#because it's emphasizing individuality while also paired so heavily with social actions and -

[betabites]

Ramblings on the Atlesian Military and Remnant Warfighters in General

I swear, I was just trying to get inside Winter's head for a fic, and things got out of hand. I have no idea if RWBY's writers know or care how the various military and paramilitary organizations of Remnant are structured. But I, woe to my creative process, have to figure this out, at least in broad strokes.

I'm basing all of this in what shows up in RWBY itself, and in the World of Remnant shorts. And while we don't have tons of details on military organization specifically, militaries reflect their parent culture, and we know a good amount about Remnant culture in general, and several Kingdoms in specific. And, RWBY being a show about awesome ladies kicking tremendous amounts of butt, we have a decent idea of military and paramilitary hardware.

Unlike Terra, Remnant suffers the constant threat of the Grimm. Which has implications for military actions. First of all, since Grimm are drawn to outpourings of negative emotions, anyone who wants to win a battle has to be prepared to win two in a row - first, against the actual enemy, and the second against the Grimm. Second, any long-term battlezone is going to be swarming with Grimm. If an army lays siege, they're going to have to be able to fight off both the Grimm and the defenders.

The bandit clan solution to this is lighting raids - get in, get the loot, get out before the Grimm (or local military) arrives. I'm not convinced that Remnant military operations look much different. Which explains why the Great War took place over so much of the world, as opposed to bogging down in a trench network outside Vale.

As far as the Great War specifically - Mantle and Mistral emphasized the society, Vale and Vacuo the individual. I'm imagining Mantle and Mistral just landing huge armies under tight command, and trying to perform a grand, sweeping, brilliant strategy, and it just keeps bogging down because field commanders have to keep calling back to command to ask for orders. Meanwhile smaller Vale & Vacuo forces, under independent commanders (many of whom are probably partisan guerrillas) are just tearing their opponents to pieces... to a point. Eventually, Mantle and Mistral forces are reduced to a point where they can be effectively coordinated, and they can defeat their smaller opponents in detail. Repeat a few times, with one side having an operational advantage, and the other a strategic advantage. By the end of the war, they've learned a lot from the other side, and everyone bets everything on one last gambit - trying to eliminate Vacuo.

Unlike Terra's Great War, Remnant's Great War doesn't end in humiliation and starvation for one faction. And (so far as we know) it also isn't followed by a world-wide plague and economic downturn. For whatever reason, the conflict post-Great War isn't socio-economic (capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, conservatism, anarchism), but human/Faunus. And while there is fighting, it doesn't reignite a global conflict. Probably because every Kingdom has Faunus populations, and they try (however poorly) to resolve the issue politically with the foundation of Menagerie.

An aside: this is a history that draws a lot from the US experience. The USA came out of the WW1 fairly well, and wasn't really a participant in the interwar 'political debate via street-fights' that resulted in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. They were insulated from the actual causes of WW2, and were brought in because of an incredibly ill-conceived sneak attack (Not that the US wasn't heavily economically involved earlier, via the lend-lease act, and alliances to Entente powers. But that's complicated, and the actual flashpoint for USA entry into the war is a lot easier to teach to young children). So it's not surprising that the Faunus Rights Revolution looks a lot like the Civil Rights Movement, because that's also taught heavily in US schools. With the founding of Menagerie paralleling some of the post-Great War map redrawing  in the Middle East, or possibly one of the proposed 'carve out an African diaspora state' ideas.

And that's a lot of words on history - so what are the implications for modern Remnant? First of all, we only see the Atlesian military. Including their deployment in Vale itself. The degree to which this is, by Terran standards, utterly insane, is difficult to overstate. Sure, Ozpin expresses reservations to Ironwood, but I mean - this is like if a USMC rifle company camped out in Olympic Village. The Vytal Festival is a celebration of Remnant's unity, and the only way this is even slightly acceptable by anyone's standards is if the Atlas military is essentially, UN Peacekeepers.

We know that everyone uses Atlesian robots. Not just the Schnee Dust Company, but Atlas hosts what is either an advertisement or a meet-and-greet for their newest model of robots. Which means that Atlas robots, are, effectively, the 7.62x51mm NATO rifle round. Atlas tech, from their robots to CCTS, is a result and perpetrator of Kingdom unity. I suspect that everyone's military forces are based on Atlas patterns, if only because they're probably reliant on Atlas tech.

But first, the weird thing about Atlas. Their Huntress Academy feeds directly into their military. No one else does this. ...At least, not directly. See, Huntresses are licensed by governments. They're not government employees, but they are absolutely state sanctioned to fight the existential war against Grimm. And hunting contracts/bounty boards are almost certainly government-run. Private citizens can absolutely issue contracts (see Jaune's crossing-guard duties), but like a post office, there's no one other than the state that could effectively run a national bounty board. Which is why Lionheart was able to send so many of Mistral's Huntresses to their deaths - he had access, as a Mistral Council member.

Ultimately, Huntresses exist within a government frame-work, but so long as they're hunting Grimm, oversight seems minimal. But, of course, there are dangers other than Grimm. The governments are probably mostly willing to look the other way if a Huntress accepts a contract to deal with some bandits. But someone like Raven, or Ilia, or Tock? Folks with an active Aura who aren't fighting Grimm? Those are a problem. And Atlas' answer to them seems to be the Ace-Ops.

