How Ad Rank Works in Google Ads (Episode 175)

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Show notes:

Hi everyone and welcome back to the PSP. This week the guys are talking about one of the most fundamental and important aspects of Google Ads, Ad Rank. Ad Rank is super important. It determines what position your ads shows in and whether or not it shows up at all. The guys breakdown how Ad Rank works and how it influences their campaign management. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!

Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It’s just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.

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Transcript

Jason Rothman:
Jimmy, would you like a candy corn today given the significance of October 31st, as we’re recording or watching The Paid Search Podcast Live? Because I’m not the host.

Jason Rothman:
Thanks, but no thanks. Candy corn is the most overrated candy I’ve ever had. I’m going to wait until tonight when I go trick or treating.

Jason Rothman:
Okay, Jimmy. Do what you need to do.

Jason Rothman:
Hey everybody, yes. Welcome back to The Paid Search Podcast. My name is Jason Rothman. As always, I am joined by, I am associated with, I am doing a podcast with the great Chris Schaeffer. Chris, how is it going today? Halloween.

Chris Schaeffer:
Happy Halloween, Jason. You look great. I wasn’t expecting the pilgrim outfit that you have on today, but it seems a little early to wear pilgrim on Halloween. But I know you’re a fan of corn, so that’s just great. You look nice. The hat is really nice.

Jason Rothman:
Trying to start off the show being nice, but if you want to go there, we can go there. Chris is wearing-

Chris Schaeffer:
Uh-oh.

Jason Rothman:
… a very tempting shirt with a zipper. A zipper at the top of his shirt that goes way lower than it would ever need to go. Now don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t go all the way down. It’s not like a jacket. It just, for whatever reason, goes down to the middle of his navel. So I don’t know why he’s wearing that. It kind of looks like he’s wearing a shag carpet. It looks like a very hot shirt.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh no.

Jason Rothman:
Maybe it’s to keep him warm in winter, but it’s one of those shirts, Chris, a guy who was a grade older than me did me this favor. He shamed me. So I’m just in seventh grade. I don’t know what’s going on in the world. I put on… It was Friday. We had uniforms at school but we got to free dress Friday. I haven’t said that in years. Free dress Friday.

Chris Schaeffer:
Free dress Friday. Oh man.

Jason Rothman:
That’s really what it was.

Chris Schaeffer:
Private school. Private school.

Jason Rothman:
Yep, private school. It was free dress and I wore a short sleeve black shirt but it was shiny in nature.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh no.

Jason Rothman:
And it was something that like 98 Degrees or the Backstreet Boys would wear onstage. I don’t know why I picked it out when I went shopping but I did. I was influenced by the media. I just don’t know what I was doing when I was 13. The problem was I go to school, it’s not like you can change. I’m stuck there all day and then the word gets around the school, “Look at this guy’s shirt. What is he doing? He thinks he’s in a boy band.” I had a guy who is a year older than me totally make fun of me, totally shamed me, but at the same time totally explained what’s going on, like why it was just out of line to wear that shirt, and why he was making fun of me.

Jason Rothman:
It felt really bad at the time, but he whipped me in line. I never made that mistake again.

Chris Schaeffer:
He took the time to explain why… not only did he make fun of you, but he took the time to explain why he was making fun of you?

Jason Rothman:
Well in the sense that he was saying, “What are you, in a boy band? What are you…” And then he was saying some other things.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, he explained-

Jason Rothman:
… were pretty mean, yeah.

Chris Schaeffer:
That shirt is appropriate for this instance or this instance. So you immediately knew that you weren’t in any of those and why it was inappropriate. Wow, what a favor.

Jason Rothman:
So in today’s world he’d probably be locked up and sent away, but in the early 2000s, he saved a kid’s childhood. I never made that mistake again for the rest of my high school career or middle school.

Chris Schaeffer:
Okay, just to be clear. This shirt is-

Jason Rothman:
It worked.

Chris Schaeffer:
… nothing like the Backstreet Boys or 98 Degrees would wear. This is just a pullover sweater, Jason. I hope you’re not implying.

Jason Rothman:
No, it’s just who do you think you are? That is not a… I don’t know. It just seems like you’re trying to pull something off with that shirt. You’re trying to pull the zipper down. You got this weird collar going on. You did some pushups before the show to get… I don’t know what you’re doing.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Jason Rothman:
Your chest is looking rather large today.

