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What Is Quality Score In Google Ads And How To Track It

July 19, 2023
8 min read

If you use Google Ads to advertise your business, you’ve probably come across the term Quality Score before. But what exactly does it mean, and how can you improve it? 

First, look at Quality Score and why it matters to your advertising results. Then we’ll talk about some common mistakes that are easy to make with Google Ads, how they can affect your Quality Score, and some strategies to track them.

Quality Scores are important because they determine how much you pay per click and how often your ad appears. A high-Quality Score means you pay less per click, and your ad shows up more often. A low-Quality Score means you pay more per click, and your ad shows up less often. 

You can improve your Quality Score by improving the quality of your ads and landing pages, making sure your keywords are relevant, and increasing your click-through rate. If you're not getting enough clicks or impressions to raise your Quality Score, use a different set of keywords or advertise on another platform like Google Shopping or YouTube. 

How Does The Quality Score Impact Your Ad Performance?


Quality Score is a metric used by Google to measure the quality and relevance of your ads and landing pages. A high-Quality Score means your ad is relevant and helpful to users, leading to lower costs-per-click (CPC) and higher ad positions. 

Improving Quality Score can be challenging, but it's worth it because it can significantly impact your ad performance. 

Here are some short points to remember:

  1. Make sure your ads are relevant to your keywords and landing pages.
  2. Use keyword-rich ad text.
  3. Make sure your landing pages are relevant and user-friendly.
  4. Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches.
  5. Monitor your Quality Score regularly and make changes as needed.
  6. Find out how users interact with your ads and pages by viewing your video statistics.

Low-quality scores can result from several factors, including 

  • Relevance: Make sure your ad, keywords, and landing page are all relevant to each other. 

  • CTR: A low CTR can indicate that your ad is irrelevant to the searcher's query or that it's not well-written. 

  • Landing Page Experience: A poor landing page experience can result in a low-quality score. Make sure your landing page is relevant to your ad and keyword, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate. 

  • Ad Extensions: Ad extensions are a great way to improve your quality score by giving the searcher more information about your product or service. 

  • Keyword Targeting: Ensure you're targeting the right keywords with your ads. Poorly targeted keywords will often lead to a lower quality score.  

Therefore, you must follow all the tips provided in this blog to enhance your quality score for Google ads and make your presence known amongst your competitors.

Why Should We Track This KPI?

If you're running Google Ads campaigns, then you should care about Quality Score. Quality Score is a metric that determines how relevant and useful your ad, keyword, and landing page are to the person who sees it. 

A high-Quality Score means that your ad is more likely to be shown to people interested in what you're selling, which can lead to more clicks and conversions. Plus, a high-Quality Score can also save you money by making your ads more affordable. 

For example, if an advertiser's Quality Score is 3 out of 10 (low), they might have to pay up to $1 per click for their ad to show up on someone's search results page. But if their Quality Score improves from 3/10 to 8/10 (high), they'll only pay as much as $0.06 per click! That's less than half the cost for each click. The higher your Quality Score, the better off you'll be - it pays to ensure yours is always top-notch. 

So what does this number mean? Generally, a low-Quality Score will range from 1-4/10, while a good one will fall somewhere between 7-8/10. The best scores go up to 9 or 10. 

There are a few factors that contribute to your Quality Score and successful Google Ads campaign, including 

  • the relevance of your keywords and ad copy,
  • The relevance of your website’s content
  • the quality and relevancy of your backlinks,
  • whether or not you violate any AdWords policies (e.g., spammy keywords); etc.

How To Track This KPI? 

To track your Quality Score, Follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account and click on the Keywords tab. 
  2. Click on the Columns drop-down menu and select Customize columns. 
  3. A pop-up window will appear where you can select the metrics you want to see in your account. 
  4. Check the box next to Quality Score and then click Save. 
  5. After that, all the other information about your keyword, including impressions, clicks, conversions, etc., will be shown as a number out of 10 based on how well it scored against Google's ad quality standards

For example, if your keyword has a 5 out of 10 score for a quality score, it does not meet all of Google's advertising standards, so there might be some room for improvement with this keyword or set of keywords. When looking at your keywords' quality scores, you may notice one or two keywords are particularly low or high compared to the rest of them, which could indicate a problem with relevance or clarity. 

Once you have found these troublesome areas, don't forget to take action! If the lower-scoring words have low relevance make sure they are more closely related to what you're selling by using modifiers like top best cheap etc.

Suppose they have poor clarity. Consider replacing them with easier words for consumers to understand by adding synonyms or sentences that clearly explain what is being sold.

7 Ways To Improve Quality Score

We have listed the Top 5 ways to improve this KPI and take advantage of the Quality Score to your benefit. These include

1. The first step to improving your quality score is understanding what it is and how it’s calculated.

2. Quality score is a metric that measures how relevant your ad, keyword, and landing page are to a user’s search query.

3. A high-quality score means that your ad is relevant and valuable to the user, while a low-quality score indicates that your ad is not as relevant or valuable.

4. A few key factors go into calculating quality score: click-through rate (CTR), the relevance of your ad text and keywords, landing page experience, and historical performance.

5. One way to improve your quality score is using negative keywords to ensure you don't show ads for irrelevant searches.

6. Another way to increase your quality score is by ensuring your CTR remains high with an engaging ad and compelling message that will encourage users to click on your ad rather than one from a competitor.

7. It's also important to keep track of landing pages so you can avoid sending traffic to poor-performing pages, leading to decreased conversion rates and lower revenue per conversion overall.

You should also be testing different variations of your ads based on various insights gathered from marketing research and focus groups with customers. To find the most effective messages that resonate best with potential customers. It will help boost your CTRs, ultimately improving quality scores across the board!

Conclusion

Quality Score is a number that reflects how relevant your ad, keyword, and landing page are to a customer's search query. The higher your Quality Score, the lower your clicks' costs and the better your ad position. 

Improving your Quality Score should be a top priority if you want to run a successful Google Ads campaign. Through this blog, we understand what quality score is and what factors affect it. We also saw best practices for ads, keywords, and landing pages that may help increase quality scores. In summary:

1) A high-quality score will allow you to get better positions on the SERP

2) A low-quality score can lead to your ads being paused by Google or disapproved by AdWords

3) Best practices for increasing your quality score include making sure all of your ads are tailored towards what people searched for in their query

4) There’s no one size fits all approach but many campaigns have improved their scores by following these guidelines as closely as possible

If you're interested in learning more about the quality score we recommend reading through Google's documentation of Quality scores.

You can always go back to Google Ads later if your current strategy isn't working for you. Remember that there's no single correct answer for all advertisers - so experiment with different techniques until you find one that works best for your business!