site to see if there is another landing page that would be more closely in line with the keywords in your Ad Group.

Overall, the AdCenter Quality Score is a great way to get some automated insight into where you may have some opportunities to improve your campaign. We’ll have to wait and see over the long term to get an idea how much this change will affect the way advertisers develop their campaings in AdCenter, but at first glance, this appears to be a handy and helpful new tool.