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh yeah. It always extra, extra large. But moves to more important topics like the reason we’re here today. The reason that we can bring this show to you. Let’s talk about Opteo.com/PSP. This tool, which is designed for you comfort, and let me explain how this works. You are at the gym, and you get an email from a client. They’re stressed or your boss. Maybe you work directly in house, and you’re working on PPC. And they get a question about something. What are you going to do? You don’t have your laptop. You’re a little stressed. You’re worried. It sounds like something’s going on. You have this mobile friendly tool that you can use to get information about your account in a very graphical way. They can give you graphs and charts. You can check things. You can make sure that there’s no alerts on your account. Great system for a panic situation. Great system when you need to just get an email alert about creative ways that you can improve your campaign. This tool is for that. It’s for the people, and this is a wonderful system that I use, Jason uses, and it’s great.

Chris Schaeffer:
So OPTEO.com/PSP. Try it out for a six week trial. That’s an extended trial just for our listeners. Jason.

Jason Rothman:
Thanks, Chris. And I want to think our friends at Directive Consulting. DirectiveConsulting.com. Directive does great work for B2B and enterprise search engine marketing campaigns. B2B is different. Enterprise is different. There’s tons of different kinds of online marketing, tons of different kinds of search engine marketing. Small companies, big companies. But when you’re running B2B campaigns and enterprise campaigns, it’s just different. There’s a lot to do. There’s a lot of avenues you can focus on online, and that’s what Directive does. They do it all. SEO, pay per click, conversion rate optimization, landing pages, user experience design, content creation, social media advertising, digital PR, analytics. They do it all. That’s what you want to do when you’re a B2B or enterprise advertiser, you want to look at all your options online and then see what is producing the highest quality of lead. And then how you can figure out how to scale those leads and get as many of those quality leads as possible. That’s exactly what Directive Consulting does.

Jason Rothman:
Go to their website, look at some of the brands they’ve worked with. Look at their case studies, look at their services, and most importantly, get a free custom proposal for your B2B or enterprise campaign. Get a free custom proposal at DirectiveConsulting.com.

Chris Schaeffer:
Jason, before we get to the review, I have a quick announcement. As we mentioned in our Patreon show a couple weeks ago, we were considering opening up a PO Box for some people to send some stuff, just whatever you like. It doesn’t have to be about Google Ads. You can just say thanks. You can say, “Hey, you guys suck. Here’s a picture of my foot.” Whatever you want to send. And in the show notes from here on, there will be a PO Box, and just feel free, send something on just for fun. That’s it.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, thanks for that announcement, and before we get to this week’s review of the week, I also just want to announce some things. Chris, we got an email just today. “Hey, I want to listen to The Paid Search Podcast from the beginning episode,” and it always bothers me when I get those emails because I’m like do we not do a good enough job explaining where this stuff is. So as you’re listening to this, we have anything more recent than the first 100 episodes is in our podcast player feed right now. Then the first 100 episodes are available for sale, PaidSearchPodcast.com/archive. And the first 100 are all there, and some of them are on YouTube, some of them aren’t. And of course the quality of the audio is a lot better than YouTube. So we recommend you guys check that out. PaidSearchPodcast.com/archive if you want to get the first 100 episodes, or any of the first 100, search for your topic. You can get one episode at a time.

Jason Rothman:
Also, the forum announcing this for new listeners and also hosts of The Paid Search Podcast that don’t go there. Forum.paidsearchpodcast.com. It’s a place to ask other Google Ads advertisers your questions. Don’t be shy. If you have a new question, you’re new to Google Ads, feel free to ask it. If you’re an old school Google Ads person, chime in there with some advice and questions for people. Have a lot of fun on there. Just news for you, Chris, I posted something this week in there. Google parent company Alphabet is making an offer apparently, according to News Online, for Fitbit.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yes. I read about that.

Jason Rothman:
Why would we talk about that on this show? Well, it has implications potentially for advertisers one day.

Chris Schaeffer:
Right. Right.

Jason Rothman:
It’s just more and more information. So if someone I guess doesn’t have an Android, maybe they don’t use Chrome. If Google owns Fitbit, it might give more information for like location based ads or however all that stuff works. So that’s how I’m looking for it. Just more information, more targeted advertising. And I predict that sale will go through because I think it makes sense for both companies.

