Monitoring the quality score with a JS script
Quality score for keywords an important thing, especially if one is running a performance campaign, and the criteria for campaign success are heavily exaggerated. The better it is, the less we pay per click, and this translates into the cost per lead and the ROI we get (or not).
So it’s good to keep an eye on WJ all the time. Only that with heavily developed campaigns, keeping track of it for individual phrases and reacting quickly when it slips for any of them can be cumbersome, and often simply not feasible due to the frequency of changes and the amount of data one would need to remember to compare.
How to live, then? The first strategy – is not to worry too much. Here somewhere it fell, somewhere else it went up, there is a chance that at the end of the month the balance will be on the plus side after all. This, however, is an option for those who like risk, especially if you report to a manager who knows his stuff, and is therefore able to see that we have done little to improve our WJ for given keywords in this or that campaign.
For the less adventurous, it remains to look for a way to effectively keep track of what is happening with WJ. One way is to use JS (Java Script) in the campaign.
Script
Martin Roettgerding, Head of SEM Bloofusion Germany, has prepared a script that allows us to generate reports showing changes in the quality score at a frequency tailored to our needs.
It allows us to keep track of its changes in real time, which is useful especially in evaluating the effectiveness of measures to improve it.
How does it work?
The thing is quite simple to implement. For this, we need a spreadsheet in Google’s Documents, a script prepared by Roettgerding, and a list of keywords we want to check (no more than 100).
It is best to generate the spreadsheet using this link and save it in Google Docs in the account we use to run AdWords campaigns. This will give us a ready-made template, where we should put in the appropriate fields: the name of the campaign, the name of the ad group and the keyword of interest.
Google Docs spreadsheet
Inserting a script into an AdWords account
To insert a script into an account, go to the Summary Operations section and select the Scripts tab.
Google AdWords bulk operations
Once this is done, we click +Script and paste the prepared prior script into the fromform and then Authorize it.
Paste and authorize the script
After doing this, it’s a good idea to check that everything works as it should. So we run the Script (button at the bottom). If everything is in order, the log at the bottom of the page will show that the script was executed correctly, and the spreadsheet will show data on the quality score of each keyword.
After executing the script, we click Save and then Close, and move to the subpage where we can set the Schedule for its execution. Here we are guided by our own preferences and needs. Every hour, every day, every week….
And voilà we can enjoy regularly flowing data on the Quality Score, which is additionally saved in the QS History sheet, so we can analyze its changes over any selected time period.
Pawel Bak
SEM Specialist
