What are quality score and ad rank?
Where your paid search ad appears is the result of a number of factors. Ad Rank is a measure of content quality for the paid ads and landing page that measure what digital experience they provide to a user.
At a high level, think of Ad Rank as having six factors:
The quality components of Ad Rank are used in several different ways and can affect the following things:
Overall, higher quality ads typically lead to lower costs, better ad positions, and more advertising success. The Google Ads system works best for everybody—advertisers, customers, publishers, and Google—when the ads we show are relevant, closely matching what customers are looking for.
Ad relevance measures how closely related your keyword is to your ads.
There are three possible statuses your keywords can have:
Having an “average” or “above average” status means that there are no major problems with this keyword’s ad relevance when compared to all other keywords across Google Ads.
A “below average” status means that your ad or keyword may not be specific enough or that your ad group may cover too many topics. Try creating tightly-themed ad groups by making sure that your ads are closely related to a smaller group of keywords.
Use this status to help identify keywords that might not be relevant enough to your ads to perform well.
It’s possible for a keyword to have a high Quality Score and low ad relevance (or vice versa) because Google Ads looks at a number of different quality factors when determining Quality Score. Even if your overall Quality Score is high, looking at the individual factors can help you identify potential areas for improvement.
To see the ad relevance status for your keywords, hover over a keyword’s status in the “Status” column. You’ll be able to see ratings for expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Paused keywords will retain whatever scores they had when they were last active. Therefore, it may not be useful to look at these scores over time. We encourage advertisers to focus on active keywords when looking at their Quality Score sub-metrics, since these scores will be constantly updated.
A measure that Google Ads uses to estimate how relevant and useful your website’s landing page will be to people who click your ad. Landing pages with higher ratings are usually well organized and have text that relates to a person’s search terms.
The landing page experience status describes whether your landing page is likely to provide a good experience to customers who click your ad and land on your website. You can use this status to help identify landing pages that might be hurting your chances of making conversions like sales or sign-ups. You should make sure your landing page is clear and useful to customers, and that is related to your keyword and what customers are searching for. All these factors can play a role in determining your landing page experience status.
Your keywords can have one of three statuses: above average, average, or below average.
Landing page experience is Google Ads’ measure of how well your website gives people what they’re looking for when they click your ad. Your landing page is the URL people arrive at after they click your ad, and Google Ads analyzes it through a combination of automated systems and human evaluation. The experience you offer affects your Ad Rank and therefore your CPC and position in the ad auction. Your ads may show less often (or not at all) if they point to websites that offer a poor user experience.
This article explains how you can improve your landing page experience. For specific instructions on how to optimize your website for mobile, see Principles of mobile site design and Create an effective mobile site.
Landing page experience is different from policy violations. If your site violates Google Ads policy, you receive no landing page experience rating at all, and your ads don’t run.
You can improve your landing page experience by taking any or all of the following steps:
The Google Ads system visits and evaluates landing pages and websites on a regular basis. If you make significant changes to improve your landing page experience, you may see higher ad quality (and higher Ad Rank) over time. You might not see an immediate impact, but you may see results within days or weeks.
The Google Ads system also visits your landing page to evaluate your mobile site (as viewed by mobile devices with full browsers, like Android devices and iPhones).
If you have a distinct, mobile-optimized version of your site, we recommend you configure your server to show the mobile-optimized site when the Google Ads mobile User-Agent is detected crawling your site. Currently, we use two HTTP User-Agent header to identify Google Ads mobile visits:
By default, the Google Ads system reviews advertised landing pages to assess landing page experience. If you don’t want some of your landing pages to be reviewed, you can follow the steps below to restrict the Google Ads system from visiting those pages.
The “Landing pages” page includes two metrics that can help you identify which of your landing pages could provide a better experience on mobile devices:
Your ads are the voice of your products and services. The more relevant and engaging they are to your customers, the more likely they’ll generate results for you.