Jason Rothman:
Now, Chris, let’s get to this week’s review of the week. I want to thank everyone for putting those reviews online. The people who put reviews are the most dedicated listeners. They love this show. They know they help the show, and a lot of people are putting those reviews online. We appreciate it. And you can do it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you leave podcasts. This one came from Drew from the United States of America. “PSP combines great PPC knowledge with entertainment. Five stars. Chris and Jason, your show is amazing. You are able to combine great PPC knowledge while keeping me entertained with your pen slams, sound effects, Jimmy, laughter and playful banter. I learn new knowledge bombs from every episode, which continues to boost the performance of my campaigns. Proudly supporting you on Patreon. So Jason can add more square footage to his tiny home.” Okay, we all know…

Chris Schaeffer:
Tiny home.

Jason Rothman:
Tiny home. You know what’s interesting about this property when we got it, when we acquired it, Chris. For as big as it is, and I don’t need to get into a number. We’ve talked about that before. But as big as it is, did not have a pool. So if you guys can get on Patreon, $2 a month, and we can run that up.

Chris Schaeffer:
Help Jason get his pool.

Jason Rothman:
Because the Patreon, just so everyone knows, it goes directly to me. And then I hand out the little cheese and crackers to Chris when I feel like it.

Chris Schaeffer:
Here’s some peanuts.

Jason Rothman:
I can play with those numbers, and I can keep more of those $2. I can get myself a pool. By the way, Chris, I just want to double up on these reviews commentary. Our listener Hale sent in an email, and it was very simple email. He said, “Please keep ding Jimmy intros for a while.” And then he said, “Thanks for everything, Jason.” And then he said, “Listener, Hale.” So I wrote him back. I said, “Don’t worry about that.” In the email, I said, “Jimmy, would you like to be on more podcast episodes?” “Yes.” And that’s all I said to him. So thanks, Hale, for writing in.

Jason Rothman:
So, Chris, with that said, I’m going to hand over these reigns to my main man in the zip down to the navel shirt. And you wanted to talk about something basic, something old school, but something extremely fundamental to everything we do. Let’s share some knowledge today, Chris.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. So, Jason, I remember talking about this. I was in a different home. I was in a different tax bracket I believe. Just it’s a whole nother world.

Jason Rothman:
You had a different number.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Rothman:
You were a nine. Now you’re an eight. Eight at your age, not bad.

Chris Schaeffer:
Right. Well, it’s something that harkins back to one some of our very first episodes. It’s some of the most basic stuff, and I want to talk about the ad rank formula. We don’t talk about math a lot. We talk about theory. We talk about ideas to get more conversions and things like that. And a lot of times we say things and we’re very poignant about saying our belief in certain tactics. That doesn’t necessarily make sense. Use manual bidding and adjust your bids this way. Put things into a themed or topic ad group. Why do we say that? Because it doesn’t really make sense. Why can’t you just throw it all into one ad group and just write some ads? Just let the best keyword win.

Chris Schaeffer:
So today we’re going to get behind the reason why a lot of that is the way it is. Why this is called best practice. Where there’s reason behind this method. And, Jason, to start it off, the reason I even considered this is from our friend Donald from New York, New York, which I believe is a tiny little island over on the Northeast side of America. I’ve never been there. Sounds terrifying. From what I heard, the rats eat people there. But he emailed, and he said-

Jason Rothman:
Personally I love New York. New York is the financial capital of the world, and I love our listeners in New York. I love my clients in New York. And actually my grandma was from New York, and she used to tell me stories about living in New York and the gangsters down the street blew up the store. “Oh, it was a good time, Jason.”

Chris Schaeffer:
As a Texan, I know you’re Oklahoman, I’m Texan. I mean, everybody’s seen the commercial, “New York City.” I just don’t feel that I can just… As a Texan, I just feel a little rivalry there. But all in good fun, Donald. But anyway, Donald’s the reason we’re doing this whole episode. He says, “Jason mentions about Google Ads being essentially an algebra formula.” He says, “Can you explain how all the levers work together.” In other words, what’s the different parts of the equation. And then he happens to write out, “Z=X+Y.” Which reminded me we don’t get into a lot of basics about this. Donald, I think has a great suggestion. So let’s talk about the actual formula. So build up, drum roll, the actual formula is Z=X*Y. That’s the most simplistic algebraic formula of Google Ads.

