This can be one of the most frustrating aspects about Adwords, especially when first testing out offers just to find keywords that will bring you conversions. There is a lot that goes on in testing such as adding, pausing and even deleting. Everything you do INSIDE your account is monitored and a history is recorded with it. Now I have personally asked Google Reps about Account history and while they say that “account history DOES NOT directly affect your quality score”, they have said that “account history is VERY important to the success of your campaigns”. What a vague reply.

Here are some tips, findings and experiences I have had that helped my account history perform at its best.

Keywords that suck affect your ad groups. Pretty simple right there. The problem we face here though is whether to delete these keywords or try our ass off by making other adgroups and re-submitting them. Watching the performance of your keywords is one of the most important aspects of using PPC. With using Adwords, it’s pretty much a “make” or “break” situation. The better your performance history is with long running ACTIVE campaigns, the more likely your going to get breaks down the road from Adwords.

In my experience when you move keywords it has never had a negative impact on ANY of my accounts histories. For this matter alone, I recommend that you move keywords into different adgroups. As a matter of fact, I recommend that you move keywords around every now and then anyway. You should always be striving for better adgroups and keyword performance. Sure you may face bumps along the way but the more you use Adwords and get use to it and the more you strive to improve your adgroups and keywords, the more likely that your going to get a better performance across the board.

When you delete keywords however, I have noticed an entirely different ballgame here. The first time I really started to pay attention to my Accounts I went straight to the horses mouth to read:

“If you delete a keyword and then add it back to your account in any other format or any other location (placing it in another ad group, for instance), our system will still take the keyword’s past account-wide performance into consideration. A poor performer can affect an entire ad group and/or campaign, if it is used multiple times.”

There is no more testing to see if that is true or not. It totally makes sense and comes from Google themselves. If anything, I would consider this text along with every answer I have ever gotten from an Adwords Rep and realize that this is probably pretty vague (like everything else they say) and think that their is probably a lot more to it than even this. Now I am not saying to NOT try and delete keywords and than resubmit them, you can test whatever you like. I am merely speaking from what I have experienced and what I believe here. I can tell you that I have done this myself and it does not matter what you do really. If you have shitty performing keywords, nothing is going to help you to try and get these to going.

In my opinion since Account Quality Score seems to be impression weighted, I would get rid of the under-performing keywords. If you’re a large oriented advertiser than a couple hundred bad keywords may not hurt you to bad but you should know that I would personally scrap keywords that are performing poorly with low impressions AND scrap keywords that perform poorly with high impressions.These are called campaign killers. With so much put into Adwords Quality Scores, I think you can see why.

Now you need to take in account that this is your money and decision what to do. If you have poor keywords but they are converting for you and your profitable, you will have a decision to make. Scrap it or take the money and run. You’re best bet here is to start optimizing landing pages to accommodate these keywords. It’s really in what you want to do.

New Adwords Accounts

This can be a real pain in the tail right here. Right off the bat, I have noticed that I can often pay 25%-50% MORE on keywords than with my older, more established accounts. That is why in the very first post of this series when we were talking about the Google Content Network I recommended you get a My Client Center Account with Adwords if you are at all serious about pushing a lot of volume with PPC Advertising. Taking the initiative now to build multiple accounts with a great Account History is only going to help you as you progress further into your PPC business.

Generally I have noticed that accounts can take anywhere from 3-5 months to build a reputable history. This is one thing that can help speed this process quicker though. That requires to spend LOTS of money! Adwords puts you on a type of probationary period. Basically after you reach your first $50 in clicks, your ads may stop running until that payment is processed. There is a natural progression after that as well. I am not for sure on the limits but it may repeat this on your first $100, $500 and $1,000. Just know that there is indeed a progression. During this time Adwords is basically building their relationship with you as an Advertiser. It’s in your best interest to pay your dues as fast and timely as you can without any significant problems. For me and all my accounts it may be confusing for some. I use credit cards on company owned accounts and then I have a bank account attached to each one as a backup. You do not want a glitch in your payments especially if you’re pushing large volume.

So this was just a small inside look at how Account History with Adwords comes into play with Quality Scores. We went a little beyond that but I felt those parts would help as well. The most important thing is to consistently work on optimizing everything in your account and PPC Business. Ads, adgroups, keywords, landing pages, consistent payments are all parts of your account that have progression periods. The more you use Adwords, the better you will understand this.

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