So what does Atlas do with all their military Huntresses? I suspect that they're being used much like Cordovin - anchor points defending Atlesian interests. Which probably includes SDC assets. That's the less idealistic reason for the CCTS - it allows Atlas to co-ordinate their far-flung forces. That it also acts as a show of goodwill is just gravy. Atlas' widely scattered forces also mean that they can reinforce any of the other Kingdoms in the event of a disaster.

Aside - look, all of the Kingdoms are the US in some aspect. Atlas is 'the World's Policeman,' and an exploration of national corruption, fears of a surveillance state, and economic stratification. Vale is how the US wants to be seen, 'the Nation that Won the War,' containing both metropolises and tiny towns, fiercely individualistic. Mistral may be wearing a silk robe, but it's still the US in character. More economic stratification, and a giant sweep of frontier. And mercy, does the US still want to think of itself in frontier terms. Vacuo, I don't think we have enough information to really comment on, but I'd suggest that it's an aspirational combination of more frontier and actual equality.

Getting to the actual military. We kind of have to go off of Atlas' alone here, because we haven't seen anyone else. In accordance with the 'lightning raid' idea, it seems to be heavily vehicular. And honestly? Without an active Aura, I'd want a foot of armor between me and the Grimm. We've seen gunships, armed transports, and mecha. The non-robotic infantry seem to be limited to pairs of guards, with no actual presence of true Huntresses within the ranks.

My theory is that Atlesians who don't qualify for Atlas Academy still serve in the military, but as rank-and-file members - which very likely includes the Air Corps. Their combat academies, unlike Signal, don't have students make their own weapon but instead provide something a lot more recognizable to us as a military academy - sure, there's range time, and plenty of unarmed combat, but also a lot more actual schooling. But fairly early on, the teachers put students on a particular track - so this person will graduate as a combat engineer, that one as a commander, this one as a logistics officer, and that one will actually attend Atlas Academy and receive personalized combat training, but in the meantime, they're going to be studying small unit tactics and intensified general combat training.

Ultimately, Atlas Academy just produces special operatives for the Atlesian military. Very, very useful special operatives, but no more vital than the Air Corps, ultimately. Huntresses are specialists, not an entire military.

I can theorize about the militaries of the other Kingdoms, but we've never seen them, so it probably wouldn't be very effective theorizing. But we do see some other state-controlled violent actors: Mistral and Vale police, and the Menagerie Militia.

The police, by and large, seem to either be your standard law enforcement (supplemented by the standard Atlesian robots), or something more like search-and-rescue, as per the Volume 4 finale. Their ability to wield force is theoretical, not something we've actually seen on screen (apart from some RWBY Chibi gags, which I'm comfortable calling non-canonical). Given the Grimm attraction to negative emotions, focusing law enforcement on de-escalation makes sense. I don't know if there would actually be a paramilitary branch of the police (a la SWAT) or whether that would just fall under military jurisdiction. It probably varies from Kingdom to Kingdom.

The Menagerie Militia is really interesting. Largely because Kali does liaise with Mistral Police, and turns the stand-off with the White Fang into, not a clash between two rival non-state actors (Taurus' White Fang and the Belladonnas' White Fang), but a multi-national anti-terrorist police action. The Mistral Police provide dramatic spotlights, implicit fire support, and, probably most importantly, legitimacy, and the Menagerie Militia operates as a unit against the individual White Fang members. I don't think we can really take the Militia as an example of anything but itself, though. It's in Mistral to deal a morale hit to the White Fang, and, if that doesn't prompt flight or surrender, to use minimal force to disarm their fellow Faunus. Despite the name, they're not really a militia, so much as a posse. They're engaged in police action, they're drawn from the common citizenry, and RWBY deals pretty heavily in Western tropes.

Actually, that's another side note. Standard fantasy settings owe a good bit to the influence of D&D nowadays - mostly indirectly, via various video game franchises. But the medievalism of D&D doesn't look much like actual medieval times, despite the kings. It does look a lot like Westerns, with weak governments relying on parties of roving miscreants to beat back the hordes of savages from the frontiers. I'm well aware of how problematic the last part is. RWBY tries to avoid those particular racist bits by making the threat to civilization be literal hate-seeking monsters. And then, try to show that Remnant culture is full of all kinds of people, with different material cultures and appearances, all more or less co-operating. And then they use the Faunus to try to talk about racism - not always well, but making a better attempt to engage with the material than most fantasy. I mean, Blake has passing privilege - she can pretend to be human, and struggles with that idea. A lot of fantasy is still stuck on Lovecraft and Howard, in terms of race.

To summarize - Atlas is our only model for a modern Remnant army, but we can make some pretty good guessing about them. They're heavily invested in vehicle combat and robotic infantry, because Huntresses are rare, and no one else wants to get into melee with a Grimm. Atlas is heavily invested in a top-down organization, but since the Great War, has been allowing local commanders more initiative. Atlesian military Huntresses are specialists, not necessarily commanders in their own right. Until recently, the Atlesian military has been serving as a sort of global reserve, deploying units to hot spots to assist local forces against the Grimm.