Chris Schaeffer:
Today, we’re just going to talk about what Z is, what X is, and what Y is. So let’s talk about it. Ad rank equals quality score times max bid. Ad rank. I don’t know that we say the word ad rank. We say quality score all the time. We say max bid all the time.

Jason Rothman:
Yeah, we rarely say ad rank.

Chris Schaeffer:
But we don’t say ad rank. In it is actually the answer to all of that.

Jason Rothman:
It sounds too simple.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah.

Jason Rothman:
Quality score times max bid equals ad rank. That sounds way too simple to even talk about. So tell people why ad rank is so important. What is that? Something a lot of people probably never heard of.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. Ad rank is essentially what determines your placement on Google. Now we don’t have average position anymore, but what essentially it is is first position, second position, third position and down. All the way down to the last ad shown on the page. Ad rank is the final score, the qualification determined by these factors that determines where you show on Google. And I think the most important factor that I always like to point out to people is in the simplest format… Now side note here. I know people may email and tweet and send hate mail to our new PO Box about the fact that ad rank is not quite this simple. And we understand that. We’re going to get into that. But for this purpose-

Jason Rothman:
We might get into that.

Chris Schaeffer:
Yeah. For this purpose, we’re going to keep it very straightforward and very simple in the most basic format. So when it comes down to it, bid is only half of the factor that determines your placement. Just to put this into context, Google is… I don’t know if they’re rid… They’re a very rich, very profitable company, and what brings in all of their money, the vast majority of it is the fact that they’re running a system where bidding and your dollars only determine half of your ability to get clicks, which is amazing to me. It seems like from the beginning the system was designed to not weight money and monetary status above your ability to write good ads, to follow best practice status. I think to me it’s overwhelming. I think it’s pretty crazy that they would even do that. I think it’s a great system for that reason because it rewards hard work. It rewards somebody who works diligently to get good quality scores.

Jason Rothman:
Well, it rewards relevancy. So that’s kind of a very nice spin you just put on it. And it is amazing thing they created. But for me when I’m trying to understand things, I like getting in the other person’s shoes and understanding the full 360. So I think talking about why it’s beneficial to Google will help advertisers understand why relevancy matters so much. There were search engines before Google, Chris. Why are we all using Google today? And why did Google make all the money?

Jason Rothman:
It’s because before Google, when you wanted to advertise, it was just all about who had the most amount of money. People created search engines, people started using search engines. The people who owned search engines said, “Wow. We have a lot of traffic. This is cool. Does anyone want to get in front of that traffic?” Like a billboard on the side of the road, whoever has the most money. We’ll put anything you want on that billboard. Whoever has the most money. So people paid a lot of money to get in front of a lot of people in search engines. And people then clicked ads. It wasn’t useful. People started tuning the ads out because if you’re doing a search for a moving company and you see an ad for some kind of pharmaceutical pill for diabetes, you’re not going to click on that ad. You’re not going to care to see the ad, and eventually you’re going to tune the ad out because you went to the search engine to search for a mover.

Jason Rothman:
But if you go to the search engine searching for a mover, and then ads deliver movers along with the organic results that deliver movers. They deliver the same thing. They deliver what you’re looking for. You’re going to click on the ad. So Google’s whole magic, what made them different than anyone else when it came to advertising was, “Oh, we’re going to make relevant ads that actually help people, that match people with companies that offer what they’re looking for. And if we do that, people are going to actually use the ads. They’re actually going to click on them.” For the advertiser, they’re actually going to bring in direct business. People are going to want to advertise and people are going to be okay clicking on the ads because it gives them what they want.

Jason Rothman:
So how could they force the advertisers to be relevant? Well, that’s quality score. So if you’re doing a search for a moving company and the first advertiser is the pharmaceutical company for diabetes, and they can big $1000 per click. And then the local moving company can only bid $10 per click. These are exaggerated numbers. If you can give the moving company a higher quality score, which impacts what actually depends who shows up higher, the ad rank. You can give them edge over the non-relevant advertiser and make it worthwhile for the small mover to advertise. So that’s why relevancy helps everybody, Chris. And most importantly, that’s why it helps Google. Because it allows ads to show up that actually match the person’s search. And it gives people who actually match their search a chance to compete with huge advertisers that may just want to come in and target that traffic. That’s not really a problem anymore. But back in the day, that’s what started this whole quality score thing.

