Quality Score – Not Just a Number!
One thing that has baffled me for quite some time was the term ‘quality score’ in Google Ads. It is not just a numerical figure; it plays an important role in deciding your ad placements in Google Ads. If your keywords have high quality score, your ad will not only be placed above your competitors but you may also be paying less amount for every click than your competition.
How to view Quality Score
Just to tell you, Google displays quality score at the keyword level and is only calculated on precise matches. Exact match, phrase match and broad match – all three versions of keywords will have the same quality score.
So how can one see or where can one see the quality score of a keyword? It’s very simple. You just have to move your mouse to the comment icon under status column for any keyword. (The status column displays the status of your keyword – eligible, paused, below first page bid, low search volume, and more).
Other way to see quality score for all the keywords that you are running in a campaign ad group is to click on the Keywords Tab, and then click on customize columns under Column drop down. Once there, you have to click on Attributes and you will see Qual. Score. Click on Add and Save. Now you will find the metric Quality score as a column along with other metrics.
So why is quality score so important?
Quality score determines your first page bid; it determines the ad rank and eligibility to appear on content network sites.
Now the question arises, What is Ad Rank?
Ad rank = maximum bid * quality score
We often see the message, “below first page bid” so to improve that we either need to improve the quality score or have to increase the maximum cpc bid for that keyword.
Any advertiser having higher page rank, will be shown up or higher in the search results than the one having lower page rank. So if you are paying more but your ad rank is low, then also you will be ranked below your competition, which might be paying less than you.
I will give you an example here:
Suppose your competitor is running a keyword with maximum cpc of say 0.50$ and the quality score of that keyword is 7. Then his ad rank comes to 3.5
Now say you are running the same keyword with a maximum cpc of say 1$ and the quality score of that keyword is 3. Then your ad rank comes to 3.
So you might be paying more than competitor, but as his ad rank is better, hence your competitors’ ad will rank higher than yours in Google ads search results.
So, everything boils down to having a good quality score. But what are the factors that determine a quality score.
- CTR – this is the most important factor in determining the quality score of any keyword. How much clicks your keyword is expected to get. The higher the CTR, the better the quality scores.
- Relevance of keywords with the ad copy – The keyword should be related or relevant to the ad copy you have written. I am not saying that the keyword should be there in the ad copy but is should be related. Like you have put an ad on say flowers and you have added a keyword rose. Both are related. Here I would suggest dynamic keyword insertion for ad copy. (more on this in my next post)
- Landing Page quality – Landing page should be relevant to the keyword. Though, it is not a necessity that the keyword should be there in the page but the theme of the page should be related to the keyword.
- Landing Page Load Time – Landing Page Load time is also a factor that decides the quality score of the keyword. The faster a page loads the better. I mean Google never wants its user to land on a slow landing page or a page that is not redirected properly.
- Geographical Region or location and overall performance of the account also play an important role in determining quality score.
So, in order to improve your quality score, try to make the landing pages more relevant, add relevant and searchable keywords, the landing page should deliver the promise that you had made in your ad copy or keyword. Dynamic insertion of keyword in display URL and ad copy may also help in improving overall quality score.