Quality Score Optimizer [Marin Search]

Designed around quality score best practices, the Optimize sub-tab in Marin Search helps identify unfocused groups and quickly split the ad groups into more focused groupings.

In order to maximize your click through rate and relevance, creatives should closely match the keywords in the group. This generally requires smaller ad groups with very similar keywords. The Optimize sub-tab provides tools to evaluate ad groups to make sure the creatives and keywords are closely related. Where necessary, the Optimize sub-tab has tools to split the ad groups into two or more tightly-focused groups.

There are four primary techniques supported by the Optimize sub-tab:

  • Isolate High Volume Keywords: Allows tailoring creatives in the ad group to match the keywords that are driving the majority of the volume in the group.
  • Remove Lower CTR Keywords: Lower CTR indicates that the creatives in the group are not a good match for the group's keywords. By isolating the keywords into their own group, new creatives can be written that better match the keywords.
  • Remove Low Relevance Keywords: Moving non-relevant keywords to another group allows new creatives to be written that better match the keywords.
  • Edit creatives to better match the keywords: Slightly rewording creative text can increase the relevance of the creative and the keyword.

Note: The Quality Score Optimizer is currently only available in Marin Search. To navigate there from Marin, select the Switcher in the top-right of Marin, choose Access Marin Search, and navigate to the Groups tab and the Optimize sub-tab. 

Isolating High Volume Keywords

  1. Click into the selected group and click on the Optimize sub-tab.
  2. Click on the Star Keywords filter. Only keywords that are responsible for more than 25% of the total clicks for the group will be shown.
  3. Check the keywords and the creative(s) you wish to keep in the group and then click Split at the top of the grid.
  4. Select Move All But Selected. This will move all keywords and creatives in the group except those that you have selected. You can move the keywords/creatives to a copy of the current group, or move them to a separate group in the same campaign. To leave a copy of the creatives in the group, check the Copy Creatives option at the bottom of the bubble.
  5. Click OK. The keywords and creatives in the existing group will be deleted and new keywords/creatives will be created in the selected group. If you wish to edit the creatives in the new group before they are created, navigate to the newly created group and make the edit. Only the final version of the creative will be pushed to the publisher.
  6. Push the pending items in the Activity Log to create the groups at the publisher. (Optional, if this step is skipped, the new groups will be pushed during the nightly sync).

Removing Low CTR Keywords

  1. Click into the selected group.
  2. Click on the Low CTR filter on the left side of the screen. Only keywords with a click through rate that is 20% below the group average will be displayed. Keywords that have receive 0 clicks will also be shown if their 0% click through rate is below the group average.
  3. Check the keywords you wish to remove from the group and then click Split at the top of the grid.
  4. Select Move Selected Keywords. This will move the checked keywords (and creatives , if any) from the group. You can move the creative to a copy of the current group, or move them to a separate group in the same campaign. To leave a copy of the creatives in the group, check Copy Creatives option at the bottom of the bubble.
  5. Click OK. The keywords and creatives in the existing group will be deleted and new keywords/creatives will be created in the selected group. If you wish to edit the creatives in the new group before they are created, navigate to the newly created group and make the edit. Only the final version of the creative will be pushed to the publisher.
  6. Push the pending items in the Activity Log to create the groups at the publisher. (Optional, if this step is skipped, the new groups will be pushed during the nightly sync).

Identifying Low Relevance Keywords And Tokens

Keywords that are not relevant to the creatives in an ad group may benefit from being in a group with more targeted ads. The application offers a Relevance metric that measures how well matched the keywords are to the creatives in the ad group.

Relevance is measured on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 indicates that none of the tokens (words) in the keyword are found in any of the creatives. 100 means that all of the tokens in the keyword are found in all of the creatives.

Notes On Relevance:

  • Common tokens are excluded from the analysis.
  • If a keyword is less than 25 characters and a creative uses keyword insertion, the keyword will be considered highly relevant to that creative.
  • The relevance of a token is the measure of the value of that token, not an average of the relevance of the keywords that contain that token. A token with low relevance may be found in keywords with moderately high relevance.
  • To fix ad groups with low relevance tokens, you can split those keywords into a new ad group (see below for instructions).
  • Relevance is based on the keyword stem. For example, 'running' and 'run' have the same stem so they are the same when calculating relevance.
  • Relevance scores don’t work for Broad Match Modified keywords.

To identify keywords with low relevance:

  • Navigate to the Optimize sub-tab of the selected group.
  • Make sure the Relevance column is displayed in the grid. If not, it can be added with the View Builder from the Advanced category.
  • Sorting by a performance column (Impressions, Clicks, Cost) can help focus on the important keywords. For example, if 'resume samples' does not appear in the creative it will have a relevance score of 0.
  • To remove the low relevance keywords, select them using the check box and click Split to move them into a copy of the group.

To identify tokens with low relevance:

  • Navigate to the Optimize sub-tab of the selected group.
  • Select the Token radio button.
  • The Keywords column displays the number of keywords that contain that token. Click on the column header to sort by the Keywords column. Low relevance tokens can quickly be identified by looking at the relevance score. You can view the keywords that contain that token by clicking on the token.
  • To remove the low relevance keywords, select them using the check box and click Split to move them into a copy of the group.

Editing Creatives

An alternative to moving keywords with low relevance tokens is to edit the creatives to better match the keywords.

  1. Click the creative to be edited.
  2. Click Edit.
  3. The edit bubble will appear and you can make any desired changes to the creative.

Written by Marketing @ Marin Software

Last published at: January 18th, 2024