Jason Rothman:
So why don’t you I guess take us through the levers, Chris. You have your bid, your quality score. How do those factors affect each other in terms of who gets to show up, number one? And, by the way, it’s not just where you show up, it’s if you get to show up at all on that first page.

Chris Schaeffer:
Right. Right. So of course you know what bids are. Bids are either determined manually at the keyword level. They’re determined at the ad group level, or you turn on an automated system, which you don’t mess with bids overall. You just put a max CPC in place, and Google determines what your bids should be to help maximize conversions or clicks. So you get to directly control the lever of bids. If you push really hard, you just hit that lever, turn the dial, and just go crazy and you put $100 bid in place, that then is halved. You only get half of that bid to determine your placement. So let’s say that somebody… You have a quality score of one, and your competitor has a quality score of 10. Even if you put $100 bid in place, it does not mean that you are out bidding them. You don’t get to just out bid them. You have to, in fact, get a higher ad rank to beat them. So your bid is only half of the equation. So you get to control it.

Chris Schaeffer:
The other half of the equation, I would not even use lever to determine this because it’s more like a complicated gauge. You’re looking at a dashboard of information because we talk about quality score. The other half of the system is quality score. And this is not a number that you can directly impact. Everything that you do-

Jason Rothman:
It is if you use SKAGs. It is if you use SKAGs.

Chris Schaeffer:
I thank you. Thank you. That’s Jimmy talking, wasn’t it? That was Jimmy. Thank you, Jimmy.

Jason Rothman:
I’m just messing. It’s something you can’t control.

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s how I feel about Jimmy and his SKAGs. What Jason said is exactly what I hear many people say, and I’ve had clients tell me and say, “Well, Chris, I’m seeing some big things. I read online if we put everything into SKAGs, we’ll see a huge quality score improvement.” And I won’t say that that-

Jason Rothman:
You will.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t have anymore pens.

Jason Rothman:
Well, Chris, you’re making claims. You’re making claims, and what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to get you to rebut certain points. So some SKAGers out there is going to say, “Okay. We’ll break down what makes quality score.” And you’re saying it’s not something we can super control. So expected click through rate, we’ll talk about that in a minute. Landing page experience, well that doesn’t sound like it has anything to do. Well, maybe with SKAGs. We’ll talk about that in a second. But ad relevance. And what they’re saying is if you only have one keyword per ad group with those ads, that’s as relevant as you can make it. Why doesn’t that improve your quality score? You have the floor. Answer them.

Chris Schaeffer:
Okay. Okay. So the idea is that for Google to have the best system to get the best user experience, they want people to search for something, see relevant ads, and the person click on that ad. That’s the experience they want. By setting up-

Jason Rothman:
And be taken to a relevant page.

Chris Schaeffer:
Thank you. And be taken to the right kind of page. Something that’s a direct linear process. You click on an ad that says X, you want to land on something that says X and not Z. You don’t want to get something completely differently or see ads that are not related to X. So the idea is if you were to do a SKAG system, that’s somehow the peak of relevancy. But, in fact, there is very little that is improved for the user experience in that. It’s merely a structure change, which Google I don’t think rewards structure changes. I say that based on over 15 years of experience in Google ads because I see systems of clients that have a ad group, one or two ad groups, and they have a plethora of keywords and ad copy in there. And they’re doing phenomenally well. They have incredibly good quality scores. And then I see other people that use categorized topical ad groups and do very well. And then I see SKAGs that do very well. There is no inherent system structure that works better than another. It’s not that I’m against SKAGs. I’m against people saying that SKAGs are the only appropriate way to approach quality score. That is absolutely not true.

Jason Rothman:
Would it be fair to say that if you have a keyword Oklahoma City movers, and the ad for that keywords says Oklahoma City movers or the ad says Oklahoma City moving companies, both of those are going to get the same ad relevance. Someone searches for Oklahoma City movers, and the ad says, “Your Oklahoma City moving company. Your Oklahoma City movers,” whichever one of those says. So that’s my vote. That’s what I think. I think as long as it makes sense to the user. The search for a mover, we all know that movers are the same thing as a moving company. That’s relevance. So that’s my approach to it, Chris. And I agree with you. I don’t think you need SKAGs at all. We’re not doing that episode, but there’s downsides to SKAGs in terms of management.