And Salem's finally deployed an army of her own.

[bethestaryouareradio]

Be a Super Hero! Wear aMask!

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  BE a SUPER HERO! WEAR A MASK!

  MIRACLE MOMENT®

“You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin 

    MESSAGE FROM CYNTHIA BRIAN, Founder/Executive Director

How are you doing in our 8th month of this horrid pandemic? Are you wearing a mask, social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing your hands, and being responsible? 

  If not, please heed this message because Covid-19 is a devastating disease that will negatively affect you and those you love. 

  As of August 11, global Covid-19 cases have doubled from 10 million to 20,395,035 million, and those are only the cases that are reported. It is estimated that the numbers are at least 10 times those that are reported. The death toll is 741,807. It took 6 months for cases to reach 10 million and only 6 weeks to reach 20 million. Half of those cases are in just 3 countries-the United States, India, and Brazil. California, Texas, Florida, and New York lead the pack with confirmed cases over 500,000 and thousands of deaths.

  If you read this newsletter, my blogs, or listen to our radio shows, you know that since March 11, my office has been closed and I have been sheltering-in-place with only occasional quick visits to the post office while wearing a mask, gloves, glasses, and a hat. My husband’s office was also closed and only reopened the end of June after he purchased all the pandemic protection equipment including masks, shields, gloves, gowns, goggles, security dividers, thermometers, sanitizers, specialized air filters, mouth rinses. He and his staff follow a very strict protocol for working with patients as do medical professionals everywhere.

  We have all experienced our favorite salon, restaurant, pub, gym, bank, or store reopening only to be shuttered because an employee gets sick with Covid-19. It’s heartbreaking for the patrons and financially disastrous for the owners and employees. 

  I witnessed this recently when a close friend’s company was impacted.

  Two weeks ago, an employee fell ill. Seven days later the office was informed that this employee tested positive for Covid-19. The business had to immediately close, all staff and their families had to be tested, all clients informed, and contact tracing begun. Because of a back-log at the labs, results from tests can take anywhere from 4-14 days. In this case, seven days elapsed. Everyone was instructed to stay home until a negative result was determined. Fortunately for my friend, his staff, and all their contacts, the test results were negative so work could be resumed within 12 days. But that was 12 days without income or services.

  This is occurring everywhere around the country as businesses attempt to re-open. However, when even one person tests positive with Covid-19 in the workplace, the business must close. No one can go to work.  The one positive infection exponentially affects hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals and businesses. Many people live with several generations and everyone has to be tested and traced. Family members and friends become angry about the possibility of exposure, especially when many are being so careful. Everyone is losing out on earning a living. Many people live pay check to pay check and missing work for a week or more could mean ruin.

  Even though every protocol is adhered to in a workplace, an employer can’t dictate what an employee does on her/his private hours. But there is one thing that everyone can easily do to curb the spread and that is to wear a mask when in public.

  The power and potency of wearing a mask and social distancing can not be over emphasized. Wearing a mask is NOT a political gesture, it is the responsible action. Covid-19 strikes everyone and anyone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that if everyone wore a mask throughout the United States for the next few months, over 40,000 lives could be saved. 

  The volatile political landscape is fraught with misinformation. Contrary to what some politicians have claimed, Covid-19 is not going away, in fact, it is ramping up. The disease knows no boundaries. It doesn’t care what political party you belong to, what religion you practice, or where you live. It is an equal opportunity infector with people of color and lower-income households heavily hit. If you are gathering with groups and not wearing protective gear, you are risking your health and maybe your life as well the lives of those you love. Pay attention to evidence based health experts and scientists. Get your information from the CDC, not from social media or the campaign trail.

  As coronavirus surges, labs are struggling to keep up with testing. Having to wait for a week to 14 days for results renders a test useless to prevent transmission. The CDC states that currently we are identifying only 1 in 10 cases because we are testing so few people. Currently no vaccine is available to prevent coronavirus Covid-19. To bring the pandemic under control we need rapid testing. We need to be able to test daily or weekly without cost and receive results within an hour or at most, 24 hours. Only then can we safely send our children to school and reopen our economy. The federal government must step up its leadership to safely ensure that we can go to work and gather. For now, the best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed.

    Are you old enough to remember cars without seatbelts? I am. Our family of seven would pile into a truck or a station wagon and there wasn’t a seat belt in sight. At first when seat belts were introduced, a public outcry occurred. But today, I wouldn’t dare get into any vehicle without first buckling up.

  Closer to home, you’ve probably engaged in a Zoom or SKYPE call for personal or business reasons. You could easily wear a lovely shirt or blouse on the top part of your body while your bottom is wearing underwear. But if you need to go to the market, I bet you add a pair of pants or a skirt! Right?

  This autumn, major designers are adding masks to their haute couture lines. Whether or not there will be runway shows, you will be seeing coordinating outfits with a mask to match. Masks are going to be the next hot trend for looking hip, cool, and well-dressed.

  Covid-19 is a non-partisan pandemic and it is at our doorstep. For accurate information visit https://www.cdc.gov. 

  Put a smile on your face and start viewing masks as a beautiful, life-saving accessory.

