What is a Google Ads Quality Score?
First things first: what is a Google Ads Quality Score?
In a search campaign, Google will assign a quality score at the keyword level between 1-10. This score is an indicator of how well your ad ranks compared to other advertisers. The more relevant google deems your ad and landing page to the keyword, the higher the quality score.
How Quality Score Is Calculated:
There are three main components to calculating the quality score
- Expected Click through rate: This is Google’s estimate of how likely they think someone will click on your ad. Google pulls this number from your ads past performance.
- Ad Relevance: How well your ad matches a user’s search intent. Does it match the question or need of the user? The more relevant your ad, the higher the quality score.
- Landing page experience: Once someone clicks on your ad, what kind of experience do they have on your website? Google evaluates how helpful, relevant, and user-friendly your landing page is. Pages that are clear, fast-loading, and directly related to the ad’s message will earn higher marks.
Google assigns each component a status of “Above Average”, “average”, and “below average” to create a quality score. Your rankings are based on how your ads have performed compared to other advertisers using the same keywords over the past 90 days. In other words, it’s not just about how well you’re doing, it’s about how you stack up against the competition.
Why Quality Scores Matter
Quality Score might seem like just another metric in the dashboard, but it’s much more than that. Every time your ad is eligible to be shown, it is put into an auction against other advertisers. Your quality score indicates how your ads perform in the Google ads auction and can make or break the efficiency and success of your advertising. Here are the top five ways a high quality score affects your ads:
- Lower Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
- Google rewards high-quality ads with lower CPCs. A higher Quality Score means you pay less for each click while maintaining or improving your ad position.
- Better Position
- Even if your competitors are bidding more, your ad can still outrank theirs if your Quality Score is better. Ads with higher Quality Scores are more likely to appear in top positions on the search results page, increasing visibility and click-through rates.
- Higher ROI
- When you’re paying less per click and getting better placements, your return on investment should improve. You’re getting more value for every dollar spent, which is the ultimate goal in any marketing campaign. That said, a better Quality Score isn’t a guarantee of improved ROI; other factors like landing page performance, seasonality, and audience targeting also play a significant role in ROI.
- Increased Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Quality Score is partially based on expected CTR, and better ad relevance often means more people click. A higher CTR feeds back into improving the Quality Score.
- Relevance to Searchers
- High scores indicate that your ads are well-matched to what users are searching for, which often means higher engagement and better user experience. You want to make sure that both keyword and landing page are relevant to searchers to improve down stream metrics.
How to Improve your Google Ads Quality Score:
Since Google’s evaluation is done behind the scenes, your quality score can sometimes feel like a mystery, but have no fear, there are ways to improve it! We can break down our changes into three categories: improving keyword relevance, improving ad quality, and improving landing page experience.
Improving Keyword relevance
Improving keyword relevance can be a bit of a balancing act, especially now that Google is heavily promoting its AI tools and encouraging advertisers to adopt broad match keywords. If you’re currently running campaigns with phrase or exact match types, you’ve likely seen suggestions nudging you to switch to broad match.
While Google’s AI-driven recommendations can be helpful, they’re not foolproof. It’s still up to advertisers to monitor their search terms and ensure ads are showing for relevant queries. Fortunately, enhancing keyword quality doesn’t have to be overwhelming—start with these three actionable steps:
- Adjust Match Types: If broad match is pulling in irrelevant traffic, consider switching to phrase or exact, or pausing underperforming keywords to improve CTR.
- Use Negative Keywords: Your search term report is a super useful tool. Advertisers can use it to monitor and block irrelevant searches to improve CTR and ad relevance.
- Group Keywords Smartly: Keep ad groups tightly themed so your ads and landing pages stay aligned with user intent. Again, this is a bit of a balancing act with google suggestions but use your best judgment based on your knowledge of your account!
Improving Ad Quality
Boosting your ad quality is a key step in improving CTR and, in turn, your Quality Score. Google rewards ads that are closely aligned with user intent, so the more relevant, engaging, and clear your ads are, the better they’ll perform.
Here are three simple but effective ways to improve ad quality:
- Match your ad copy to your keywords: seems simple and it is! But this can be something that slips through the cracks, so it is important to audit your ads and make sure your headlines and descriptions use your keywords.
- Use all available ad extensions. Don’t forget the bells and whistles! Sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets add relevance and improve CTR.
- Test multiple ad variations. Run A/B tests to find the messaging that resonates most with your audience. Your findings might surprise you!
Improving Landing Page Quality
Landing page experience is one of the key factors of Google’s Quality Score and it’s one that often gets overlooked. Even if your ad and keywords are well-aligned, a poor landing page can drag down your score and your overall campaign performance. To improve landing page experience follow these helpful steps:
- Match the Message: Make sure the content on your landing page clearly reflects your ad and keywords. That might sound like a “no duh” moment, but it’s surprisingly common for advertisers to link to their homepage instead of directing users to a more relevant page. For example, if your ad promotes “Custom Office Desks,” the landing page should prominently feature that product, not just general office furniture.
Depending on how built out your website is, this could be as simple as switching the destination URL or might require more effort to create new pages or update existing content to better align with your ad messaging.
- Optimize Your Landing Page: Google values landing pages that offer a smooth, user-friendly experience. Two key factors here are load speed and mobile usability.
Slow-loading pages lead to higher bounce rates and a lower Quality Score. It is important to find and fix common issues like large images, unoptimized code, or slow server response times.
Mobile-friendliness is equally important. Since most searches happen on mobile devices, your landing page should be responsive, easy to navigate, and quick to load on smaller screens. A clean, mobile-optimized design keeps users engaged and improves both ad performance and conversions.
Final Quality Score Thoughts
Quality Score isn’t just another metric, it directly impacts how much you pay and how often your ads show. A better score means lower CPCs, higher ad positions, and stronger performance overall.
Focus on keyword relevance, ad quality, and landing page experience to move the needle. You don’t need a perfect 10, just consistent improvements that make your ads more useful to the people searching for what you offer.