Jump to content

Various: Mike Ashley in talks with Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan


Kaizero
[[Template core/global/global/poll is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

Recommended Posts

Sports shorts, cycle helmet, slazenger polo shirt.

 

Rugby ball, rugby shirt, rugby boots.

 

Slave labour, tatty cheap shite, fat greedy cunt.

 

Sounds like an alternative verse to Billy Joels 'We didn't start the fire'.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Sports shorts, cycle helmet, slazenger polo shirt.

 

Rugby ball, rugby shirt, rugby boots.

 

Slave labour, tatty cheap shite, fat greedy cunt.

 

Sounds like an alternative verse to Billy Joels 'We didn't start the fire'.

 

Funny. I was just thinking about making a vid like that.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I couldn't disagree more. The whole brand is becoming toxic, tainted.

 

Moreso than when journalists went undercover into the warehouse to discover awful working conditions and Ashley was thrown in front of a select committee (where he performed terribly)?. Or when the company was subject to an SFO investigation?

 

Ashley has proven thin-skinned and the 'annoyance factor' may have an impact on him, but it's not going to fundamentally alter the performance of the SD business.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

Link to post
Share on other sites

I couldn't disagree more. The whole brand is becoming toxic, tainted.

 

Moreso than when journalists went undercover into the warehouse to discover awful working conditions and Ashley was thrown in front of a select committee (where he performed terribly)?. Or when the company was subject to an SFO investigation?

 

Ashley has proven thin-skinned and the 'annoyance factor' may have an impact on him, but it's not going to fundamentally alter the performance of the SD business.

 

Yes, more than that.

 

Because (most) investors couldn't care less if a company is ethical. They invest to make money, not because they love how the company operates. In fact most investors will love that Ashley pays his staff next to nothing and gives them no breaks etc, that just means more money for the shareholders.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

 

OK. Last thing from me.  :blackeye:

 

If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.

 

Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".

 

Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.

 

Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.

 

That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.

 

I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

 

OK. Last thing from me.  :blackeye:

 

If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.

 

Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".

 

Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.

 

Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.

 

That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.

 

I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

 

If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

 

OK. Last thing from me.  :blackeye:

 

If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.

 

Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".

 

Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.

 

Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.

 

That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.

 

I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

 

If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple.

 

You think we'd be the only people clicking the ads? There's plenty of people clicking them who are actually interested in buying from them. Their CPC will also be lower is the point he's making.

 

That said without knowing the numbers it's all guesswork.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

 

OK. Last thing from me.  :blackeye:

 

If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.

 

Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".

 

Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.

 

Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.

 

That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.

 

I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

 

If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple.

 

I'm really not over complicating things. You're making some big assumptions:

 

1) That they have a Campaign Daily Budget or Shared Daily Budget cap which your going to be able to force them to hit prematurely.

That's a massive assumption, as most large advertisers don't cap their activity in this way.

 

2) That they aren't getting substantial click traffic through Paid Search already.

SportDirect.com, like it or not, are a massive business and will be getting huge amounts of traffic through Paid Search.

 

The whole Google Ads set up is built to avoid exactly what you're trying to do here. If it worked the way you want it to, then any business who wanted to detrimentally impact their competitors could use this as a tactic. They can't, and they don't.

 

If you really want to increase costs for SportsDirect.com and improve Google's revenue, then you could just create a Google Ads account for SportsRedirect.com and bid on the term "sports direct". It would cost you money, but it would be more felt. But then we're stepping into the realms of madness.

 

I strongly suggest you find another way of protesting.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If you really want to increase costs for SportsDirect.com and improve Google's revenue, then you could just create a Google Ads account for SportsRedirect.com and bid on the term "sports direct". It would cost you money, but it would be more felt. But then we're stepping into the realms of madness.

 

I strongly suggest you find another way of protesting.

 

Or are we......

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look. I don't want to be a negative Nigel about this whole thing. But I think its worth pointing out one final thing: Quality Score (QS), a proxy for something now called Ad Quality.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7050591

 

The Cost Per Click (CPC) an Advertiser pays Google Ads for a keyword is dictated by a few things, but a key component of that is something called Quality Score. Quality Score is used to make sure Advertiser's ads are relevant to the keyword being searched for - Advertisers with a high quality score are rewarded with a higher Ad Rank (i.e. position on the page) and usually a lower CPC.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722122

 

One key driving factor in Quality Score is an advertiser's Click Through Rate (CTR) compared to other Advertisers competing on a keyword. I would be worried that any attempt to inflate costs for an advertiser might well have the opposite effect - you are essentially boosting their CTR and hence QS - this will make it easier for them to appear higher in listings and most likely save them a bit of money on CPCs. Or your clicks will be filtered out and the net outcome is nothing changes. Except you've wasted a bit of time.

 

This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them. 

Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.

If we inadvertently

 

I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.

 

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB

 

If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.

 

Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.

 

I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.

 

Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?

 

So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.

We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.

 

I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at

 

OK. Last thing from me.  :blackeye:

 

If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.

 

Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".

 

Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.

 

Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.

 

That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.

 

I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!

 

If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple.

 

I'm really not over complicating things. You're making some big assumptions:

 

1) That they have a Campaign Daily Budget or Shared Daily Budget cap which your going to be able to force them to hit prematurely.

That's a massive assumption, as most large advertisers don't cap their activity in this way.

 

2) That they aren't getting substantial click traffic through Paid Search already.

SportDirect.com, like it or not, are a massive business and will be getting huge amounts of traffic through Paid Search.

 

The whole Google Ads set up is built to avoid exactly what you're trying to do here. If it worked the way you want it to, then any business who wanted to detrimentally impact their competitors could use this as a tactic. They can't, and they don't.

 

If you really want to increase costs for SportsDirect.com and improve Google's revenue, then you could just create a Google Ads account for SportsRedirect.com and bid on the term "sports direct". It would cost you money, but it would be more felt. But then we're stepping into the realms of madness.

 

I strongly suggest you find another way of protesting.

 

You work in PPC, right. When you're reporting to your clients what are the main metrics the client is interested in?  Conversions, cost per conversion and conversion rate for the most part, particularly when it's an ecommerce site.

If reports are showing a slight reduction in cpc. but a big drop in conversions, big jump in avg. CPA and reduction in conversion rate that's something that will be noticed.

 

Yes, i'm making assumptions, as are you. The whole point here is disruption and this will disrupt.

I would wager my house on Sports Direct not having an uncapped daily budget. I've worked with some huge companies and they all had a daily spend limits, and when I say big i'm talking about huge high street retailers that dominate their sectors.

The only way that would be happening is if their cost per conversion is so low that they've just said to their PPC Manager 'get as many sales as you can at that CPA or under.'. So if we drive up the CPA what happens? Disruption and investigation into why their CPA is going up.

 

Add to that the fact that SD have a strong organic presence and most people naturally gravitate to the organic listings, and they have huge brand recognition (sadly) so rather than type in 'shit Donnay socks' they'll either go direct to the SD website or google 'Sports Direct'.

Link to post
Share on other sites

So should i still click the ads?  :dowiespin:

 

Only if you want to. Not because its going to have some definite negative impact on Mike Ashley. Because it won't. What you can do though is choose to shop at other Sports retailers. So if you ever need a Cricket ball, click someone else's ad and buy from them. That is the only way you can actually impact him for sure; stop spending in Sports Direct. That's why the Northumberland Street protest is important.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...