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Do you want to improve your Quality Score?
How do you know if you meet all of Google's performance criteria? Even if Google indicates how it perceives relevance, this doesn't mean that everyone’s interpretation is the right one.
August 10, 2022
How do you know if you meet all of Google’s performance criteria? Even if Google indicates how it perceives relevance, this doesn’t mean that everyone’s interpretation is the right one. It also doesn’t mean that advertisers’ choices are the right ones, let alone that Google will positively consider their suggestions for keywords, ads or landing pages. In order to mitigate any uncertainty, there is a metric that can allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaign: the quality score.
What is a quality score?
A quality score is a score out of 10, provided by Google at the level of each keyword, that evaluates the relevance of the keyword in question. It determines how well a keyword responds to users’ queries, its purpose, the appeal of all associated ads and the effectiveness of your landing page.
Why should you pay attention to your quality score?
There are many good things about Google—but offering free visibility to advertizers is one of them. This is the real issue of the quality score.
Imagine you are an advertizer and have just launched a campaign on Google (it shouldn’t take too much effort). You will pay every time someone clicks on your ad. But what happens if no one does? Your ad still gets clicks and is still visible in the search results. This means that even if no one clicks on our ad, visibility will still be there. Google is not really inclined to make its advertizers take advantage of visibility for free. Therefore, it rates the performance of the campaigns. From there, the advertizers with the highest performing ads usually win out.
Imagine you are an advertizer and have just launched a campaign on Google (it shouldn’t take too much effort). You will pay every time someone clicks on your ad. But what happens if no one does? Your ad still gets clicks and is still visible in the search results. This means that even if no one clicks on our ad, visibility will still be there. Google is not really inclined to make its advertizers take advantage of visibility for free. Therefore, it rates the performance of the campaigns. From there, the advertizers with the highest performing ads usually win out.
What is a good quality score?
A good quality score is considered to be any score equal to or greater than 7 out of 10 for non-brand related keywords. For such keywords, a score of 10 is hardly achievable. Generally speaking, for non-brand related keywords, your goal is 7. For brand-related keywords, you should have a score of 10.
However, keep in mind that:
1) A Google campaign’s ultimate goal is a high conversion rate
2) Google works in theory and rarely (never) in practice
Basically, if a keyword provides you with much value (whether in revenue or completed forms) but has a low quality score—ignore it.
However, keep in mind that:
1) A Google campaign’s ultimate goal is a high conversion rate
2) Google works in theory and rarely (never) in practice
Basically, if a keyword provides you with much value (whether in revenue or completed forms) but has a low quality score—ignore it.
What are the advantages of a good quality score?
Having a good quality score leads to 3 major advantages:
A better position in search results
More opportunities to be visible in the search results (this means more impressions and therefore more competitiveness in auctions)
CPCs with discounts (this implies that you pay less than your competitors for the same keyword. Having a good quality score therefore allows you to optimize your performance without increasing your auctions).
Source: metricool
If you don’t have a good quality score, Google will be less inclined to give you impressions as the ads might rank you poorly in the search results. This will generate a much higher CPC cost.
What factors influence the quality score?
Always keep in mind how Google works to understand how it rates campaigns. Google is used by people looking for a solution. These people use queries to search online for an answer to their problem. Advertizers position themselves on certain keywords to attract people to their solution via an ad. From there, they want to convert that person by offering them a landing page experience that they hope will be positive.
Since all of these factors merge together, Google takes into account all of them.
Since all of these factors merge together, Google takes into account all of them.
Your ad’s relevance: Google examines whether your ad is contextually relevant; in other words, if it is consistent with user queries and if the keywords generated clicks. If your ad has received clicks based on the query “dog collar,” but your ad is about a “diamond collar,” chances are that your ad will have little relevance in this context.
Your estimated click-through rate (CTR): An important consideration is the word “estimated.” Google compares your actual CTR to what it thinks it should be based on the keywords you are using. It is therefore possible that you are satisfied with your CTR compared to other campaigns; however, Google may still believe that your ratio is not good enough for its estimate.
Your landing page quality: Google analyzes whether your landing page effectively responds to users’ initial queries. The issue here is quality, not performance. This means that your conversion rate and associated metrics are not taken into account in the quality of your landing page—according to Google.
Your estimated click-through rate (CTR): An important consideration is the word “estimated.” Google compares your actual CTR to what it thinks it should be based on the keywords you are using. It is therefore possible that you are satisfied with your CTR compared to other campaigns; however, Google may still believe that your ratio is not good enough for its estimate.
Your landing page quality: Google analyzes whether your landing page effectively responds to users’ initial queries. The issue here is quality, not performance. This means that your conversion rate and associated metrics are not taken into account in the quality of your landing page—according to Google.
Google also factors in your overall historical account performance to determine whether you are
consistently a good advertizer. Google wants to make sure you are not simply enjoying some beginner’s luck. Of course, there are other factors in the equation, but Google is careful not to reveal them.
Finally, it is possible to analyze your quality score in order to know your strong points and the ones you need to work on optimizing. Google will let you know if your quality score is below average, average or above average. From there, you’ll be well on your way to optimizing your campaigns.
For some help in the field or simply to hire a certified agency, contact us!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Determined, ambitious and passionate, Laurie-Anne Nault has already acquired several years of experience in administration and customer service. She joined the Turko Marketing team in October 2021 to fulfill the role of administrative manager and social media manager.