Your client wants to improve her ad position. What would you recommend?
Correct Answer
Improve the ad quality and increase bid amount
Why is this the correct answer?
To improve your client's ad position, you should recommend that she improve the ad quality and increase bid amount. Ad Rank, the metric Google uses to determine where your ad appears, is fundamentally a combination of your bid, the quality of your ads, and the expected impact of extensions. When you improve the ad quality, you are directly optimizing the Quality Score, which considers factors like expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and the user experience on your landing page. However, because the auction is highly competitive, simply having a high-quality ad may not be enough if competitors are bidding significantly more. By choosing to increase the bid amount in tandem with these quality improvements, you provide the necessary financial backing to outrank competitors. This approach ensures that the ad is not only relevant to the searcher but also priced competitively enough to secure a premium spot at the top of the search results.
Why are the other options incorrect?
Add more keywords and increase daily budget
Adding more keywords and increasing the daily budget might increase the volume of impressions, but it does not improve the Ad Rank for a specific query. Budget affects how often your ad shows throughout the day, not its vertical position in the auction.
Improve Quality Score and decrease bid amount
While improving Quality Score is beneficial, decreasing the bid amount simultaneously often negates any gains made in ranking. This specific scenario requires a boost in position, which typically demands maintaining or increasing the bid to stay competitive.
Make the ad headline longer and more descriptive
Making a headline more descriptive can slightly influence click-through rates, but it is not a comprehensive solution for moving an ad up the page. Without a corresponding bid increase or broader quality improvements, a longer headline alone rarely changes ad position significantly.
Real-World Example
A local boutique fitness studio was struggling with a low ad position for the competitive keyword 'yoga classes near me,' often appearing below the fold. To rectify this, the marketing team decided to improve the ad quality and increase bid amount. They updated their ad copy to be more relevant to the search query and optimized their mobile landing page for speed. By also raising their maximum CPC bid by 20%, their Ad Rank surged. Within two weeks, the studio's ad moved from position 4 to position 1, resulting in a 35% increase in click-through rates and a significant boost in new member sign-ups.