  Remember, super heroes wear masks. 

  You, too, can be a superhero. Cape not necessary!

  Be brave, be smart, be strong. Do your part. WEAR A MASK!

  Living with gratitude and wearing a mask,

  Cynthia Brian

Founder/Executive Director

Be the Star You Are!®

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org

https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

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  DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

    Our newest and youngest reporter on Express Yourself! is 13 year old Jonathan Jackson who will be showcasing a segment called Jay’s Sports World beginning on September 13th.  Be on the lookout for this new talent.

  Hello, My name is Jonathan Jackson. I am 13 years old and from California. I enjoy playing sports and spending quality time with my friends and family. Basketball has always had a special place in my life. It is not only recreational for myself but it's also mental and emotional . I like to compete and I love to show my passion for both the game and its history.  I have always had a natural curiosity towards all sports.  This has created a desire to become a future sports journalist . I am a student athlete that is trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA. This will help to achieve my dream of going to UCLA and joining their journalism program. I love to talk, and I guarantee you will love my show! https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

  TOGETHER IN UNITY AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS CALAMITY

by Siri Phaneendra

  Eradicating the coronavirus involves a team effort and the cooperation of everyone. It is imperative for us to come together in unity against calamity. 

  As Greek philosopher Aristotle emphasized, ‘Society is something that precedes the individual.’ It is not about you and me — it is about humanity. Even if one life can be saved, isn’t it our moral obligation to wear a mask? The efficacy of wearing a mask can only be enhanced when every individual in the vicinity makes a conscious effort to do so.

  The asymptotic nature of the virus causes it to exponentially spread like a forest fire. Let’s not add fuel to the fire by protecting ourselves and others. Spread love, not the virus.”

  Siri Phaneendra studies Computer Science at UC Berkeley and is a recipient of the Cal Alumni Association Leadership Award. She is the founder of drawmylove.com, a company that provides people a platform to express their love by creating physical books with customizable characters. Siri  is a host on Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio on the Voice America Network.

    BE UPLIFTED WITH BE THE STAR YOU ARE!® RADIO BROADCASTS

As part of our Be the Star You Are! Disaster Relief Outreach program (https://www.bethestaryouare.org/copy-of-operation-hurricane-disaste), StarStyle® Productions, LLC and Be the Star You Are!® are showcasing authors, artists, actors, poets, musicians, and many others, all of whom had had their gigs canceled and are out of work. 

  We believe in supporting creativity that provides escape and joy, especially during tough times. 

  Tune in to StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® on Wednesdays at 4pm PT for “Wednesdays with Writers and Performers” LIVE http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2206/be-the-star-you-are as well as our teen program, Express Yourself!™ airing on Sundays at 3pm PT for “Super Smart Sundays” https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

  Both programs broadcast on the Voice America Network, Empowerment Channel and will be archived on that site.

    SURVIVING THE UNKNOWN

  by Angelica Paramoshin 

I remember the days of March that were so heavily flooded with normality. Crowds of individuals flocked towards train stations like classes of fish swimming through reefs. In the present day, we all crave that forgotten feeling of normality. We miss the days when we were able to peacefully stroll through the streets watching all forms of life flourish around us. Now that we are all stuck within the barriers of our homes, we cannot fathom what is to come. 

Numerous individuals have struggled to assimilate into this newfound lockdown in quarantine and ultimately, have sunk into a never-ending whirlpool of emotional turmoil. As someone who is currently writing this from the confines of her room, I understand how mentally exhausting it can be having minimal social interaction with the people you were once inseparable from. People have forgotten to take care of their emotional well-being because their feelings of anxiety and fear of the unknown leave little space for glimmers of positivity and improvement. 

  Although we are living amongst the presence of a pandemic, we must continue to live for ourselves and not simply for the need to survive. Everyone deserves a day dedicated to themselves. Even reading a few pages of a novel you’ve been wanting to read, allows your mind and soul to flow through a river of serenity and peace. It is okay to take a step back and breathe. We are all on this mystical planet together and we will survive together. 

  Angelica Paramoshin currently is a rising senior in high school devoting her time during this pandemic to volunteering with Be the Star You Are!®. 

    SUMMER SURVIVAL READING

Our Star Teen Book Review Team is busy reading and writing reviews for you to enjoy this summer. Reviews are honest and the personal experience of each writer. Check them out at our website, http://www.btsya.com/book_reviews.html, and at our partner, The Reading Tub, https://thereadingtub.org/books/be-the-star-you-are/.  

  Many thanks to our Book Review Coordinator, Stephanie Cogeos, for keeping us on track. If you are interested in joining our team and you are genuinely interested in being of service to others, you can find the info at http://www.btsya.com/book_reviews.html

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    3. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash at 3500+ popular online stores, then donate a percentage to BTSYA:https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

  & buy from your favorite stores. 

4. Search and GoodShop: Choose Be the Star You Are as your charity to support. You can log in with Facebook, too! https://www.goodshop.com/nonprofit/be-the-star-you-are

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      6. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” black tanks $19.99  and books at StarStyle® Store: http://www.starstylestore.net/

      7. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4

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[goddessgardener]

Be a Super Hero! Wear aMask!

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  BE a SUPER HERO! WEAR A MASK!