Jason Rothman:
So I guess, Chris, when it comes to ad relevance, when it comes to expected click through rate, when it comes to landing page experience, what is your overall take on quality score and how that plays a role in your ad rank? When a client says, “Hey, we need to get our ad rank better.” Someone said that to you or if you said that to yourself. How much are you looking at bid, how much are you looking at quality score? How do those factors play together?

Chris Schaeffer:
Right. So I think of it in the fact of if they want to improve their positioning, if they want to get better search impression share, if they want to get show up on certain searches that they’re not showing up on, quality score is actually one of the last things I think of because I equate it to a cruise ship or a diesel truck, a big huge 18 wheeler moving along. In my fast, red Corvette, I can take turns and change things very quickly. That is my immediate change that I can take with max bid. When it comes to quality score, this is a progress over time, and this is not the kind of thing that I can change of me. Someone says, “I want to change quality score,” I said, “Oh, okay. Let’s check back on that in a couple months. Let’s try and improve overall consistency.” As you said before, the keyword is relevancy. Relevance from search term to ad copy to landing page. Well, I should search term to keyword to ad copy to landing page. That relevancy process is what you continually improve. That can be changed, improved over time with quality score. But when it comes to moving things quickly, it comes down to bid. That’s the only thing you can immediately pull a lever on and make changes quickly.

Jason Rothman:
And I think it also has to do with how bad your account is basically at a given time. Because if you have an account and you’re like, “Hey, I don’t think I’m showing up enough. I’m not showing up high. I keep raising my bids, but I’m raising them higher than I want to raise them. And I’m still not showing up above other people.” Well then I think you got to look at your account, and you got to look at the way it’s structured. You got to look at the keywords you’re targeting. You got to look at your ad copy. And you got to focus on…

Jason Rothman:
I think the worse your account is, Chris, in terms of the way it’s being run, the more you should focus on quality score because there’s more improvement you can make with your quality score. So if you’re just targeting tons of broad keywords, if your ad copy is just garbage, if your landing pages are horrible, there’s ways you can effect all three of those factors, good ads, improve your click through rate, good landing pages, target better keywords. You can raise your quality score a lot more than someone who has a pretty good Google Ads account and is getting a ton of six’s and seven’s. So if you’re getting one’s, two’s and three’s and four’s, there’s a lot of way to go in terms of improving your relevance. And then you don’t have to increase your bids as much, and your ad rank will go up because your quality score goes up.

Jason Rothman:
Alternatively, if you have a pretty solid Google Ads account and you’re seeing a lot of six’s and seven’s on quality score, in my experience, at that point you got to kind of pull the trigger with bids if you want to raise your positions. And use that to impact ad rank.

Jason Rothman:
One thing that I think that is just super important, Chris, that we haven’t really hit is that because it’s not just your bid but your bid times your quality score and they’re both kind of like even factors in terms of raising your ad rank or in terms of levers, your options. What this means is that the person that shows up number one doesn’t have to necessarily be bidding more than the person showing up number two.

Chris Schaeffer:
Good point.

Jason Rothman:
You can get into positions or situations where the person showing up at the top because they have a better quality score is able to bid less. Just to give you an example of that, Chris. Say someone’s bidding $2 and they have a quality score of 10. What’s two times 10? Public school, Chris.

Chris Schaeffer:
I don’t know. Hey, Siri.

Jason Rothman:
I didn’t think you did. 20. Two times 10 is 20, and it’s a good thing we have calculators. Two times 10 is 20. That’s the ad rank of the first advertiser. Advertiser number two is bidding $4, and their quality score is two. What’s two times four? That’s eight.

Chris Schaeffer:
Gotcha.

Jason Rothman:
Eight is a lot less than 20. It’s a lot… We knew it. We knew it. Eight is a lot less than 20. So advertiser two who’s bidding double what the other person’s bidding, $4 versus $2. They’re bidding double, but they’re still showing up number two because their ad rank is a lot worse. And so that’s why it really is a crime against humanity I think, Chris, that we are 175 episodes into this show, and I know for certain we’ve talked about ad rank before. But it is kind of a not good thing that we go this far without exclusively focusing on it. And I think the kind of let down is not all of our listeners know about this formula, not all of them have it kind of ingrained in them. But you and I, we never verbalize it. It’s kind of like the love between us. We don’t say I love you that often to each other. Sometimes I say it when I get emotional, and then you kind of-

Chris Schaeffer:
I mumble it.