To quickly gauge your ad performance, you can sort by clickthrough rate or conversion statistics the same way you might with keywords. This way, you can easily see which ads:
You’ll want your ads to appeal to customers and accurately describe what you have to offer. Follow these best practices to make sure your ads are optimized:
Consumers tend to be drawn to ads that seem more relevant to their search. So make sure that your ad text (especially the headline) is closely related to your keywords. This can catch the attention of people who searched for those words, and show that your ad is related to what they want.
It’s important to group your keywords by theme or product, instead of putting all your keywords in the same ad group. This way, you can write an ad that’s directly tailored to that specific theme. And the more closely paired your ads and keywords are, the more likely someone will be interested.
It can be hard to capture everything you want to say about your business in a single text ad. That’s why you’ll want to write different versions of your ad.
It’s a good idea to have 3 to 5 different ads in an ad group. If you have more than one ad in an ad group, Google Ads will automatically start showing the better-performing ones by default.
In each ad, try using different headlines or description text. For example, you could experiment with:
In your ad text, you’ll want to encourage customers to perform the action that you want them to take on your site. A strong, clear call-to-action tells customers what they can expect and nudges them toward your desired action.
The more specific your call-to-action (that is, the closer it matches your keywords and landing page), the better your chances of conversion. By choosing the right action phrase, you’ll avoid having to pay for clicks that are less likely to result in business for you.
If you have something special to offer, make sure your customers see it. For example, you might be offering a 10% summer discount, an instant rebate, or a free gift with purchase. Calling attention to specific prices or promotions can help influence someone’s decision to click on your ad. The more you can set yourself apart from competitors, the more likely you’ll appeal to potential customers.
One way of attracting more customers to your ad is by using ad extensions—a feature that shows extra business information with your ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links. Adding ad extensions can help improve your ad’s visibility and CTR.
Your landing pages play a big part in turning clicks into customers. When someone clicks on your ad, they expect to land on a page that’s relevant to what they saw in your ad. If they don’t immediately find what they expect, they’re more likely to leave.
Choose a landing page that closely matches your ad and keywords. For example, if your keyword is discount shoes and your ad promises shoes at 20% off, then customers should be able to find and buy shoes at that discounted price on your landing page.
Your landing page should also mirror the call-to-action in your ad text. For example, if your ad encourages customers to sign up for a free tour, then you might prominently feature a sign-up form on your landing page.Think of it this way: The connection between your ad and landing page is the bridge between a potential customer and a purchase. The stronger they’re connected (the more directly relevant they are), the better your chances of a conversion.
Many of your customers will be visiting your website on a mobile device. On a smaller screen, it can be hard for people to find what they want.
See if the speed of your mobile site is costing you customers, and get quick fixes to improve it. Test your site.
Here are just a few ways to build an effective mobile site:
Make it quick and easy for customers to perform the action you want them to take—order your product, call your phone number, or submit an inquiry. Don’t make people hunt around for information they might need. Avoid cluttering your site with too many ads or pop-ups.
It’s a good idea to put important information towards the top of the page. This way, it’ll be immediately visible to customers when they arrive on the page, and they don’t have to scroll down to see it.
Try to provide useful, original information on your landing page about whatever you’re advertising. Be clear about your product or service and what it does. For example, you might consider adding reviews that show real opinions from other customers.
Quality really matters.
Google looks at your ad’s expected click-through rate by taking into account your ad’s historical clicks and impressions.
But it also looks at your ad’s relevance to the search.
Understand the user’s intent, and mirror this in your PPC ad copy.
Start by thinking about a specific buyer persona, what they want to accomplish or what problems they are trying to solve.
Write your ads in a way that directly answers this need.
Your ad extensions need to align perfectly with your calls to action and ad campaign goals.
Google uses the “expected impact of extensions” to determine your ad’s relevance and success. This is a factor in your Ad Rank.
So, you need to use ad extensions that match your CTA.
Google doesn’t just look at the quality of your ad, it scrutinizes the quality of your landing page too.
What kind of experience will the searcher get when they click through?
