Google Ads Quality Score
Glenn Burgess
Glenn P Burgess Author, Speaker - UK's No1 Fintech & SaaS Marketing expert.
I manage Google Ads for BirdEye. Almost every day one of the questions I ask myself.
- How do I make sure that the PPC campaigns are cost-effective?
- How can I estimate the quality of my ads, keywords, and landing pages to lower my cost per conversion and gain better ad positions?
- Am I making the best use of the company’s marketing budget?
The answer is – Quality Score? Improving Quality Score is key to your Google Ads campaign success.
What is Google Ads Quality Score
Quality score measures the effectiveness of Google Ads Keywords, Ads, and Landing pages. Higher quality score leads to lower cost per clicks (CPC) and higher Ad’s position.
The below graph shows How Google prioritizes User Experience and Quality over higher CPC bids.
How Quality Score is Calculated
- The Quality score is reported on a 1-10 scale and includes expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
- The more relevant your ads and landing pages are to the user, the more likely it is that you’ll see higher quality scores.
- Quality score is an aggregated estimate of your overall performance in ad auctions and is not used at auction to determine ad ranks.
What are the Key Factors Affecting Quality Score?
– Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR)
How Likely is someone to click your ad when Google serves it for the keyword they type in?
– Ad Relevance
Does the Ad make sense to appear when someone searches for a particular keyword?
– Landing Page Experience
Does the information on the landing page correspond to what the ad is offering and vice versa?
See diagram bottom of the page for more detailed factors. The one below this paragraph are the MAJOR factors.
Why Quality Score is Important
Quality Score Reduces CPC & Higher Ad Rank.
Improving Quality score lowers your CPC, CPC can lower your CPA and lowering the CPA means more revenue.
Google Ads Quality Score, along with CPC bid, determines ad rank, and this is very important – especially for advertisers with a limited budget. The ad rank formula for the Google Search Network is as follows:
Ad Rank = CPC bid × Quality Score
Quality Score also affects ad placement on the Google Display Network. The ad rank formula for keyword-targeted ads is as follows:
Ad Rank = Display Network bid × Quality Score
The ad rank formula for placement-targeted ads on the Google Display Network is as follows:
Ad Rank = Bid × Quality Score
What Advertisers Should Know About Quality Score
- Quality Score is a helpful Diagnostic Tool, Not a Key Performance Indicator.
- Focus Your Efforts on High-Value Areas Where You Can Affect Change.
- Pay Attention to the “Big Three” component parts of Ads Quality. Understand what Does and Doesn’t Matter When It Comes to Ads Quality.
Quality Score Misconceptions
- Changing match types alters the quality score
- Quality score suffers when ads or keywords are paused
- Display and search quality score affect each other
- Higher positions benefit your quality score
- Deleting or restructuring low-Quality Score elements erases their history.
