Understand how Google uses keywords quality scores and learn how to stop your quality scores from holding your campaign performance!
Make Marketer’s ™Whitepaper (A Google Partner Agency)
“Very poor-quality scores can prevent an ad from being displayed for relevant search terms even when there is no competition for those keywords”.
Low quality scores can significantly impact Google Ads campaign performance. How? Quality scores determine how often the ads are shown, what ad position they are shown in and how much an advertiser pays per click.
Improving your AdWords quality scores by even a single point can bring down the cost per click (CPC) by over 16 percent. Equally important, higher quality scores will increase the number of impressions and visitors to your landing pages, e-commerce site.
Above all, it affects your business bottom line.
Here’s how quality scores work.
Each keyword in a campaign is assigned a quality score by Google which ranges from 1 -10. The quality score is Google’s assessment of how relevant your ad and landing page are to the users search term i.e. user’s intent. Their goal is to ensure that Google users have a positive experience and their experience is not compromised, and that the most relevant ads, with the right bids, get the best positions. Its all decided in an auction environment.
Understand the impact of quality scores on AdWords performance.
Quality scores can have a significant impact on the return on ad spend (ROAS) and effectiveness of Google Ads campaigns. Google uses this quality score as part of their calculation for Ad Rank, which is used in the auction to determine which ads are shown, in what position and at what price.
Auction: It’s a place where Google decides which ads are to be served and at what position. Ad Rank is calculated in the ad auction. Google runs ad auction every time someone enters a search term.
Once Google has ranked the advertisers ads in the ad auction, the quality score is used as part of the bid calculation. Lower quality scores will drive higher CPCs for the same ad position. Google has both a minimum quality threshold and a minimum bid threshold for ads.
Note: Google rewards advertisers with high quality scores by serving their ads at high positions and still charging them lower CPCs.
Note: Google also penalizes advertisers with low quality scores by serving their ads at lower positions and still charging them higher CPCs.
How Google calculates quality scores?
Google uses several factors to determine the quality score of a keyword. The quality score of a keyword can change over time as Google assesses the performance of a keyword time to time.
The calculation uses several factors, including, but not limited to:
- Click Through Rate (CTR) – Are searchers finding the ad relevant?
- Ad Copy Relevance– Is the ad copy relevant to the keyword and the landing page?
- Landing Page – Is the landing page relevant to the keyword and ad? Does it load quickly? Is it easy to navigate?
- Account History – Has the overall Google Ads account performed well over time?
To start off, Keyword is initially assigned a quality score based on the keyword history for other advertisers across all accounts, and your account, campaign and ad history. Looking at this initial quality score can help a Account Manager understand if other advertisers have had success with this keyword. Once the campaign is active, ad performance (e.g. click through rate) will become a primary driver of the score.
How are quality scores used?
Keyword quality scores are used to determine whether to show an ad, and to calculate both the Ad Rank and the Actual CPC. The keyword Ad Rank is calculated using the Max. CPC bid price multiplied by the quality score.
Ad Rank = CPC bid × Quality Score (Ad Extensions are also part of Ad Rank)
Your ad’s position in the auction is then determined by your Ad Rank relative to the competition for that same keyword.
Here’s an example:
Bidder A Max CPC = 2.00
Quality Score = 5
Bidder A – Ad Rank = 10
Bidder B Max CPC = 1.50
Quality Score = 8
Bidder B – Ad Rank = 12
Therefore, this particular keyword’s CPC will be determined by the Ad Rank of the bidder below you divided by your quality score plus 0.01. In the above example, Bidder B has the higher Ad Rank, and wins the auction.
Improving your quality score is just four steps away.
Though Google quality score information is available in the Google Ads account, on larger campaigns it can be time consuming and managers find it very difficult to find which quality scores have the highest impact on which campaigns. Remember, Quality scores are vital to the success of your campaigns.
What gets measured, gets managed!
Start here!
Improve the health of your quality scores with these four key components to Google Ads success:
1. Find those keywords from your campaigns that give you the quickest lift, now!
2. Find and improve weak ad copy. Improves quality and also influences the CTR.
3. Diagnose weak landing pages. Improves your Conversion Rate.
4. Track performance trends and adjust campaigns in real-time.
Use Google Analytics to optimize your campaigns. But before you get to this, you need to link Google Ads to Google Analytics.
Conclusion:
Digital Marketers are increasingly under more pressure to ensure the highest ROAS on digital advertising spend. Account Managers are inevitably tasked with endless experimentation for every feature in an attempt to ensure that campaigns are attracting the right audience at the right price and converting.
The four steps recommended here will allow you to dramatically improve the quality score of your keywords and ultimately increase your overall campaign ROI. If you still have questions or think Make Marketer Agency can help you improve your Google Ads performance.
In addition, digital marketing agencies often struggle to find good digital marketers who can handle the client ads account. They find digital marketers who can only create campaigns and have no idea about growth and ROAS. To help solve this problem Make Marketer started India’s First 100% Real-Time Digital Marketing Bootcamp where apprentices learn on live client campaigns breaking away from the institute type of training and going on to learn something that is in-depth and can implement advanced ad strategies from day 1.
Interested to know more about this Digital Marketing Immersive Bootcamp, Please visit our website: http://pages.measuremarketer.com
