What is a Low Quality Score & What Does it Mean for Your Ads?

Google Ads is an effective method of bringing targeted traffic to your website, a must for anyone wanting to actively reach customers with search engine marketing. But how do you know whether your ad is a good one? That’s where Quality Score comes in. Landing page Quality Score factors are how Google measures the relevance and effectiveness of your ads campaign. Learn all about the importance of Quality Scores and the effect they have on your ads below!

What is a Quality Score?

A Quality Score is a measurement (out of 10) that lets advertisers know how relevant and useful their ads will be to customers.

Quality Scores are used to determine your cost per click (CPC) and your ad rank in the ad auction process. Good scores positively influence your ad rank and lower your cost per click (CPC).

What are the Factors that Affect Quality Score?

Planning a Google Ads or Google Shopping Advertising campaign? Three main factors will affect your Quality Score:

Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR): How likely is someone to click your ad when Google shows your ad for the keyword they search for?

Click-through rate is determined by the historical performance of your ads while excluding the ad ranking, extensions, formats, or anything that makes your ad more visible. Ads that have a higher click-through rate tend to be the ones that are highly relevant to what the audience is searching for and have compelling ad copy.

Ad Relevance: Is the ad relevant to your keywords? Does it make sense for the ad to appear when someone searches for a particular keyword?

Ad relevance is all about how relevant your ad is to the keyword customers are searching for. Ads that focus on too many different keywords may be too broad, and the ad relevance score will suffer. Instead, focus on highly specific keywords related to your services or products to ensure that your ad is valuable to potential customers.

Landing Page Experience: Does the information on the landing page correspond to what the ad is offering, and vice versa?

The user experience of the page your ad links to is also important. If your ad meets the criteria of the other landing page Quality Score factors, but there is no useful information when the customer clicks through to your website, they will quickly bounce off the page and find something more helpful. There are a few different things to look for on your landing page:

Is the content relevant to this specific ad and its associated keywords?

Is the page easy to navigate?

Is the information organised in an aesthetically pleasing and logical way?

What Makes a Great Google Ads Landing Page?

Google notices when people find your landing page more relevant than others. The longer people stay on your page or website after clicking your ad, the more likely your ad will show in a higher position and ultimately gain more traffic. But what makes a good Google Ads landing page?

Like any well-optimised landing page, an ad landing page should centre around the relevant keywords, which should also be included in the page’s meta-data and h1 heading.

When it comes down to it, an ad’s Quality Score is about relevance – and that includes the landing page. Be sure that the page you send users is full of the useful and relevant information promised in the ad. Unless your existing page is an exact match to the search result, you may need to create an entirely new landing page for a specific ad.

Be sure to optimise the site for user experience too. Check the page’s load speed, mobile experience, navigation, and ease of use. How easy is it for customers to make a purchase? Is there a clear call to action? All of this helps the customer to use your site and in turn, increase conversions.

How Quality Score Affects Campaign Performance

The higher the Quality Score, the more likely your ad campaigns will perform well. To achieve a high Quality Score, you’ll need to optimise the three factors listed above: CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Quality Scores are important because they can lower your cost per click and increase your return on investment. The higher your score, the higher your ad will rank for a lower cost. This helps you gain more exposure and, in turn, a higher conversion rate.