For people who are aiming to master PPC, it is really important that they have a complete understanding of Quality Score. But why, what is all this deal about Quality Scores and its importance in PPC? The simple answer is that Quality Score plays a vital role in the success of the PPC Campaign. How?
If your campaign’s Quality Score is good – as per the industry standard – then it reflects positively on the cost and effectiveness of your Pay-Per-Click campaigns! In plain language it means that – If Google (Bing or Yahoo) finds that the quality of your Ads, keywords and landing pages is good, it lowers the costs and provides a better position to your Ads. Google estimates the Quality Score and measures it on 1-10 scale; this is done for each keyword and can be seen in the Keywords status field.
Quality Score – What does it mean?
Quality score is a way through which Google estimates and rates the PPC Ads and the keywords that you are using on the basis of their quality as well as their relevance. And when the rating is complete, Google uses it further to find out your CPC (Cost per Click) which is further used to calculate your Ad Rank. The Ad Rank – calculated by multiplying your CPC with the maximum bid – is used to calculate your overall performance in the Ad auction by Google.
Factors on Which Quality Score Depends – Quality Score Varies According To:
- The targeted keywords & the ad text– they should be relevant to your campaign
- Your CTR (Click Through Rates)
- The presence of a landing page, its quality and, its relevancy
- The previous or historical performance data of your AdWords Account.
Although these factors are equally important – for no one actually knows which factor is given more weight-age by Google in its Quality Score algorithm – CTR is given a slightly more importance over others. There is a simple logic behind it – high CTR means more people are clicking on your ads – which is a direct indication that your ads are relevant, and in Google’s eye it is a very important factor! And if you are able to achieve higher CTR, Google rewards you with:
- Higher Ad Rankings
- Lower costs
Why Improve Your Quality Score?
Though research is always an ongoing process, over years we have examined thousands of PPC accounts & it has been found that one’s PPC account’s success is directly related to Quality Score. This is why it is advised that one should pay attention to the Quality Score optimization as it leads to higher ROI (Return on investment) and lower cost per conversion.
Cost per click Vs Cost per conversion: Cost per click is about how much you are paying for every click, while cost per conversion is about the money you are paying for a conversion – a conversion occurs when someone buys your products or signups for a free trial. Since not every click leads to conversion, cost per conversion always tends to be higher than the cost per click. But a higher Quality Score lowers both your CPC as well as cost per conversion, which is always a good sign! That’s why improving your Quality Score becomes so important!
Through a HIGHER Quality Score, Google clearly indicates that it finds your PPC ads totally relevant to the needs of the customers & as a result charges you less for the ad click. Therefore, better your PPC campaign’s Quality score lower will be the cost of conversion.
How to get as High as 10/10 Quality Score in AdWords?
Besides the factors discussed above, Quality Score also governs the frequency of how many times & where your campaign’s Ads appears on Google, and hence it plays a significant role in improving your ratings. Here are a few simple things that you can work on to increase your Quality Score:
- Keyword Research– Invest time in researching the right keywords for your campaign. Look for new & 100% relevant keywords for the campaigns and don’t hesitate to add long-tail opportunities if you think they can add to the overall traffic.
- Keyword Organization– Once the keywords have been selected, classify them into groups so that you can easily tie them to individual and specific campaigns. This way you can avoid assigning keywords to the wrong campaign & can save yourself from unwanted ad spend.
- Refining Ad Text –The next step is to refine your PPC Ad text as per the ad groups – this is crucial because targeted ad text leads to increase in CTR and hence is considered a great way to improve your Quality Score.
- Optimizing Landing Pages – To optimize landing pages, use the best practices meant for them and create pages which reflect what your ads show. Work on them in terms of keywords & design so that a cohesive experience can be created for the customer, which can help convert.
- Adding Negative Keywords– You will need to research tirelessly – and continuously – to identify and remove keywords which are of no use – target those which are contributing nothing and are eating a big portion of your budget. You can classify them as Negative Keywords.
Quality score is nothing but a measure of your PPC campaign’s relevancy, and optimizing Quality Score is all about structuring these PPC campaigns into organized groups of keywords. Through keyword research, not only the Quality score increases, it also improves the quality of your ads, the content of your website which further allows you to target the right audience.
So if at present your Quality score is low, it clearly indicates that there is currently no connection between the keywords you are targeting, the Ad Text and the content you are using on your landing page. And, to rectify that all you have to do is research keywords that match your campaigns, organize them into proper groups, use Ad text and landing page content that totally connects with what you are trying to sell & Kaboom, you will see positive results within a few months. Take care of these things help as they help in building relevancy which then reflects in the Quality scores.