Jason Rothman:
Don’t say it back. Then you blame it on the internet quality.

Chris Schaeffer:
Connection.

Jason Rothman:
Oh, you said it but it dropped off for a second.

Chris Schaeffer:
My mic cut out.

Jason Rothman:
But the thing is I know you feel that way. So we don’t have to verbalize it. It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same thing with ad rank. It’s so ingrained on your and I’s brains when we’re managing accounts that I’m going to put this out there, Chris. I’m going to take it one step further. It’s not only that I don’t think about ad rank when I’m managing because I always think about it, if that makes sense.

Chris Schaeffer:
Sure.

Jason Rothman:
It’s that it’s at a subconscious level at this point. I don’t have to think, “Hmm, I wonder if I should raise my bid here or am I just raising it enough and it’s just the other guy’s quality score is just not going to be something I’m going to be able to catch up with because my client’s website is dog poop, and their client’s website is the best user experience I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” I’m just not going to go down that road of raising my bids. All that happens subconsciously. Does it happen subconsciously for you, Chris?

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh sure. And I’ll tell you what makes it even more a subconscious, not a direct thought is that when I start thinking about a competitor’s quality score, my mind goes into the black box of quality score. It makes it even more of an obscure idea in comparison to max bid because quality score, you can’t equate it in the same way that you can equate max bid. It’s such an obscure idea that it’s very difficult to say, “Look, that guy obviously has a better quality score.” You don’t know that. You might actually have a better quality score. He might just be bidding a lot.

Jason Rothman:
Okay. Stop the presses.

Chris Schaeffer:
Uh oh.

Jason Rothman:
Here’s the problem, Chris. Bids. So what makes up ad rank? Quality score times bid. Bids. What have we talked about a lot? We talked a lot about bids. We’re very good on bids. So we don’t need to kind of cover bids in the sense of an ad rank discussion because we’re on top of it with bids. We’ve covered them very well. But I think we need to talk about quality score next week, and I think obviously we’ve talked about quality score and the factors that make it up. But I think we need to specifically talk about quality score and it’s relation to ad rank situations. And I think that needs to be in the next week’s episode in terms of, okay, I’m bidding… We just need to come up with scenarios. I’m bidding a ton. It’s not moving the needle. Like I’m in the preview tool. I’m raising the bid $20, still position two. My client wants position one. Okay, I go back in to Google Ads, I raise it another $20. I wait five minutes. I go to the preview tool. We’re still number two. What is going on? Why I can’t get ahead of this guy? Are they really bidding seven times what I thought other people were bidding? No, it’s a quality score situation. So how can I improve my quality score?

Jason Rothman:
So I think we need to talk about quality score in the ad rank realm next week. Do you agree with that, Chris? Are you going to be there when I come on here next week to talk about that? Do you agree?

Chris Schaeffer:
I am contractually obligated to be here. So yes. And it is your week to choose a topic. So I am contractually obligated to say absolutely. How’s that for enthusiasm?

Jason Rothman:
Thank you. Chris, dude, you see this.

Chris Schaeffer:
What is-

Jason Rothman:
You see this?

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s hilarious. What is that?

Jason Rothman:
You know where that’s been? You want to know where that’s been? I’m done throwing pens. I’m throwing pens like that now.

Chris Schaeffer:
I hate that. No, that didn’t even make a sound when it hits the wall. Well, who has a floppy pen? You need something heavy and weighty. Oh, the dog’s barking. You made the dog bark for throwing your floppy pen against the wall.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, honestly, you’re making me very heated right now for Halloween. I don’t need that in my life today of all days.

Chris Schaeffer:
So let’s, Jason-

Jason Rothman:
Stop. No, no, no. Cut the… No, Chris, cut the crap. Cut the contractually obligated fact joke. No one thinks it’s funny, okay?

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, oh. Okay. All right. Bring it. Here we go.

Jason Rothman:
Cut the jock, oh, oh, oh. We’re not doing cross fit. Oh, one more, Chris. Oh, oh. We’re not doing that, Chris. We’re doing a podcast. So stop saying that. Honestly, do you think there’s some value to talking about quality score in terms of ad rank scenarios? I think it’s very important.

Chris Schaeffer:
I am very interested to know what those scenarios are.

