How to Improve the Quality Score of Your Google Ads

How to Improve the Quality Score of Your Google Ads

How are your ads performing on different devices?

The quality score can increase or decrease depending on the performance of your ads on mobile, desktop, and tablet devices.

There may also be a difference in performance depending on the type of phone (e.g. Samsung vs iPhone) and operating systems (Android vs iOS).

Keyword History

When you are a new advertiser with no history, Google takes into account the historical performance of the keywords you are bidding on (outside of your account).

What if no one has ever bid on a keyword you're about to bid on? We don't know at the moment.

However, when you use a keyword (which is new to you but has a history), Google will look at the history of that keyword but also your account's historical Click Through Rate (CTR) and its performance.

That said, when it comes to scoring quality at the keyword level, historical performance is the most important factor to start with. Once you've racked up enough impressions and performance data, you can trust it.

If you want to increase impressions, you can do it in the following way:

· Add more generic match keywords to create a less restrictive set for which you are serving ads.

· Add more generic themes, to start, to make it easier to add more generic matching keywords.

· Look at the data for share of impressions, which is the percentage of times an ad is displayed compared to the total available impressions.

Expected click rate

Expected click-through rate refers to your website's potential to score high.

This factor usually comes into play when your account does not have sufficient history. Once you get enough conversions, CTR will be based on your history rather than an estimate of potential.

How do your ads look in different places?

Just as your Google ads perform differently on different devices, they can also vary from region to region.

Although you can't see the geographic distribution in your Google Ads account, you can perform your own test by distributing your campaigns by geographic region and tracking the difference in performance.

Remember, experiences like this are never easy. Other factors will come into play, such as different offers by region or a greater number of competitors in one region than in another.

When are your ads performing best?

This is another little detail that you can use to your advantage and improve the quality score of your Google ads.

The time of day and days when your ads are more engaging will be influenced by a variety of factors. This also depends a lot on your niche.

You can analyze it by dividing your campaign into specific ad groups and setting them for different days and time intervals. Next, check if the cost per click and the quality score are improving or degrading.

Myths to dispel

Google Ads Quality Score has been the subject of much debate, and many theories have been put forward on how to improve Google Ads Quality Score.

The extension of ads affects the quality score

This is one of the most common beliefs regarding the quality score.

In fact, ad extensions are related to quality scores and the ad ranking equation, but do not cause direct fluctuations in quality scores.

This misconception could be due to the fact that ad extensions can help increase the size of your ad space, which, in turn, can technically lead to higher click-through rates and higher quality scores.

However, as we have already mentioned, they do not have a direct impact on your quality score.

Interruption of campaigns affects quality

You would think that a break in campaigns or a simple group of ads or even single ads would actually have a direct impact on the quality score. This is in fact not the case; the score is not affected after the break.

Research and poster competition

Believe it or not, there is also a quality score for Display Network campaigns. The only downside is that you can't see it.

But that hasn't stopped people from claiming that display performance affects the quality scores of search networks. This has not yet been proven.

Just like on the search network, display performance depends on different metrics depending on targeting.

Negative keyword

Just like the belief that extension ads have any effect on quality score, if you choose to add or remove negative keywords, nothing will happen to your quality score.

On the other hand, if you decide to add a reverse match keyword, you might just improve the click-through rate you receive. And it will help you improve your Quality Score over time.

Landing Page Keywords

Using too many keywords on landing pages won't help you improve your quality scores.

Increase offers

If you think that increasing the average bid will lead to a better quality score, then think again as this does not necessarily happen.

Making "artificial" bids for a higher amount in the hope of obtaining and then maintaining a higher quality score after lowering the bids does not work.

In ad auctions, you are always competing on CTR against competitors who are in the exact same position.

But it also means that you don't have to worry about your Quality Score if you plan to lower your bids. If the ad copy remains the same, your Google Ads Quality Score will not be affected.

Account Structure

Your account structure does not directly affect your quality score. Rather, it can influence other factors that contribute to the development of the quality score, such as click-through rates.

For example, the more you care and focus on achieving the keyword/ad and search term/keyword ratio of 1: 1, the more likely you are to get a higher click-through rate and therefore a higher quality score.

Conversion rate

Since conversions are mostly subjective, Google doesn't place much value on them in terms of rating. This means that the quality score is not influenced by the conversion rate.

Dynamic keywords

This is a great feature that can be used to automatically insert keywords into your ad text, saving you time and effort.

Because it helps increase relevance, many believe it has a direct impact on the quality score.

However, people tend to ignore the fact that this feature might first improve CTR and then improve Quality Score. So if the ratio of search terms to keywords is around 1:30, your CTR will not improve as much as if the ratio was near 1:10.

Do you need strategic and operational support for your Google Ads campaigns? Ask for a meeting with our team of experts at EWM.

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