What is Quality Score in Google Ads & How Do You Improve it?

Getting to grips with all the terminology, acronyms, and metrics surrounding PPC advertising can be challenging, to say the least.

So, to make things easier for you, we will be breaking down some of the vital metrics you should pay attention to when running Google Ads campaigns in some upcoming articles here on the Damteq® website.

In this article, we’re discussing all things ‘Quality Score’—one of the more important metrics to be aware of if you want to run efficient, optimised ad campaigns that drive consistent conversions and revenue.

Let’s get into it! 👇

What is Quality Score?

Quality Score is a scoring system in Google Ads that judges the quality of your ads for each of your targeted keywords.

By comparing key ad performance factors against historical impressions for your target keywords, Google gives you a Quality Score graded from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score you can achieve.

The performance factors determine how relevant and valuable your ads are to your audience by estimating the performance for each keyword you target.

There are three main factors at play here:

• Ad Relevance
• Expected CTR (Click-Through Rate)
• Landing Page Experience

They are graded on a scale of ‘Above Average’, ‘Average’, and ‘Below Average’.

Here’s what each factor is and how they influence your Quality Score.

Ad Relevance

Ad Relevance is used to assess how closely your ad copy (your headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action) matches the search intent of your target keywords.

This search intent is the ‘why’ behind a user’s search. It could be that they’re looking to find information or understand a topic in more detail, researching specific products and looking to buy, or perhaps looking for local services and attractions.

Let’s say you’re targeting a keyword with an ‘Informational’ search intent, but your ads are geared towards selling and promoting your products. Because your ads won’t be relevant to the keyword’s search intent, your Ad Relevance grade and overall Quality Score will likely take a hit.

Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Your Expected CTR estimates how likely your ads are to be clicked when shown to users. Google bases Expected CTR on your Ad Relevance to your target keywords and ad copy quality.

Because Google wants to serve users relevant ads they’re likely to click on, an above-average Expected CTR could help raise your Quality Score. Likewise, if your Expected CTR is below average, it’s likely to harm your Quality Score.

Landing Page Experience

Google also considers the quality of the landing pages users are directed to after they click your ads.

If your landing pages are confusing, slow, or irrelevant to your target keywords and the search intent behind them, people aren’t likely to stay and convert into leads or paying customers.

That’s why Google assesses your landing page experience by looking at your:

• Core Web Vitals scores (how fast pages load and become interactive)
• Bounce and engagement rates
• Mobile-friendliness and responsiveness
• Relevance to keyword and search intent

Google wants to serve its users the most relevant ads for their searches, so if you ensure your ads match the search intent of your keywords, ensure ad copy is compelling, and landing page experiences are positive, Google will give you higher Quality Scores, and ultimately, your ads will perform better.

We’ll cover exactly how to improve your Quality Score in a moment. First, let’s look at how both high and low Quality Scores can impact your Google Ads performance.

How does Quality Score affect your Google Ads performance?

Your Quality Score isn’t just a number. It can have a big impact on your campaign’s performance and efficiency.

Here’s how Quality Scores affect your Google Ads performance.

Ad Rank

Ad Rank is a score that determines where your ads will appear in search results. It’s calculated by weighing several factors, including your maximum bid amount, ad quality and relevance, and landing page experience.

The formula for calculating Ad Rank is:

Ad Rank = Quality Score x Maximum Bid

Higher Quality Scores can boost your Ad Rank and allow your ads to appear in better positions on Google, even if your bid is lower than your competitors’.

Equally, even if your maximum bid is higher than your competitors’, your ads won’t appear as high on SERPs if your Quality Score is low.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

Google rewards advertisers with high-quality ads by reducing the amount they pay per click.

Having a higher Quality Score on your ads often means your average cost-per-click (CPC) will be lower. This allows you to generate more clicks within your budget and improve the overall cost-effectiveness of your ad campaigns.

Similarly, a lower Quality Score could mean increased budget waste and decreased campaign efficiency.

Eligibility for ad auctions

Google Ads runs on an auction system, where you and other advertisers bid for the top positions on SERPs. When a user enters a search term, Google holds an auction to determine which ads will appear in what order.