Jason Rothman:
It’s in terms of understanding your ad rank options or excuse me, your quality score options and the factors of quality score. But understanding them with the ad rank is the end goal in mind. How can you possibly talk about ad rank and understand it to the level we understand it unless you understand the factors of quality score to the same extent. So I think it needs to be talked about. So we’ll talk about that.

Chris Schaeffer:
Okay.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, we have some more stuff to talk about with ad rank. What we’re going to do, I think if you agree, we’re going to link to this article you found that has a great graphic that shows the chart, quality score times ad rank, or quality score times bid is your ad rank. We’ll link to that. We’ll link to the Google documentation about ad rank. But this isn’t 2016, Chris, this is 2019.

Chris Schaeffer:
Right.

Jason Rothman:
And I don’t know about you but I’m seeing things change in that support documents from Google all the time. And when I got on there today to kind of re-up myself about ad ranking and get with the documentation, I was very surprised by what I found. And so as we go deeper into a conversation that’s more theoretical and things we can’t really control but they’re good to know about, I want to talk about that stuff with you on Patreon because it’s just more theoretical, and like you said, today was about the formula. Does that make sense?

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh yeah. I’m with you. I’m with you, except, speaking of Patreon. I have already chosen my topic for Patreon. So you have been rejected. Do not delete it. Just because you delete it off of the spreadsheet does not mean it’s not longer chosen. I see your cursor going. So before we jump into Patreon, which we do every week, and you can join us for $2 or $4 a month, a great rate. Just a little something is all we ask.

Chris Schaeffer:
This episode is brought to you by our very gracious sponsors Opteo.com/PSP. You heard me at the top of the episode. You know what I like about it. You know what you like about it because 99% of you have tried it and are using it. I’m talking to you, Charles, who are not currently trying it. Yeah, you, Sarah. Yeah, Sarah. I’m talking to you who has not tried it. The 1% out there. Go out there, try it. Opteo.com/PSP O-P-T-E-O.com/PSP.

Jason Rothman:
Thanks, Chris. And I want to thank Directive Consulting. DirectiveConsulting.com. B2B, enterprise, online marketing campaigns, Directive does it all. They’ll help you get quality leads. They’ll help you scale that and get more and more quality leads. They do everything. SEO, pay for click, landing pages, content, social. They do everything, and they do it for B2B and they do it for enterprise advertisers. Go to their website, look at some of the brands they’ve worked with. It’s extremely impressive. Look at their case studies. And get a free custom proposal at DirectiveConsulting.com.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, just to put a button on this episode, the ad rank formula, it can get way more complex. There’s other things to talk about. We’ll do that a little on Patreon. At the end of the day though, the things you can control and kind of see or most of the things, what it was all based on the whole time, your max bid times your quality score, that determines your ad rank. Your ad rank determines if you get to show up at all and where you get to show up. It sounds simple, but it’s the most fundamental thing to Google Ads. And for all the advertisers out there that want to have some fun with me from The Paid Search Podcast, next time an agency is selling to you, next time a freelancer is selling to you, let them do their little speil. But then at the end, hit them with a nice, “So how does ad rank play a role in terms of your decisions inside the Google Ads?”

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh goodness.

Jason Rothman:
What percent of people do you think, Chris, are not even going to either have never heard of ad rank and they’re doing Google Ads, or they’re not going to… They don’t know it at a subconscious level like we do, and they’re not going to be able to talk about the factors. And they’re going to fall back on their feet. Wait until the end of the conversation, let them do what they’re comfortable doing. Their little stupid sales pitch. And then hit them with them, “Well, I’m very focused…” Because the thing that I’m very focused on ad rank, and I want to know how that’s going to play a role in how you manage the campaigns. The reason this is going to stumble the idiots on their heels is because they never get asked about ad rank from advertisers, and they’re not going to know what to say. And it’s going to be really funny.

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s awesome.

Jason Rothman:
Chris, you know that’s true because you’re laughing a genuine laugh there.

Chris Schaeffer:
That’s evil.

Jason Rothman:
Isn’t that funny?

Chris Schaeffer:
Oh, man.

Jason Rothman:
Is it evil or is it good versus evil because I’m helping the advertisers out there at Google Ads. How dare you say something evil when I’m doing good for people. People asked for it. You got it. Here’s this pen. There’s the wall.

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