Google AdWords Editorial Review - Hazards and Workrounds

Google doesn’t document their editorial review process clearly, but many of the problems that I see over on the AdWords Help Forum are derived from this poorly documented subsystem. Editorial Review affects the Quality Score, Google’s aggregated description of many internal processes. The Quality Score determines how much you pay, when and where your adverts appear and your use of keywords. If you don’t know what Editorial Review does, chances are that you are getting it wrong.

This article is not based on inside knowledge, but is a result of experiments we’ve done and conversations with Google reps, when we’ve been troubleshooting AdWords problems.

The Networks

Google has several different types of advertising mechanism, within AdWords. The one that everyone thinks about is “keyword search”. For a keyword search, you type in a search query and Google, or a partner site like BellSouth or AOL, gives you organic (unpaid) search results and some sponsored listings. The results that appear on Google’s own search properties (Google.com, Google.co.uk, Google.co.jp, etc) are on the “Google Search Pages”. To appear on the partners, such as AOL and so on, you need to appear on Google’s “Search Network”.

The other main targeting system is contextual advertising. Content publishers can use contextual match advertising, known within AdWords as “Content Match”, which shows more or less relevant adverts next to page content. “Content Match” advertising looks at the keywords in your AdGroups and chooses web pages that it thinks will match. Publishers, signed up with AdSense, or part of Google’s own efforts, such as Gmail, are candidates for your adverts. “Site Targeting” is a similar but more focused form of contextual match advertising.

Google has made a commitment to its’ publishers, both the search partners and the content partners. Only adverts that comply with editorial guidelines will be allowed to be published. So this Search Network and Content Network are really a second and third set of sites, separable from the Google Search Pages and only accessible after the quality check. If you have an AdWords account, you can look under the Campaign “Edit Settings” page and see the three networks shown over on the right hand side of the form. The fourth set of sites, Site Targeting, is used by setting up Site Targeted campaigns and is similarly gated by the Editorial Review quality control process.

How important is the Editorial Review?

We’ve done some experiments to measure the effect of the Search Network. Using various tricks, we’ve separated impressions and clicks from the Google Search Pages and the partners in the Google Search Network. Actually, we’ve gone further than that and also separated out the Content Network. Site Targeting is automatically isolated.

The effect varies with the keyword, but we have measured almost ten times as much traffic, in Position 1, on the Search Network, as on Google Search Pages. The Content Network typically offers ten to a hundred times more impressions than the Search Network.

Even more intriguing, some of our ciients have higher sales when exposed to the Search Network, than when exposed to the Google Search Pages. Others make their best sales performance when only using the Google Search Pages. Tuning your adverts and costs to the network can have a measurable effect on profit.

Put briefly, the Editorial Review can block access to a large fraction of your possible customers.

When do you get an Editorial Review?

When you start a new account, when you create a new advert and when you change an existing advert, you need a review. Notice that last point. When you change an advert, even if only a single character edit in the Destination URL, you effectively delete the original advert and create a new advert - and new adverts need a review before they can be shown on the partner sites.

Until the review happens, you may only be shown on the Google Search Pages.

How long does a review take?

Google will normally conduct a review in less than three working days. It takes longer in peak seasons, though. If you pick the wrong week, such as the week of Thanksgiving, you could find that your advert isn’t reviewed until the following week.

Additionally, if your campaign or AdGroup is paused or the account is suspended, the reviews are slowed. A paused campaign typically results in review up to two working weeks later.

Subtle Consequences - The Image or Video Advert

Image and video adverts are only offered to the Content Network. So until the review is completed, you won’t get any impressions. Of course, depending upon other factors, such as the bid, you might not any impressions after a review… But you certainly can’t receive impressions until the review approves the advert.

Subtle Consequences - Two adverts

If you submit two adverts, and tell Google that you want “more even serving” rather than “optimised” serving, you may find that one advert garners a lot more impressions than the other one. This is because one advert has passed the editorial review and the other one hasn’t. The one that has passed the review is shown on the additional partner networks.

It is fairly common for us to find that an account with multiple adverts per AdGroup has a few adverts that have not been reviewed, even after a several weeks. The only way to tell is the strange signature that one advert gets a lot more impressions than the other - and that only works if you have disabled Google’s advert optimisation.

Subtle Consequences - Sales Decline

If you have one advert, and you change it, your advert is withdrawn from the partners. Your CTR may be affected and the number of clicks may be reduced, too. Until the advert passes the review, your business will suffer a decline in advertising.

For some of our clients, changing an existing advert is equivalent to stopping advertising for up to three days, for each change. That’s almost 1% of the total annual advertising - so if you change each advert once per month, you damage the account to the extent of an entire months’ stopped advertising.

Can you avoid the damage?

Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can’t. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and how imaginative you are to work around AdWords.

The basic rule to avoid damage is simple:

Always add an advert, then wait at least one working week before you delete the old advert.

Exceptions to the rule

Imagine, if you will, that your advert should now lead to a new landing page. You need to change the Destination URL. If you do so, your advertising will be damaged by about 1%. In a tight margin business, that’s a significant penalty. We have a technique… you use the keyword level Destination URL. Those changes are not reviewed, so the advert continues at full throttle, but clicks will lead to the keyword specified landing page, not that of the advert. Unless you have content match enabled… when other techniques are needed.

As another example, imagine that you have a large inventory with rapidly changing prices. You might find that adverts are 100% more effective when you include the price. But the price changes faster than the editorial review, so your product is only ever shown on the Google Search Pages with the new price.

Is there a solution that gives you access to a larger search audience? We’ve implemented a variety of different techniques, depending upon the need of the advertiser, that balances the loss of advertising opportunities and the increased response to price offers - basically a bit of maths that calculates what the best strategy is for adding and deleting adverts to sustain advertising and maximise the profit. Not a perfect solution (undiminished advert flow, with new adverts), but usually measurably better than just changing the adverts.

Of course, if Google offered templated adverts, then you could offer up to the minute prices with no penalty. We’ve suggested mechanisms to Google that would allow this to work, but no joy so far… Well, apart from suggestions to read the AdWords Help Forum, of course.