With high Quality Scores, your ads are more likely to win more prominent positions in ad auctions.

But if your ads have a low Quality Score, Google might deem them irrelevant and exclude them from the auction altogether, which will seriously impact your visibility and reach.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Higher Quality Scores often result in better ROAS figures.

With higher Quality Scores leading to lower CPCs and better ad placements, you can drive more traffic to your website for less money. This means your budget goes further, and you can drive more leads, sales, and revenue with the same budget.

How to check Quality Score in Google Ads

Now that we’ve covered what Google’s Quality Score is and how it impacts your ad performance, here’s our step-by-step guide on checking your Quality Score in Google Ads.

Step-by-step guide for checking your Quality Score in Google Ads

1. Log in to your Google Ads dashboard by visiting ads.google.com
2. Once you’re in the dashboard, if you have multiple ad accounts, select the one you want to check by using the drop-down menu at the top-left of the page.
3. Now go to the menu on the left and click ‘Audiences, keywords, and content’ and select ‘Search keywords’ in the sub-menu. You should then see a performance overview for your account’s targeted keywords.
4. If ‘Quality Score’ isn’t already visible, you’ll need to add it. Click ‘Columns’ in the toolbar above the data table, then select ‘Modify Columns’. Then, under the ‘Quality Score’ section, check the boxes for ‘Quality Score’, ‘Landing Page Experience’, ‘Ad Relevance’, and ‘Expected CTR’.
5. After you’ve added these columns, you can view your Quality Score for each keyword, along with a breakdown of the factors affecting them.

Analysing your Quality Score

Once you’ve got this data, it’s important to analyse it.

If your Quality Score is high, then it’s a good indication that your ads are well-optimised and aligned with user intent and that your landing page experience is meeting expectations.

However, if your Quality Score for a particular keyword is low, you need to find the reason. Is it that your ad copy is using the wrong words? Is your keyword relevance low? Or is the landing page experience poor?

Identifying the factors affecting your Quality Score will help you take steps to improve your ad quality, efficiency and performance.

How to improve your Google Ads Quality Score

Once you’ve identified the factors affecting your Quality Score, you can start fine-tuning your ad campaigns and landing pages to improve your score and performance.

Here are some actionable tips to help improve specific factors that Google uses to calculate your Quality Score.

Optimise your ad copy

When optimising your ad copy, you need to include the keywords that are the most relevant to the user’s query.

For example, let’s say you sell a range of sports equipment and activewear.

If you’re targeting the keyword ‘buy running shoes online‘, your ad copy must be based on that topic.

There’s no point being broad with your copy using headlines like ‘Huge Discounts on Sports Equipment’. You need to be specific and match your copy to the user’s search intent.

In this example, using phrases like ‘Buy Running Shoes Online – Free Delivery’ and ‘Top Brands: Nike, Adidas, ASICS’ in your ad headlines and descriptions will help improve your Ad Relevance and Expected CTR.

You should also clearly communicate what sets your offering apart from others out there. Emphasise your benefits and USPs to capture your audience’s attention and use direct calls-to-action (CTAs) like ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Get a Free Quote’ to increase your click-through rate.

Improve your landing page experience

There are a few areas you need to look at if you’re trying to improve your landing page experience scores,

One of the biggest is your website performance and mobile-friendliness.

If your landing pages load slowly, take a while to become interactive, or don’t appear correctly on mobile devices, it can negatively impact your user experience and, by extension, your Quality Score. Check your website’s Core Web Vitals scores and focus on improving your page loading speeds and mobile performance.

Read our article on Google’s Core Web Vitals for tips on improving page loading speeds.

It’s not all about performance, though. You also need to align your landing page content with your ad copy.

Make sure that what you say on your landing pages directly reflects the content and promises you’ve made in your ads.

If your ad copy focuses on specific products or promotes a discount you’re running, make sure they’re visible and accessible on your landing pages.

Being consistent across your ad copy and landing page content helps improve your user satisfaction and Quality Scores.