  MIRACLE MOMENT®

“You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin 

    MESSAGE FROM CYNTHIA BRIAN, Founder/Executive Director

How are you doing in our 8th month of this horrid pandemic? Are you wearing a mask, social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing your hands, and being responsible? 

  If not, please heed this message because Covid-19 is a devastating disease that will negatively affect you and those you love. 

  As of August 11, global Covid-19 cases have doubled from 10 million to 20,395,035 million, and those are only the cases that are reported. It is estimated that the numbers are at least 10 times those that are reported. The death toll is 741,807. It took 6 months for cases to reach 10 million and only 6 weeks to reach 20 million. Half of those cases are in just 3 countries-the United States, India, and Brazil. California, Texas, Florida, and New York lead the pack with confirmed cases over 500,000 and thousands of deaths.

  If you read this newsletter, my blogs, or listen to our radio shows, you know that since March 11, my office has been closed and I have been sheltering-in-place with only occasional quick visits to the post office while wearing a mask, gloves, glasses, and a hat. My husband’s office was also closed and only reopened the end of June after he purchased all the pandemic protection equipment including masks, shields, gloves, gowns, goggles, security dividers, thermometers, sanitizers, specialized air filters, mouth rinses. He and his staff follow a very strict protocol for working with patients as do medical professionals everywhere.

  We have all experienced our favorite salon, restaurant, pub, gym, bank, or store reopening only to be shuttered because an employee gets sick with Covid-19. It’s heartbreaking for the patrons and financially disastrous for the owners and employees. 

  I witnessed this recently when a close friend’s company was impacted.

  Two weeks ago, an employee fell ill. Seven days later the office was informed that this employee tested positive for Covid-19. The business had to immediately close, all staff and their families had to be tested, all clients informed, and contact tracing begun. Because of a back-log at the labs, results from tests can take anywhere from 4-14 days. In this case, seven days elapsed. Everyone was instructed to stay home until a negative result was determined. Fortunately for my friend, his staff, and all their contacts, the test results were negative so work could be resumed within 12 days. But that was 12 days without income or services.

  This is occurring everywhere around the country as businesses attempt to re-open. However, when even one person tests positive with Covid-19 in the workplace, the business must close. No one can go to work.  The one positive infection exponentially affects hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals and businesses. Many people live with several generations and everyone has to be tested and traced. Family members and friends become angry about the possibility of exposure, especially when many are being so careful. Everyone is losing out on earning a living. Many people live pay check to pay check and missing work for a week or more could mean ruin.

  Even though every protocol is adhered to in a workplace, an employer can’t dictate what an employee does on her/his private hours. But there is one thing that everyone can easily do to curb the spread and that is to wear a mask when in public.

  The power and potency of wearing a mask and social distancing can not be over emphasized. Wearing a mask is NOT a political gesture, it is the responsible action. Covid-19 strikes everyone and anyone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that if everyone wore a mask throughout the United States for the next few months, over 40,000 lives could be saved. 

  The volatile political landscape is fraught with misinformation. Contrary to what some politicians have claimed, Covid-19 is not going away, in fact, it is ramping up. The disease knows no boundaries. It doesn’t care what political party you belong to, what religion you practice, or where you live. It is an equal opportunity infector with people of color and lower-income households heavily hit. If you are gathering with groups and not wearing protective gear, you are risking your health and maybe your life as well the lives of those you love. Pay attention to evidence based health experts and scientists. Get your information from the CDC, not from social media or the campaign trail.

  As coronavirus surges, labs are struggling to keep up with testing. Having to wait for a week to 14 days for results renders a test useless to prevent transmission. The CDC states that currently we are identifying only 1 in 10 cases because we are testing so few people. Currently no vaccine is available to prevent coronavirus Covid-19. To bring the pandemic under control we need rapid testing. We need to be able to test daily or weekly without cost and receive results within an hour or at most, 24 hours. Only then can we safely send our children to school and reopen our economy. The federal government must step up its leadership to safely ensure that we can go to work and gather. For now, the best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed.

    Are you old enough to remember cars without seatbelts? I am. Our family of seven would pile into a truck or a station wagon and there wasn’t a seat belt in sight. At first when seat belts were introduced, a public outcry occurred. But today, I wouldn’t dare get into any vehicle without first buckling up.

  Closer to home, you’ve probably engaged in a Zoom or SKYPE call for personal or business reasons. You could easily wear a lovely shirt or blouse on the top part of your body while your bottom is wearing underwear. But if you need to go to the market, I bet you add a pair of pants or a skirt! Right?

  This autumn, major designers are adding masks to their haute couture lines. Whether or not there will be runway shows, you will be seeing coordinating outfits with a mask to match. Masks are going to be the next hot trend for looking hip, cool, and well-dressed.

  Covid-19 is a non-partisan pandemic and it is at our doorstep. For accurate information visit https://www.cdc.gov. 

  Put a smile on your face and start viewing masks as a beautiful, life-saving accessory.

  Remember, super heroes wear masks. 

  You, too, can be a superhero. Cape not necessary!

  Be brave, be smart, be strong. Do your part. WEAR A MASK!