How relevant, transparent, and easy to navigate is your page?
Your goal is to optimize landing pages to deliver an exceptional user experience every time.
Increase your Quality Score using these tips:
Ensure the landing page is relevant to the search terms
Take the visitor directly to the product or service your ad talks about. And make sure the copy in the ad is consistent with the landing page messaging.
The best landing page looks like an extension of the Google Ad. It should essentially complete the advertisement. This means everything about the content design, copy and layout should match the targeted keywords in the Google Ad.
The main thing that you need to do is include the search term in all the right places on the page. The keyword needs to appear in:
Better yet, automatically pre-filled some of the search inquiry forms to make your user experience better.
Here are some more landing page tips:
Another way to make your ads appear more relevant to customers is with ad groups.
Each ad group in your Google Ads campaign should focus on a single product or service.
In other words, be specific.
Every ad group needs to have a tight theme. Every keyword needs to be relevant to the ad group.
So, if you see one keyword that deviates from your theme, create a whole new specific group for it.
One way to approach this is using Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs).
SKAGs have a proven track record of increasing CTRs and quality scores.
Because you have one keyword per ad group, your ads are insanely relevant to the keyword and, therefore, the search query.
SKAGs break your ads into 3 match types:
SKAGs also let you write ads with customized calls to action (CTAs) and value propositions for every single keyword.
This means every searcher is getting the most specific, personalized offer for their exact search.
The result?
You improve your ad ranking without having to bid more.
Now you have specific ad groups, your next step is to tailor your landing pages to match.
This ensures every landing page is highly relevant to both the keywords and ads.
Okay, it can be time-consuming.
But there is a way to show unique landing pages for each ad group without having to spend time creating hundreds of different pages.
Simply standardize your landing page copy for each campaign, then only edit small and simple parts of the text to customize the offer.
This provides huge increases in performance while saving time.
It immediately shows people that your ad is relevant to their search. That means they have more chance of clicking through to your landing page.
Then, when they get there, they’ll see that your landing page is also consistent with their search query.
These are the latest ad format for search which contains up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. Google tests them automatically and uses AI to show case the most relevant combination to the users. This helps increase the CTR of the ads.
As per Google “Responsive search ads let you create an ad that adapts to show more text—and more relevant messages—to your customers. Enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating a responsive search ad, and over time, Google Ads automatically tests different combinations and learns which combinations perform best. By adapting your ad’s content to more closely match potential customers’ search terms, responsive search ads may improve your campaign’s performance.
Next, in any given ad, a maximum of 3 headlines and 2 descriptions will be selected to show in different combinations and orders. Part of your ad text may automatically appear in bold when it matches or closely matches a user’s search query. Over time, Google Ads will test the most promising ad combinations, and learn which combinations are the most relevant for different queries.”
Google is testing images in search ad extensions. Image extensions allow advertisers to upload rich, relevant visuals to complement their existing text ads. Image extensions can help drive performance for advertisers, with compelling visuals of products or services that enhance the message of their text ads.
How it works
|
Aspect ratio |
Required |
|
Square (1×1) |
Yes |
|
Landscape (1.91×1) |
Optional but recommended |
Using these techniques, Milestone is seeing Return on Ad Spend well in excess of 10X. Contact us to discuss how we can help you see similar performance.
Read blogs on Milestone’s other digital marketing guides:
Guide to Managing Reviews and Building Business Reputation
Guide to FAQs and How to Do It Right
Local Marketing Guide & Framework
Guide to Video Marketing: Driving Engagement Across Industries
We increase acquisition by enhancing digital experience and increasing content visibility. Contact us at sales@milestoneinternet.com or call us at 408-200-2211.
FAQs on Ad Quality and Ad Rank
Ad quality is the relevance of your ad and landing page to the query.
Ad quality is one of a number of factors Google uses to determine rank. Better quality leads to lower cost per click.
Bid is the strongest factor, then ad quality, and in some cases use of extensions.
Yes, but the importance has declined over the years in favor of CPC bid.
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