Refine your keyword targeting

If your Ad Relevance is low, it could also be caused by targeting keywords that are too broad.

Targeting long-tail keywords that are more specific and often have lower competition can improve your Ad Relevance and CTR. Plus, more specific search terms tend to attract users who are close to making a purchase.

You should also organise your keywords into tightly themed ad groups, which allows you to create highly relevant ads matching each keyword group’s search intent, helping improve Ad Relevance and Quality Scores.

Lastly, implement and maintain a negative keyword list for your campaigns to prevent your ads from appearing in irrelevant searches, which is very common when using broad match and phrase match keyword types.

Continuously test and optimise

To maintain efficient ad campaigns, you need to be continuously testing and optimising.

Regularly test different versions of your ad copy to determine which performs best in terms of Ad Relevance, and experiment with different headlines, descriptions, and CTAs to see what resonates with users the most.

Monitoring and adjusting your bids is also vital. If keywords have high Quality Scores, but low impressions, try increasing your maximum bid. If keywords have low Quality Scores, it’s better to lower the bid amount or pause them until you’ve made improvements.

Also, try testing different ad extensions on your ads. These extensions, like site links, callouts, and structured snippets, give users additional informational information and can make your ads more appealing, leading to higher CTRs.

Use Google’s tools and resources

Google has a load of tools and resources that can help, too.

Using Google’s Keyword Planner to identify relevant keywords with higher search volumes and low competition is extremely useful when refining your keyword strategy.

Monitoring the Search Terms report in Google Ads allows you to track which search queries are triggering your ads and helps you identify new keywords to target and irrelevant ones to exclude.

And, of course, monitoring your Quality Scores over time will help you understand how changes to your campaigns impact your ad performance. Google also provides historical Quality Score data, which is great for spotting trends and making better-informed campaign adjustments.

Other metrics to check similar to Quality Score

While Quality Scores are critical to ad performance and efficiency, some other metrics and scores within Google Ads and Google Analytics can give you additional insights into your campaign performance.

Conversion rate

While not directly related to Quality Score, your conversion rate is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns.

The average conversion rate on Google Ads across all industries is 6.96% – but this can vary from industry to industry.

If your conversion rate is high, then it’s clear your ads drive people to your website, who then complete a desired action, like buying something, filling out a contact form, or subscribing to your email list.

If your conversion rate is low, it could indicate that your landing page content isn’t consistent with your ads or that the page’s performance and load speeds are stopping people from converting.

Search impression share

Search impression share is the percentage of impressions your ads receive in search results compared to the total available impressions for your target keywords.

Monitoring this metric lets you see how well your ads perform in SERPs.

A low search impression share suggests your competitors are outbidding you or that your Ad Relevance needs improvement.

Position above rate

Position above rate is a good indicator of how your ads perform compared to your competitors.

This metric is the percentage of times your competitors’ ads are shown above your own in search results.

If your ads consistently show below your competitors’, it might be time to adjust your bids, improve your ad copy, and focus on improving your Quality Score.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of users who leave your website without converting after only viewing one page.

If your landing page bounce rate is 40% or lower, your pages perform well.

But if it’s higher than 50%, it indicates that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for, which can impact your landing page experience score and, ultimately, your Quality Score.

If that’s the case, improving your landing page performance and content can help improve your bounce and engagement rates.

Bounce rate was one of the primary metrics visible on Google Analytics until it was ultimately swapped with engagement when GA4 was released in June 2023.

But don’t worry; bounce rate is still easy to calculate. Whatever your engagement rate is, your bounce rate is the opposite. So, if Google Analytics says your engagement rate is 63%, your bounce rate will be 37%.

Not seeing the results you want through Google Ads?

If you’re struggling to improve your Quality Scores in Google Ads and aren’t seeing the performance and results you need, our PPC specialists can help.

As one of the leading Google Ads agencies in Hampshire and a 2024 Google Premier Partner, our team consistently maintains high Quality Scores and campaign performance to deliver seriously impressive results and ROAS figures.

Ready to speak to a specialist?

Visit our contact page to request a callback, or give us a call on 01329 565001.