  Living with gratitude and wearing a mask,

  Cynthia Brian

Founder/Executive Director

Be the Star You Are!®

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

Cynthia@BetheStarYouAre.org

https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

  DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

    Our newest and youngest reporter on Express Yourself! is 13 year old Jonathan Jackson who will be showcasing a segment called Jay’s Sports World beginning on September 13th.  Be on the lookout for this new talent.

  Hello, My name is Jonathan Jackson. I am 13 years old and from California. I enjoy playing sports and spending quality time with my friends and family. Basketball has always had a special place in my life. It is not only recreational for myself but it's also mental and emotional . I like to compete and I love to show my passion for both the game and its history.  I have always had a natural curiosity towards all sports.  This has created a desire to become a future sports journalist . I am a student athlete that is trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA. This will help to achieve my dream of going to UCLA and joining their journalism program. I love to talk, and I guarantee you will love my show! https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

  TOGETHER IN UNITY AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS CALAMITY

by Siri Phaneendra

  Eradicating the coronavirus involves a team effort and the cooperation of everyone. It is imperative for us to come together in unity against calamity. 

  As Greek philosopher Aristotle emphasized, ‘Society is something that precedes the individual.’ It is not about you and me — it is about humanity. Even if one life can be saved, isn’t it our moral obligation to wear a mask? The efficacy of wearing a mask can only be enhanced when every individual in the vicinity makes a conscious effort to do so.

  The asymptotic nature of the virus causes it to exponentially spread like a forest fire. Let’s not add fuel to the fire by protecting ourselves and others. Spread love, not the virus.”

  Siri Phaneendra studies Computer Science at UC Berkeley and is a recipient of the Cal Alumni Association Leadership Award. She is the founder of drawmylove.com, a company that provides people a platform to express their love by creating physical books with customizable characters. Siri  is a host on Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio on the Voice America Network.

    BE UPLIFTED WITH BE THE STAR YOU ARE!® RADIO BROADCASTS

As part of our Be the Star You Are! Disaster Relief Outreach program (https://www.bethestaryouare.org/copy-of-operation-hurricane-disaste), StarStyle® Productions, LLC and Be the Star You Are!® are showcasing authors, artists, actors, poets, musicians, and many others, all of whom had had their gigs canceled and are out of work. 

  We believe in supporting creativity that provides escape and joy, especially during tough times. 

  Tune in to StarStyle®-Be the Star You Are!® on Wednesdays at 4pm PT for “Wednesdays with Writers and Performers” LIVE http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2206/be-the-star-you-are as well as our teen program, Express Yourself!™ airing on Sundays at 3pm PT for “Super Smart Sundays” https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2014/express-yourself

  Both programs broadcast on the Voice America Network, Empowerment Channel and will be archived on that site.

    SURVIVING THE UNKNOWN

  by Angelica Paramoshin 

I remember the days of March that were so heavily flooded with normality. Crowds of individuals flocked towards train stations like classes of fish swimming through reefs. In the present day, we all crave that forgotten feeling of normality. We miss the days when we were able to peacefully stroll through the streets watching all forms of life flourish around us. Now that we are all stuck within the barriers of our homes, we cannot fathom what is to come. 

Numerous individuals have struggled to assimilate into this newfound lockdown in quarantine and ultimately, have sunk into a never-ending whirlpool of emotional turmoil. As someone who is currently writing this from the confines of her room, I understand how mentally exhausting it can be having minimal social interaction with the people you were once inseparable from. People have forgotten to take care of their emotional well-being because their feelings of anxiety and fear of the unknown leave little space for glimmers of positivity and improvement. 

  Although we are living amongst the presence of a pandemic, we must continue to live for ourselves and not simply for the need to survive. Everyone deserves a day dedicated to themselves. Even reading a few pages of a novel you’ve been wanting to read, allows your mind and soul to flow through a river of serenity and peace. It is okay to take a step back and breathe. We are all on this mystical planet together and we will survive together. 

  Angelica Paramoshin currently is a rising senior in high school devoting her time during this pandemic to volunteering with Be the Star You Are!®. 

    SUMMER SURVIVAL READING

Our Star Teen Book Review Team is busy reading and writing reviews for you to enjoy this summer. Reviews are honest and the personal experience of each writer. Check them out at our website, http://www.btsya.com/book_reviews.html, and at our partner, The Reading Tub, https://thereadingtub.org/books/be-the-star-you-are/.  

  Many thanks to our Book Review Coordinator, Stephanie Cogeos, for keeping us on track. If you are interested in joining our team and you are genuinely interested in being of service to others, you can find the info at http://www.btsya.com/book_reviews.html

  SHOP ONLINE WITHOUT A MASK!

Since we need to stay at home and only go out when absolutely necessary, these are on-line shopping portals that will sell you what you need, offer discounts, and assist our mission as a nonprofit. Please use these web sites for all of your shopping essentials, 

    1. AmazonSmile donates .5% of purchases https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-3333882

2. Discounted books at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shops/be_the_star_you_are_charity

    3. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash at 3500+ popular online stores, then donate a percentage to BTSYA:https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

  & buy from your favorite stores. 

