What is Google Ads Quality Score
Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that allows you to compare the quality of your ads with those of others . The metric is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 and is available at the keyword level.
If you have already been interested in the topic of contextual advertising and even set it up yourself, then most likely you have come across such a concept as Google AdWords Quality Score. Not all beginners pay due attention to this issue, and this is a serious mistake. After all, the ad relevance score directly affects their ranking in the eyes of Google. Accordingly, the better it is, the higher your ad positions will be at a lower cost per impression.
Now we will tell you in more detail what this indicator is, what parameters affect it and how to improve it. And before reading, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with previous publications on the topic:
If you have already read these articles, you can safely read on - you will not have any additional questions.
What is Google Ads Quality Score?
So, the quality score in AdWords (abbreviated as QS - Quality Score) is the level of relevance of ads in contextual advertising, the keywords used and the landing page for the audience.
This indicator is evaluated on a 10-point scale. The higher the score, the better. In fact, it is this score that affects whether Google will show your ad in the search results for a search query or not. But that's not all. A high score provides several other important benefits:
- Cost per click (CPC) will be lower
- Your ad will rank higher than competitors' ads
- The number of extensions in ads will also be more
Conversely, a low score may simply "throw" your ad from the list, CPC will be higher, and extensions in ads may not be available. Therefore, QS is really important!
What Factors Affect Keyword Quality Score?
With the terminology and the relevance of the issue sorted out. Now let's move on to a more complex one - the influence of individual factors on the AdWords Quality Score. There are only three main factors:
- Landing page status
- Ad relevance
- Clickability
The page to which the ad leads should provide the user with all the information he needs, emphasize the benefits of ordering a service or buying a product. After all, in fact, the landing page is a continuation of the ad.
The text should not only be selling, but should correspond to the user's request as much as possible. For example, if your ad says "iPhone repair" and your site only sells phones without a repair service, that ad won't be relevant.
Click through rate (or CTR) is the ratio of the number of clicks to the number of ad impressions. A high CTR can also increases the Google Ads Quality Score. Conversely, if the ad is almost never clicked on, QS will go down.
There are several other less significant factors that indirectly affect the Quality Score:
- historical clickability of the URL;
- the effectiveness of advertising for the selected geolocation;
- device type (QS for computers and for smartphones may differ).
These factors are not critical and do not greatly affect the Quality Score for keywords. But they shouldn't be discounted either.
How to find keyword quality scores?
The easiest and completely free way to find out the QS of your ads is to look at it directly in the Google Ads reports. To do this, you need to sign in to your ad account and follow a few simple steps:
- Open Google Ads and go to t
- Select Columns and click Edit Columns.
- Now find "Quality Score" and add this item to display in columns.
From now on, your reports will also contain the Quality Score for keywords. It is enough to perform the setting once, and the system will remember your choice.
How to improve Google Ads Quality Score?
It is important to understand whether you need to improve this indicator in principle. So let's look at what these scores from 1 to 10 mean:
- 1 point - critical situation. You will pay unreasonably large amounts of money for ad impressions, and Google can ban your site at any time;
- 2-3 points - still a lot of problems with ads. In this case, a ban is already less likely, but the cost of contextual advertising for you will remain extremely high;
- 4-6 points is the average. You can work with it, but ads still need to be improved;
- 7-8 points is already a good result. There will be no special overpricing for impressions, and the impressions themselves will be enough. In principle, in some cases, you can stop at this indicator if you do not have the time or desire to optimize advertising;
- 9-10 points is an excellent result that does not require any modifications. The cost of impressions for you will be lower, and there will be more impressions.
An increase in QS, like a decrease, may not occur smoothly, but in “jumps”. For example, from 7 points quickly jump to 9-10 points. Or, conversely, instantly lose a few points. Therefore, we recommend that you constantly monitor your ratings and, if necessary, take actions to improve them.
Read on to find out how to increase your QS score and what you need to consider!
CTR of your ad
Contextual advertising is just the case when you need to be able to convey all the necessary information as briefly and succinctly as possible. You are very limited in terms of the amount of text. A standard declaration is 30 title characters and 90 body characters.
Of course, this is very little. But, if you follow simple rules, you will fit everything you need in the ad:
- list competitive advantages. Show how you are better than those whose ads the user sees next to yours;
- inform about promotions, special offers, bonuses and other benefits of ordering from you (only if these benefits are really relevant);
- add a call to action. The phrases “Order”, “Place an order” and the like encourage the user to complete the target action.
We also recommend that you work with the queries you use and, if necessary, rework them by testing the results.
Ad Quality Score
The quality of an ad usually refers to its relevance, that is, compliance with the search query. The iPhone purchase/repair example given above in the article is pretty crude and obvious. But the decrease in relevance can be caused by less obvious inconsistencies.
For example, the announcement indicates the Kiev region, and the company works only in Kyiv. Or the company's hours have changed but the ad forgot to fix them. Well, or the last product from the warehouse has already been purchased, and the advertising campaign with its mention is still ongoing.
We highly recommend checking and re-checking how relevant your ads are to the user search queries they are designed for. If the relevance is low, the Quality Score will decrease accordingly.
Landing Page Quality Score
Google does not provide clear guidance on what criteria a landing page must meet in order for the AdWords quality score to increase. Therefore, we can only operate with basic recommendations:
- using secure https protocol;
- high-quality website optimization for mobile devices; correct meta tags;
- markup with
<h1>,<h2>,<article>,<aside>tags, etc.; - availability of sections with information about payment, delivery, guarantees and conditions for returning goods.
We recommend giving this issue enough time and attention. Many beginners in contextual advertising believe that the decrease in QS or CTR is solely the “fault” of the ads themselves. In practice, landing pages can also greatly influence the Quality Score of Google Ads.
conclusions
In fact, we have listed only a small part of the factors that affect the QS of Google ads. Upon closer examination, one can count more than a hundred of them, and it is physically impossible to take into account everything, as you understand.
The information we shared is enough to add at least a few Quality Scores to your listings. But if after all the actions there is no result or it is lower than expected, then it makes sense to turn to more experienced specialists who will deal with this issue comprehensively and achieve the desired indicators. For advice and assistance, please contact Elit-Web - we will help!