How to Improve Google Ads Quality Score?

The success of any PPC campaign requires a good understanding of the Quality Score (QS). Indeed, QS plays an important role in determining the cost, the efficiency and the success of Google Ads campaigns. In this post, i’m talking about what Quality Score is and how you can improve it?

What Is Quality Score ?

Quality Score is Google’s appreciation of your ads (including quality and relevance of both keywords and copy.). In particular, Google will check whether your search ads meet the users needs both in terms of quality and added value. 

If you don’t know where to find Quality Score in Google Ads interface, follow steps here. 

Why Google Ads Quality Score Is Important?

First, QS has a significant influence on campaign spend, since it determines Cost Per Click (CPC). Thus, a high QS will result in a better ranking of your ads and lower costs (cost per click and cost per conversion).

Several factors are taken into account to determine this score. Like SEO, we do not have the exact recipe to influence this quality index.

However, most experts agree on 7 factors impacting Quality Score.

Quality Score Factors

1 – Keyword Relevance

The first step to improve your QS is to take care of choosing your keywords.

• Focus on keywords close to your business in order to improve your ads relevance. Consider long tail keywords, as they can generate significant and highly qualified traffic.
• Identifying relevant keywords is not enough. You should also well organise them into groups to be used for PPC campaigns.
• Avoid having many ad groups, as this can lower your Quality Score. Instead,  create targeted and limited number of ad groups.
• Finally, consider excluding negative keywords that could exhaust your budget unnecessarily. If you don’t do it this correctly, this will reduce your clickthrough rate and therefore affect your score.

If you set the above guidelines correctly, you are well on the way to improve your Google Ads score.

2 – Landing Page Relevance

Here the watchword is the relevance of the landing page to which you redirect user. This page must match to the user query he has searched for in Google. Make sure that your landing page:

• offers original and relevant content
• inspires transparency and reliability
• offers clear navigation and strong UX
• is Mobile-Friendly
• charges quickly
• does not contain broken links

Keep in mind that having a good landing page is not only to please Google. It will also improve your conversion rate, which remains the ultimate goal.

3 – Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The general consensus is that the clickthrough rate (CTR) is the most important factor acting on the Quality Score. Click-Through Rate is a valuable indicator of the attractiveness and relevance of your ads to people searching for your products and services on Google. 

I recommend you to:

• Pause keywords with both low CTR (<1.5%) and low conversions
• Setup Dynamic Keyword Insertion for your text ads to improve clickthrough rate

4 – Ad Copy Relevance

One of the key factors to improve CTR is the ads copy (text). Make sure it is compelling and provoking users so they want to click on your ad. You will have to set ads copy best practices and run A/B tests to find out what works best. But always remember one crucial point: relevance !

It is unnecessary to write attractive ads copy with false promises. This will probably increase your click-through rate but in the end your conversion rate will be low.

5 – Overall Account Quality

Beyond curent ad or campaign, Google will also take into account the performance of your other ads and campaigns to calculate QS. In addition, Google will look to your status (respectable advertiser, …)

6 – Account performance history

The account performance history affects your score. So if you have a poor QS history, Google may penalise your current Quality Score accordingly. 

This may seem a little unfair but this “penalty” also applies to new Google Ads accounts.

7 – Bid

Simply how much are you willing to pay. By the way, if you wonder how Cost Per Click (CPC) are calculated, here is the formula.

Google divide the Ad Rank of the closest competitor to you by your QS, then adds 1 cent

Ad Rank And Quality Score

Ad Rank is a value calculated by Google to determine ad position among competitors in the paid search results.

The simplest way to look at ad rank is to multiply ads quality score by your max CPC bid.

For example if you have a quality score of 7 and your bid is 2$ your ad rank would be 14.

Ad Rank does not affect the Quality Score. It is quite the contrary. However, if your QS improves, your Ad Rank should naturally follow.

Takeaways

My last advice is not to get too hung up on the Quality Score. Of course this is important, but what is more important is the end result which is achieving maximum conversions. The Quality Score is a factor contributing to the overall success of your campaign, but that’s not all. Focus on the quality, relevance and improvement of clickthrough rate, and your Google Ads campaigns will quickly perform better.