4. Search and GoodShop: Choose Be the Star You Are as your charity to support. You can log in with Facebook, too! https://www.goodshop.com/nonprofit/be-the-star-you-are

  5. Shop at over 1300 stores on IGIVE: http://www.iGive.com/BTSYA

      6. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” black tanks $19.99  and books at StarStyle® Store: http://www.starstylestore.net/

      7. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4

  DIRECT LINKS you can use for Be the Star You Are!®

  Positive Results: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/positive-results

About Us: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/about_us

Programs: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/programs

How to Help: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/how-to-help

Blog: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/blog-1

Events: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/events

Contact us: https://www.bethestaryouare.org/contact

GREAT NON PROFITS REVIEWS: https://greatnonprofits.org/org/be-the-star-you-are-inc

GUIDESTAR/CANDID: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/94-3333882

  We invite you to volunteer, get involved, or make a donation. Make a DONATION through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES:  https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  PLEASE DONATE

            BTSYA receives no government or corporate support. We count on YOU to help us help others. During this pandemic, all of our fundraising events have been canceled, yet we continue to support those in need. We appreciate a direct donation most of all via PAYPAL GIVING FUND at https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

  Checks can be sent to PO Box 376, Moraga, California 94556

http://www.btsya.org

  GET SOCIAL

          FACEBOOK

https://www.facebook.com/BTSYAcharity/

TWITTER

https://twitter.com/BetheStarYouAre

TUMBLR

https://bethestaryouareradio.tumblr.com

  BTSYA BLOG

https://www.bethestaryouare.org/blog-

       MASK UP! 

DONATE NOW!

  Be the Star You Are!® 501 c3 charity

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

www.BetheStarYouAre.org

www.BTSYA.org

Read more: http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/ca35fa6abb/288055965/bbd34d3431/

[josephkchoi]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[roypstickney]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

[samanthasmeyers]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/how-landing-pages-impact-quality-score/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethmontiveros]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[itsjessicaisreal]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/how-landing-pages-impact-quality-score/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[annaxkeating]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

from Digital https://unbounce.com/ppc/how-landing-pages-impact-quality-score/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[jjonassevilla]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/ppc/how-landing-pages-impact-quality-score/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[reviewandbonuss]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

https://unbounce.com/ppc/how-landing-pages-impact-quality-score/

[josephkchoi]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level. 

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[roypstickney]

How Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Every Ad Platform

In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are few misperceptions as rampant as the ones about the effects that landing pages have on Quality Score. That’s not surprising, given that Quality Score algorithms are “black boxes” that play a crucial role in the success of any PPC campaign. We still have very little insight into how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads), and the social media advertising platforms calculate and use Quality Score.

Landing pages are often a customer’s first interaction with a brand and set the stage for the relationship going forward. Distilling Quality Score into a number is misleading for PPC advertisers because it undervalues the importance of landing pages on several other crucial components of a campaign, such as brand perception and positioning. 

As a side note, most ad platforms use the term “Quality Score,” while others use “Ad Relevance” or something similar. For the sake of simplicity, I use Quality Score interchangeably with Ad Relevance and Relevance Score metrics unless otherwise noted. Let’s get into it!

What Is Quality Score & Why Does It Matter to PPC Advertisers?

Quality Score is an approximation of your keywords’ and ads’ relevance to your target audience. It’s usually represented in the ad platforms as a number from 1-10. This dramatically oversimplifies the complex and user-specific Quality Score inputs factored into each ad auction, but it’s the best we have. Search engines and social media platforms use this metric to decide which ads to show and how much to charge an advertiser for each click or impression.

Google Ads pioneered Quality Score in their Ad Rank algorithm to reward advertisers that created relevant ads with a lower cost per click. Advertisers that try to show irrelevant ads to uninterested users may receive a lower Quality Score and have to pay a higher cost per click to remain visible.

As you can see in the equation below, providing a great user experience to boost your Quality Score can improve your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click. From what we can tell, most PPC platforms use an equation like the one below to determine where your ads appear.

However, each ad platform treats landing pages differently in their Quality Score equations. Savvy PPC advertisers should understand the nuance of each platform to tailor their campaigns for the best results. As a shorthand, the table below shows the similarities and differences between each major ad platform’s version of Quality Score as well as the associated factors:

In simple terms, here’s the question platforms are asking when they evaluate your ads against these different attributes:

Landing Page Experience: Is your ad’s landing page relevant to the visitor’s intent and does it help them accomplish their objectives quickly and transparently?

Ad Click Through Rate/Engagement: Are your ads clicked as often as competing ads?

Ad Relevance: Do your ads align with your audiences’ interests and intent?

Post-Click Conversion Rate: Are visitors likely to convert or take meaningful action after clicking your ad?

Recency: Are your ads recently published or updated regularly?

If the answer these questions is “no,” there’s a good chance your Quality Score is suffering as a result.

How Do Landing Pages Impact Quality Score on Different Platforms?

Landing pages are an important part of Quality Score algorithms and, fortunately, are one of the easiest elements of a PPC campaign to control. The most important part of the “Landing Page Experience” component of Quality Score is providing a positive visitor experience. Answer their search intent with relevant content, provide lightning-fast page speed, and make sure your site looks great on all screen sizes. 

