Google Ads is an effective way to promote businesses and if you are someone trying to be proficient in it, you must have a substantial understanding of the Google Ads Quality Score. It is a metric that can influence the cost and effectiveness of your paid search campaigns in a huge way. This score has an impact on performance of your ads and the amount you get paid for each click. 

 

What Does Quality Score Mean In Google Ads?

Google Adwords tracks the quality score and gives an estimate of the quality of your ad by scoring it out of 10. Each keyword in your account will be allocated a quality score and it fluctuates based on several factors that change over time. 

The scores will be computed whenever a search is carried out that initiates your ad, however, any improvements in your account tend to take time. When you add new keywords, the default score assigned when a campaign is created is 7. But this number changes over time, so you do not have to worry at the beginning.

According to Google:

If your ads and landing pages are relevant to the user, the chances are that your campaigns will get higher quality scores. 

Quality score is computed as an estimate of your overall performance in ad auctions and is not used at the time of auction to determine ad rank. 

Many people confuse Quality Score and Ad Rank because both of these are parameters that Google uses to evaluate your campaigns, but they are different. Quality Score is a tool that assists advertisers in improving campaigns and informs them to adjust campaigns accordingly to achieve maximal results. On the other hand, Ad Rank is a way for Google to take into account extensive campaign information to determine where your ad will be positioned in SERPs. 

 

Reasons Why Google Uses Quality Score

Google uses the Quality Score to show more relevant ads to users every time a search takes place because they depend highly on the revenue from advertising. They earn around 70.9% of their revenue from advertising which means that they have to ensure the ads are interesting to users for them to click through. 

If low-quality ads are used, the space would go to the waste as the space can be used to fill more relevant ads. By using the space for relevant ads, Google can make much money and it also would not have to risk alienating its users in the long term. 

Some advertisers consider the Quality metric as a struggle that needs to be overcome, but in reality it helps to drive high-quality leads to a site, something every advertiser expects to achieve. If you choose the relevant keywords and combine it with compelling ad copy, it leads to more leads and reduced CPCs. 

 

How Is Google Ad Quality Score Affected?

It is a known fact that Google is the storehouse of data and knows how users interact with their search results, and this data along with machine learning techniques are used to bring a measure of the expected relevance of every keyword, landing page, and ad relative to every search a user initiates.

Hence, rather than going the conventional way of asking their employees to judge keyword relevance, they use their algorithms to monitor what users interact with, and in this way Quality Score is produced. 

 

Quality score is affected by three major factors:

Ad Copy

Marketers have a fair idea on the importance of copy, and copy that you use in your ads have an impact on your quality score. The reason behind it is that relevance is essential for Google to come up with best results for users. Take a look at the example below. 

When you are writing an ad copy, you must keep in mind the key word you are targeting and it needs to be incorporated in the title as well as the ad itself, without overstuffing. While writing do not forget that you are writing it for both search engines and users, so it should appeal to them both. Fortunately, Google helps you by telling you that your ad is not as relevant as it could be, so it gives you a chance to rephrase the wording until you get it right.

 

Landing Page

Another factor that affects your quality score is the landing page you attach to your ad. Google will check the relevance of the content on the landing page, as well as page load speed. Your quality score will increase by sending traffic to relevant landing pages. 

When searchers arrive on your landing page, do they stay at it or they return back to the search results? Landing pages that you use in your ads need to be related with the user’s search and must deliver on the promise in the ad. Mostly, it is beneficial to link to specific landing pages rather than taking someone to your homepage. 

Like in the example given above, users can click straight through to the homepage, or can pick one of the four sitelink extension options.

Final thing that needs to be considered in the case of a landing page is that it must be easy to use on mobiles as well as desktop devices. Also, the load time should be less, your pages must load fast, and for that accelerated mobile page (AMP) can be handy to you. Like in this case, look how landing page has adapted for mobile:

 

Click Through Rate (CTR)

The quality score you receive on your ads also has an impact on the quality score. Google uses CTRs as a way to understand the relevance and appropriateness of your ad and checks if it meets the search intent of a user. 

Expected click through rates vary depending on where the ad is positioned, so if in case your ad is displayed at the top of a results page, Google will expect a higher click through rate than the ads that are positioned at the bottom of the results page. 

Attempting to improve click through rates can be a major challenge as only a handful number of clicks are up for grabs. 

 

Ways To Improve Ad Scores

As a marketer, you will set your business or client up for a higher return on investment by improving and optimising your Google Ads Quality Score. You can achieve this by focussing on some key areas as follows:

Spare some time to research keywords and discover new and relevant terms to add to campaigns, including long-tail keywords as they can contribute to the bulk of your traffic. Following it, organise the keywords into close groups which can then be more effectively tied to ad campaigns. 

As mentioned earlier, ad copy is of major importance, and testing out what works best for individual ad groups will make sure you achieve the best possible results. Higher CTRs is ultimately one of the best ways to improve your quality score. 

Research and identify the search terms that are irrelevant as they waste your budget, add those terms to negative keywords. This will help you to focus on keywords that are important for your customers, and deciding on the keywords that don’t work is a key component of any highly targeted campaign. 

 

Why Is Google Ad Score Important?

If you have a good quality score, it is more likely for Google to show your ads and rank them well. Good scores are as beneficial as high bids, in fact even those ads with lower bids can beat major competitors clearly because their ads are more relevant to the search intent.

You can of course optimise low ad quality scores, but getting too involved in it can lose track of what actually is important- making connections with new potential prospects.