What is Quality Score & How Does it Affect PPC?

Quality Score:

It plays a pivotal role in controlling the expenditure in your Google AdWords campaign. A question is how? In a simplistic explanation is it will directly affect your Avg CPC & CPA.  One can compare the quality score with your credit score, the better the credit score your eligible to get the better loan from the bank.  The quality score reflects at the keyword level, better the quality score rating Google charges for each click in a minimalistic amount compared to the other keyword where the quality score is bad, Google penalizes by charging more for each click. Quality score rating is within 1-10 points, highest points being the best & the least being the poor. If you’re trying to master PPC’s one has to understand the whole gamut of quality score.

What is Quality Score?

Quality Score is Google rating of the quality & relevance of your keywords, PPC  ads & landing page experience. It is used to determine your cost per click (CPC) & multiplied by your ad rank with the ad auction processes.

Let me illustrate with a diagram:

Example: If you’re searching in Google for your December vacation in Goa, let’s assume your search term is “best resorts in Goa”, you can find the list of websites for that particular search query on paid search.  When a user clicks on the website to seek more information, but the page talks about “list of resorts in Manali”, as a result, the user is deprived of the information which they are looking for. Since there is no synchronization (relevancy with the keyword, ad copy & landing page) with this particular website on the given scenario, Google will penalize the website by charging more for each click.

The quality score also depends on the click-through rate (CTR), when more people who see your ad click it, that’s a strong indication to Google that your ads are relevant & also Quality score depends on the historical Adwords account performance.

Let’s highlight the basic factors which lead to good quality score:

• Your click-through rate
• Relevancy of each keyword to the ad group
• Landing page quality & relevancy
• The relevance of your ad text
• Your historical Adwords account performance

How do you increase your Quality Score?

• Keywords Research: Constant Expansion of Keywords
• Keyword Organization (Split your keywords into tight ad groups)
• Extensive Use Of Long-Tail Keywords: Competitive keywords aren’t just hard to rank for in organic search; they’re tricky in PPC too.
• Refining Ad Text:
• Multiple Text Ads Running
• Dynamic Keyword Insertions
• Compelling Ad copy Writing
• Use of Ad Extensions
• Adding Negative Keywords
• Optimizing Landing Pages

How Quality Score affects the Google AdWords account:

Quality Score is the metric Google uses to determine the quality (duh) and relevance of your ad copy and landing page in relation to a given keyword. It’s then used to calculate your cost per click (CPC) and ad rank for that keyword. The higher your relevance and your Quality Score, the better your ad rank and the less you pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

Impact of the bad & good quality score

Low Pay Per Click Quality Scores are primarily the result of the disconnect between keywords, ad groups, ad text, and landing page content. A high-Quality Score comes naturally when a Google AdWords account contains organized keywords in appropriate keyword groups, ad text that corresponds to certain ad groups, and landing pages that connect with the ad text’s offer. The better Quality Score, the less Google will charge for the ad click, this results in less Cost per Conversion (CPA).

What the good quality score for each type of Keyword?                           

When it comes to Quality Score everyone wants a 10. But for certain types of keywords, we can dream, but it ain’t gonna happen.

You see, when you add a new keyword to your account, Google automatically assigns it a starting Quality Score of 6. From there, a combination of factors, including expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience, will determine whether that score increases or decreases. But not all keywords are created equal.

• A good Quality Score for branded keywords is between 8 and 10
• A good Quality Score for high-intent commercial keywords is 7 to 9
• 7 is a good Quality Score for low-intent keywords
• Aim for a Quality Score of 3+ on competitor keywords
• Prioritize raising your Quality Score for high-intent keywords first