Google Ads Quality Score
When determining the minimum CPC you should pay for a keyword (and also wether to make your keyword active or inactive in Google adwords or not) they evaluate the quality of your ad content (amongst other things).
Google explain the quality score in their help as:
“Your Quality Score reflects your keyword’s CTR and the relevance of your ad text and landing page. Keywords with high Quality Scores are more relevant for users, more effective for your ad campaigns, and have lower minimum CPC bids. ”
When evaluating wether to make one of your keywords active or inactive Google combines your Maximum CPC and your ads Qaulity score to determine of the keyword status.
Google explain the keyword status concept in the AdWords Help Center - What does my keyword’s status mean?
Of course your Maximum CPC is obvious, but your quality score is not. But there is a hidden column that you can display to make everythng clear…..
In Adwords go into:
Campaign Summary > Your Campaign > Your Ad Group > Keywords
And you should see <Show/hide columns> pull down. Click on it and select “Show Status” and you will now see the Ad Quality Score
Again in the Google Help they describe the 3 quality scores:
Keywords can have one of three Quality Score states:
- Great: Your keyword is very relevant and your Quality Score needs no improvement.
- OK: Your keyword is relevant, but you can still benefit from a higher Quality Score.
- Poor: This keyword isn’t very relevant to users, and your Quality Score needs improvement.
So how do they calculate your quality score?
Well as in all things Google they give you some hints but never tell you the answer. The hints are in the AdWords Help Center - What is a ‘Quality Score’ and how is it calculated?
They indicate it is influenced by:
- Keyword click through rate
- Relevance of the keyword to your add content
- The landing page the ads sends them to
- and other
So if you have a poor quality score what can you do about it?
Well I am going to do some testign to see, Ill let you know what I find out.