When done correctly, landing pages can have a positive impact on Google Ads Quality Score. That means a lower cost per click and higher conversion rates when compared to sending traffic to a website. And even though some ad platforms do not explicitly factor landing pages into their Quality Scores, marketers shouldn’t ignore the improvement in visitor experience and their likelihood of developing a positive association with your brand.

1. Google Ads – Quality Score

Google Ads’ support content explicitly mentions the importance of landing pages for creating a positive user experience. I want to emphasize the experience portion because most people assume that Google Ads Quality Score only focuses on landing page relevance. Your landing pages must be relevant to keywords and ads that your visitors clicked on, yes, but it’s just as important to Google that your landing page loads quickly, is secure, and looks great on all screens. 

Here’s Google Ads explaining how Quality Score is calculated.

Landing pages won’t have any direct impact on the Expected CTR or Ad Relevance components of your Google Ads Quality Score, but the domain and URL you show in your ads may indirectly help or hurt your click-through rates. 

Not advertising on Google yet? Check out our guide to getting started with Google Ads and you’ll have your first PPC campaign up and running in no time.

2. Microsoft Advertising – Quality Score

Microsoft Advertising Quality Score is nearly identical to Google Ads Quality Score, although they provide significantly less documentation for each of the three components. Unlike Google, Microsoft explicitly mentions that the landing page experience factor is “based on how many times customers leave your ad’s landing page shortly after arriving.” This implies that lowering your landing page’s bounce rate (among other things) will improve your Quality Score.

Microsoft Advertising’s writeup on the factors that impact Quality Score.

It is a good idea to monitor your Microsoft Advertising Quality Score, but don’t expect to get much helpful information about individual keywords. In this case, I suggest following the best practices for Google’s Quality Score improvements in the hopes that Microsoft will reward the same efforts.

3. Facebook Advertising – Ad Relevance

Facebook’s Ad Relevance is a completely different type of metric than Google’s Quality Score. The three components of Facebook’s Ad Relevance ratings are:

Quality Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s perceived quality. Quality is measured using feedback on your ads and the post-click experience. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Engagement Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected engagement rate. Engagement includes all clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Your ad is ranked against ads that competed for the same audience.

Conversion Rate Ranking: A ranking of your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your ad is ranked against ads with your optimization goal that competed for the same audience

Notably, Facebook’s audience targeting does not rely on search keywords. So it’s much harder to determine a social user’s intent at any given moment. Many Facebook campaign types also allow users to convert, transact, or engage with content on the platform itself. (So they don’t require a landing page.) In these cases, Facebook relies heavily on the engagement and interactions that happen on its platform to determine if an ad is relevant or not. 

While Facebook Ads’ documentation doesn’t mention external landing pages, they do reference “post-click experience” and “conversion rate” in two of the three Ad Relevance factors. Advertisers using Facebook’s audience and conversion pixels should assume that Facebook Ads can measure engagement and conversion rates on your websites. Adjust your landing pages accordingly.

4. Twitter Ads – Ad Score

Twitter Ads has the least amount of support content related to their Ad Score and no mention of landing pages. 

The factors that affect your Ad Score on Twitter.

Similar to Facebook Ads, most of Twitter Ads’ conversions happen within their platform in the form of likes, retweets, content engagement, and follows. If Twitter does consider landing page engagement, conversions, or experience as a factor, it doesn’t seem to influence your campaign performance heavily.

That said, pairing your Twitter Ads with dedicated landing pages is still a good idea if you expect to re-engage and convert visitors on your site. The best Twitter Ads campaigns aren’t going to reach their full potential if your landing pages don’t reinforce the positioning (and offers) that you tweet.

5. LinkedIn Ads – Campaign Quality Score

Oh, LinkedIn. Nothing is easy in LinkedIn Ads, including finding your Campaign Quality Score. Like the other platforms, LinkedIn rates each sponsored content campaign on a 1-10 scale. Unlike the other platforms, they don’t allow you to see your Campaign Quality Score unless you manually export a .csv file of your historical performance. 

Once you follow the tedious, eight-step process to export your scores, you’ll find a number in the “Campaign Quality Score” column—but no insights or further detail on how to improve it. 

Without this information, the best advice I can give you is to focus on improving your ads’ click-through rates and engagement (likes, shares, etc.). There’s no mention of landing pages. If you send traffic from your ads to an external site, follow the best practices shared by the other platforms and put your users’ experience first. At worst, this will improve your conversion rates. At best, it could boost your Campaign Quality Scores and lower the notoriously high CPCs on LinkedIn Ads.

Pay Attention to Quality Score—But Don’t Obsess Over It

There are several tried and true methods that will improve your Quality Score with landing pages. Most are focused on enhancing the visitor’s experience and don’t require substantial dev support. Unbounce users can take advantage of Dynamic Text Replacement to improve relevance and page speed improvements to create lightning-fast experiences. 

Your landing pages will (directly and indirectly) influence Quality Score. But the algorithms are opaque, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve seen results vary dramatically by industry and campaign type. I recommend thinking about it as a lagging indicator (not a leading metric) of your efforts. Schedule reminders to review your landing page experience scores once per month or once per quarter. Look for progress.

With a little attention, your landing pages will help take your campaigns to the next level.