The Importance of Quality Score in Google Ads and How to Improve It

Since searching for a product or service online has become the order of the day, several websites advertise on the platform or search engines like Google. But not all get the top positions or recommendations from the search engine, it is a painful truth. The businesses vying for more value from the ad spend have to be in the good books of Google. In other words, the ads must get a high-Quality Score. in this post, we will gauge the importance of the Quality Score and how to improve it.

What is Quality Score

Quality Score is the points that Google Ads gives to the ad. The more the quality score, the higher the chances that the ad will be displayed at the top position in the SERPs. Google has the responsibility of displaying relevant results to the information seekers. So, the search engine puts that ads on the top that are quite relevant to searchers and contribute to landing experience.

1 is the worst Quality Score and 10 is the best. These numbers are assigned to every search keyword that you have used.

There are two types of Quality Score – Visible Quality Score and Auction Quality Score. Visible Quality Score is the score you see in your Google Ads account. It is considered to understand how to move to next level and attain better Visible Quality Score. Auction Quality Score is not displayed in the account. It is because this quality score is assigned as and when your keyword appears in the result. Since such cases may be in tunes of millions, it is beyond the capacity to track and evaluate. However, when you improve the Visible Quality Score, it does improve the Auction Quality Score too.

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Components of a Quality Score

Expected CTR, Landing page experience and Ad relevance are the three components of a Visible Quality Score. The formula is :

Quality Score = 1+ Landing page experience points + ad relevance points + Click through rates points

So, if Landing page experience points = 3.5

Ad relevance = 2, and

Click through Rate = 3.5

Then, Visible Quality Score or Quality Score = 1+3.5+2+3.5 = 10.

Since 1 means bad and 10 means very good score, it is a very good quality score and Google is the most likely to include your ad in the top position or in search results.

How to improve Quality Score

The quality score can affect the position, impression share and cost per click; all together or any of the combinations made by these three determiners of Ad campaign success. So, improving quality score is one of the key deliverables of Google Ads campaign expert.

Here are some of the proven ways you can use to improve the quality score by enhancing the ad relevance and CTR.

Evaluate account organization

The users usually research to lay hands on a specific answer. So, to be the users’ first choice, the ad has to be relevant and yielding the correct information. If the ad answers the question in a precise way, it contributes to ad relevance which is one of the components of the quality score. In addition to improvement in  ad relevance, the CTR increases too, if you have organized your account smartly. When the ad is relevant, the offline effect is that the business gets more queries, or may find an increase in purchase orders.

Organizing account requires introspection of the keywords. You need to look at the keywords in the ad group and establish their relevance and specificity. If there is a loophole, you must fix it to make the ad group quite yielding. Fixing the loophole usually includes removing or adding keywords to balance the ad group or moving one keyword from an ad group to the other one.

The final outcome of this activity is increase in Ad relevance and CTR. As a result, you will see an improvement in Quality Score.

 Testing Ads

It is essential to test ads regularly to attain a favorable outcome in terms of increase in quality score. In ad testing, you try to find out which ad is contributing better to improvement in CTR as compared to others.

However, improving CTR is not the final motive. The companies are more interested in finding if the conversions have happened as a result of the ad campaign or not. So, a more valuable metric to study is conversion per impression. By improving CTR and conversion per impression, the Quality Score can be increased and better positions in the search results attained.

Another approach for testing ads comprises comparing the relevance of the ad groups. It may be required to conduct a multiple ad group testing to arrive upon the suitable results. The multi-ad group testing provides additionally valuable information which might have missed the radar. So, the testing becomes more refined with this approach and the result is better increase in Ad Relevance and CTR.

Enhancing landing page experience

The ultimate aim of a search is to get the answer. Thus, the page has to be capable of providing the same. Ads experts are supposed to improve not only the ad copy but also the landing experience. If the landing experience is not up to the mark, the CTR will not work in the business’s favor and the whole purpose of ads campaign will be defeated.

Here are some pointers to consider to improve the landing page experience:

• Add, remove and revise content to ensure usefulness and relevance
• Making the page device-friendly or responsive
• Content displays transparency and trustworthiness; which is important for building a solid brand image as well
• Page passes the load and speed test and furnishes information within a blink

All these tests and activities ensure that the landing page experience is improved. But the question whether the content has helped the visitor or not still remains unanswered. Thus, while evaluating the landing page experience, one should include metrics like bounce rate or dwell time. It can be found by spending time at analytics and extracting the information from the data available.

Where to start the process of Quality score improvement

The results of analyzing landing page experience sets the workflow for quality score improvement process. Landing page experience is created when the page answers the queries most aptly and provides information as sought after by the searcher.

It is suggested to design a workflow and follow it on repeat to improve the quality score. The point from where to pick up the improvement process can vary and clear instructions add to the convenience of carrying out the process.

For ease of understanding, let’s do the evaluation from Ad group priority score. This score is derived from impressions and the spend on the ad group. So, by taking a look at the priority score, one can determine which ad group to target and improve first. On working the Ad group using this determiner, the impact on ad spend and performance is established.

The process involves the following steps:

1. Does the Ad group need help? – You will take all ad groups in account and evaluate the priority score and pick the one that needs immediate checking.
2. Check whether the keyword is prominently used in the landing page. If the landing page is an issue, it is to be revised by giving ample prominence to the keyword. The outcome will be decrease in bounce rate and improvement in user interaction.
3. If the landing page is problem-free, check for the other keywords that could be tweaked into the landing page for better results. At this step, you may also try to perform ad organization and move a poor keyword to another ad group. Evaluate the result and decide future course of action.
4. If the keyword does not need a change, the focus should be on testing the ad. The aim of test will be to increase the click-through-rate and improve the cost per impression. Here, other metrics like conversion rate and revenue on Ad Spend should also be taken into account.

The ad group analysis is a continuous process and works well for the ad’s performance. Experts may need to perform multiple ad group testing to find the keywords’ relevance in the ad group and to make strategic decisions regarding moving them from one group to another, or to replace them with a new keyword.

To sum up,

Improving quality score is necessary and is a continuous process. An ad campaign may lose relevance with time. Thus, the Google ads campaign managers need to keep the accounts organized to stay in sync with the changing expectations of the users. It is important to refer to analytics regularly to find the trends in keyword use and determine their relevance in an ad group. By improving ad relevance, landing page experience and expected click-through rates, the enhancement in Quality score can be achieved. So, paying attention to factors that impact these parameters is also important for maintaining a good quality score.