In Summary:
- Quality Score is influenced by multiple factors beyond just keyword performance.
- Understanding and optimizing different levels of Quality Score can significantly improve your Google Ads campaigns.
Google Ads Quality Score is a crucial metric that impacts the effectiveness of your campaigns. While most advertisers are familiar with the visible Quality Score at the keyword level, there are additional layers of Quality Score that play a significant role in your ad performance.
This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the different types of Quality Score, why they matter, and practical steps to enhance your Quality Score.
Types of Quality Score
Account-Level Quality Score:
This score reflects the historical performance of all keywords and ads in your account. While Google doesn’t officially confirm its existence, it’s widely accepted that account-level Quality Score influences the overall performance of your ads.
Accounts with poor historical performance, such as low click-through rates (CTR) and Quality Scores, can struggle to introduce new keywords successfully.
To improve your account-level Quality Score, consider restructuring your campaigns and ad groups, and make sure to align keywords, ads, and landing pages with relevant guidelines.
While some may suggest deleting underperforming keywords, it’s essential to weigh the potential impact on your account before making such decisions.
Ad Group-Level Quality Score:
Ad Group-level Quality Score helps identify areas within your campaigns that require attention. By focusing on ad groups with lower average Quality Scores, you can prioritize improvements that will yield the highest return on investment (ROI).
Restructuring your ad groups and optimizing low CTR ads can boost your overall Quality Score without losing historical performance data.
Keyword-Level Quality Score:
This is the most visible form of Quality Score in the Google Ads interface, rated on a scale of 1 to 10. It reflects the relevance of keywords, ads, and landing pages to search queries.
Factors like ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected CTR all contribute to this score. It’s important to note that keywords need to reach a certain impression threshold before their Quality Score reflects their performance in your account.
To boost keyword impressions, analyze impression share data, consider less restrictive match types, and ensure your keywords are not overly niche. Additionally, focusing on CTR improvements can help elevate your keyword-level Quality Score.
Ad-Level Quality Score:
The click-through rate of your ads significantly impacts their Quality Score. Including Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) in your ads can increase relevance and CTR, but it’s crucial to monitor conversion rates to maintain a positive ROI.
Pausing poorly performing ads without editing them can preserve their historical data and maintain your Quality Score.
Landing Page Quality Score:
Google emphasizes the importance of relevant, original content, transparency, and navigability on landing pages. Adhering to these guidelines can improve both your Quality Score and overall ROI.
Remember, landing pages are periodically reviewed by Google, offering opportunities for ongoing improvements.
Display Network Quality Score:
Quality Score on the Google Display Network (GDN) operates differently than on the Search Network. Factors such as historical ad performance and landing page quality are crucial, depending on the bidding model used.
To improve your Display Quality Score, test various ad formats and review relative click-through rates to identify areas for optimization.
Mobile Quality Score:
Mobile Quality Score is calculated similarly to desktop Quality Score but takes into account device location and distance from the business.
Separating mobile and desktop campaigns can help you better understand and optimize your Quality Score for each platform.
Why Quality Score Matters
Quality Score is vital because it reflects the relevance of your ads to users’ search queries, influencing ad eligibility, placement, and cost.
A higher Quality Score can lead to better ad positions at a lower cost, making it especially important for advertisers with limited budgets.
Quality Score Misconceptions
Several misconceptions surround Quality Score. For instance, changing match types does not alter Quality Score directly, as Google assesses it based on exact match queries.
Additionally, pausing ads or keywords does not negatively affect Quality Score, and Quality Scores for Display and Search networks are calculated separately.
By understanding and addressing the various factors that influence Quality Score, you can optimize your Google Ads campaigns for better performance and ROI.