Understanding the Google ads quality score and optimizing it (guide)

Over the past few years, automated bidding on Google Ads has become more consistent and provides strong performance for advertisers across the Google Network. 

Intro

The latter no longer need to choose a CPC (Cost per Click) bid for each keyword and can instead define objectives of the CPA (Cost per Acquisition) or ROAS (Return On Ad Spent) type and let the machine learning to calculate the correct bid to achieve the specified goal for each search performed.

But even with this evolution which leads to more autonomous campaign management, it is still useful to know the system in detail.

There is money to be saved for advertisers and their advertising budget by working hand in hand with the automation processes offered by Google, with a view to obtaining even better results than the machine can provide by it. -even.

There are several strategies and levers to optimize campaigns and automated auctions on Google Ads, and in this article, we will try to explain to you how it is possible to use Google's quality score to increase the exposure of a advertisement while reducing its cost.

How the Google Ads quality score (QS) works may be a mystery to you if you've never used the famous search engine's advertising network. 

With thousands of advertisers vying for top rankings on the same keywords and many of them using the same tools to automate their bidding, how does the search engine manage to decide in less than a fraction of second which ad deserves first place?

A large part of the answer lies in the "QS", Google's Quality Score, and it is actually a lever that advertisers can use to optimize their campaigns, even when they have ceased to control the other factor that comes into play: auctions.

What is the quality score? Why does Google use QS? How is it calculated and how can advertisers improve it?

This is what we will see in the rest of this article.

What is the quality score?

Quality score — or quality score — is Google's measure of a keyword's relevance based on data collected from previous ad auctions.

As soon as Google has enough data, keywords in an advertiser's account are assigned a "QS" number between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best possible.

This indicator corresponds to the overall relevance of the keyword in the many auctions with which it is associated.

Quality Score is intended to guide advertisers, but is not used by Google to rank ads.

What is used to rank ads, behind the scenes of every ad auction, is the QS at the time of the auction, which takes into account many additional factors.

While the 1 to 10 indicator helps advertisers gauge how well they are doing in choosing the right keywords, writing effective ads, and also directing users to useful landing pages, it's the QS in time. real that really matters.

The QS at the time of the auction is therefore finer than a number between 1 and 10, but it is not shared with advertisers, as it fluctuates all the time.

It is also different for each search performed on Google and depends on the context of these searches:

The time of day

The user's location

The nature of the search term and its relationship to your keyword

Etc.

It is also worth mentioning that Google has two types of automatic bidding tools: "Automated" and "Smart".

The main difference between the two is that Smart Auctions can set different bids for each auction, taking the QoS factor into consideration in real time and setting bids that are "smarter" and therefore more likely to match the advertiser target.

Why does Google use a quality score?

Google uses Quality Score to show users the most relevant ads possible each time a search is performed.

The world's largest search engine depends on advertising revenue, so it has a vested interest in ensuring users find ads that interest them and click on them.

Google's ad auction mode is based on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, which means that Google only earns money when users click on an ad. 

Basically, if Google gives low-quality ads room to take up space that could be filled with more relevant ads, they make less money.

Although it can sometimes be difficult to improve your quality score, it is obviously the goal of any advertiser, in order to obtain the highest quality leads possible with Google Ads.

To keep those leads flowing to their website, blog, or online sales platform, advertisers need to do their part of the job beforehand by choosing relevant keywords, writing compelling ads, and directing users. to useful, high-quality landing pages.

By following these guidelines, advertisers can expect big returns on investment by reducing their CPCs.

How does Google calculate Quality Score?

Google has tons of data on how users interact with search results and through their unparalleled big data analytics capabilities, they manage to get a measure of each ad's expected relevance, keyword- key and landing page against each search that occurs.

Powerful search engine algorithms monitor user interactions on search results pages (SERPs) to make predictions about future interactions.

Back in the days of Google AdWords, the ancestor of Google Ads, QS didn't exist. Google used CTR (Click Through Rate) to determine if keywords were of low relevance and should be disabled, or if advertisers should pay more to participate in the ad auction.

As machine learning techniques advanced, Google began to consider more factors when determining expected CTR, and the term quality score was introduced to replace the CTR component that was previously part of the mechanism. ad ranking.

How to improve your quality score?

You can optimize your QS by improving the relevance of your keywords, ads, and landing pages.

To begin, examine the relative score of the three QS subcomponents:

• Expected click-through rate (CTR)
• Ad relevance
• Landing page experience

The value of each component will be displayed by Google as “Below Average”, “Average” or “Above Average”, which can guide you to what to optimize.

Expected click-through rate is the likelihood that your ad will generate a click when the search term is exactly the same as your keyword.

If it's low, make sure the keyword is specific and relevant to what you're offering.

If your keyword is relevant, but that score is low, try writing a more compelling ad by highlighting its relevance to the keyword or including a stronger call to action or value proposition. single powerful.

Next, ad relevance is a component that indicates how well your ad message matches the keyword.

If this component is low, it's probably because your ad groups cover too wide a range of topics.

To remedy this problem, divide your ad group into smaller, thematic sets.

By having too disparate a list of keywords grouped in an ad group, you will either display an ad that is too generic or be off topic. 

Don't rely solely on dynamic keyword insertion, and take the time to properly structure your account by creating separate ad groups for each set of closely related keywords.

The landing page experience, on the other hand, is about what happens after a user clicks on an ad.

What happens when they land on your landing page? Are they satisfied with what they see? Or do they quickly close the window?

If this component is too weak, make sure your landing pages are closely related to what the user is looking for and deliver on the promise in the ad.

Also keep in mind that deep links are preferable to redirecting users to your homepage.

Also consider making the landing page easier to use on mobile devices, and make sure your page loads as quickly as possible. 

Finally, it is essential to offer unique and quality content inside your landing pages.

Conclusion

Alongside the bidding system, the quality score therefore plays a major role in how Google decides which ads to display and how to rank them.

Thus, a good quality score can prove to be just as beneficial as a high bid, and ads with lower bids can sometimes beat higher paying ads by being more relevant.

This is what makes the principle of PPC very interesting for companies wishing to advertise with Google Ads, because with this system, it is not necessarily the advertisers with the greatest means who win and who necessarily win the auctions. . 

For this reason, regularly monitor your QS and address optimization issues when low QS is preventing you from achieving your goals.

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