Last updated: November 1, 2020
A grading system used by Google to decide whether an ad is good enough to be shown in the sponsored space of the search results, at what position it will be shown and how much to charge for each click.
Your ad's cost-per-click (CPC) depends on it, as shown in the formula:
Your ad's position (AdRank) on Google's search results depends on Quality Score. The higher the AdRank, the better the position. The first ad on Google is always the one that has the highest AdRank.
In campaigns that are targeted on Google Search, each keyword has a Quality Score. But it is hidden by default. Here's how to show it in your Google Ads account:
You should now have a Quality Score column in your data as shown below.
The official factors are: Expected Clickthrough Rate, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience.
That is a simplifed view of quality score components and they can be seen in your Google Ads account.
In practice, there are more factors.
"Relevance" and "Landing Page Experience" can be combined under the umbrella of User Experience. They simply mean that the user finds what was promised in the ad, and that they have a good experience when they reach your website.
Keywords, ads and landing page must be related to each other. Absolutely.
Your landing page should provide a good user experience. Not great, but good enough.
Historical click-through-rates have an overwhelming impact on Quality Score. Users vote on the quality of your ads with their clicks. If you have a proven history of getting better CTR than others in your market, you get the best score.
Google.com and other country specific such as google.ca, google.ru, etc
Sites such as AOL.com, Google Images, etc
Google's Quality Score system is a scale that ranges from 1 to 10 and that measures the quality of an ad on Google Ads. That quality grade is then used to determine how much an advertisers pays and what his AdRank will be (position of the search results page.)
All digital advertising platforms use a version of Quality Score to rank ads and decide how much to charge advertisers for them. Facebook ads use the same logic, so does Microsoft ads quality score. The most important factor in each is click-through-rate, or anything that measures user engagement. User engagement, like CTR, is the strongest signal of the quality of an advert.
It matters because it greatly influences how much you pay on every click on a Google ad and how much exposure you get (Impression Share).
A 7/10 Quality Score is the recommended value and is sufficient. Going above 7/10 is great but not always achievable and may not be worth the effort. Anything below 7/10 is a sign that something is wrong and should be optimized, click costs are being penalized.
Although display campaigns don't have a visible quality score in the Google Ads interface, they do have one internally. This invisble quality score is felt when campaigns fail to gather impressions. The factors influencing it are the same a search campaigns, however, the CTR required to compete on display network are much lower.
This message is an indication from Google that your quality score is so low that your ads are rarely displayed. In order to remedy such a situation, it is recommended to evaluate the keyword first. Should you really be advertising on that keyword? If the answer is yes, then start by bidding agressively at the beginning in order to gather some impressions and clicks then make sure that your ad is attractive enough to earn the click. Read this article for help with ads.
It's on every PPC practitioner's mind. First make sure that you meet all the requirements: decent landing page with privacy policy and keywords that are grouped in tight themes relating to a particular intent for a particular ad (Tenscores can do this automatically for you). Then second, focus 100% of your time on testing new ads for your top 3 keywords. Do this until their Quality Scores are above 7/10, then move on to next top 3 keywords. If you have low performing keywords in terms of CTR, pause them for a while. If you can advertise on high performing keywords like your brand terms or highly specific keywords for your niche, start with those and use them to build a good history of high CTR. It's not that hard if you follow that advice, and most importantly if you improve your ad writing skills.
The formula for Ad Rank is: Max. CPC x QS
The higher your Quality Score, the higher your Ad Rank meaning that your ads will be seen in higher positions on Google.