Quality Score is an integral part of any PPC Campaign. This makes it imperative to work upon enhancing the quality score of the keywords within the campaign. I would like to share with a few tips and pointers which could guide in improving the Quality score and of course, your revenue and ROI
What is Quality Score?
In Google Pay Per Click advertising (PPC), quality score is Google’s algorithm for the Adwords ad auction. An Ad words ad auction takes place if there is more than one bidder for the keyword with respect to the relevant search query. The beauty of quality score and PPC is that the better it is, the less you pay. That’s right.
Quality score is inversely related to cost, so the higher your quality score is, the less you will pay for every click.The other great thing about a good quality score is that the higher it is, the better you rank in the ad auction. Quality score works on a scale of 0-10, 10 being the best.
Below is the formula for Ad rank – the system that ranks ads in the Adwords auction.
Ad Rank = Maximum Cost per Click x Quality Score
In simple terms, your position and eligibility to enter into an ad auction is based on the maximum you’re willing to pay for a click, multiplied by the Quality Score that Google have assigned to you. This score is recalculated every time your keywords are eligible to enter an auction, so that users receive the most relevant adverts possible.
Six Key Factors that Impact Quality Score.
- Expected click through rate (CTR = Clicks/Impression x 100%)
- Your Keywords relevance to ad copy
- Your Landing page relevance, quality and user experience ( e.g. : ease of navigation, quick-load times, and minimum pop-ups)
- The Keyword relevance to search query
- Account history: the overall CTR of all ads and keywords in your account
- Geographic, Site and Device Performance
Microsoft’s Bing also assigns keywords with a ‘quality score’ using similar criteria but at the same time, it is not taken into consideration when determining how much you will pay, or where your ad will show. Rather, it is more of a tool that can be used to optimize your paid search campaigns.
A high quality score enjoyed for a given keyword means that the advertiser could receive
- Higher Avg. Position
- Higher Impression Share
- Lower Cost per Click
This occurs in comparison to keywords of other competitors with lower quality scores.
On the overall, High Quality Score keywords can be relied upon to drive in relevant traffic at lower CPC for enhancing revenue and ROIs too.
Now, that we know why quality score is important, we can move on to Click-Through Rate which is the most important variable in this entire campaign. Beginning with, we have two important points to remember –
- The Click-Through Rate influences the Quality Score to a great extent. The Click-Through rate is determined by dividing the number of times the ad was clicked on by the number of impressions, or times your ad is seen.
- Paid search ads need to be highly relevant to the query searched. If your click-through rate is higher than other ads on the page, Google can deduce that your ad is good, and will give it a higher quality score. Alternately, if your ads have a low click-through rate, Google will assign it a lower Quality Score.
Deducing the above, search is based on maintaining relevancy in the Ad copies and hence Google rewards advertisers with high Click-Through rate by offering them better rates on the relevant keywords as these ads keep consumers happy with the search results.
To improve CTR:
Have a good account build with short and tightly themed ad groups containing highly relevant keywords
- Optimise Adcopy Text – Ensure that your ad copy is closely related to your keywords will further drive relevance by increasing your click through rate. The best way to do this is by having a mention of your keywords in your headline of the ad text, in addition to the description lines 1 or 2.
- Remember – To include a call to action that relates to your business.
- Example – Buy now! Or Call today!
- Carefully consider the keyword match types.
- Use negative keywords to improve the relevancy of your broad match traffic.
- Analyze the Search Terms Report periodically for negative keyword ideas.
- Be smart enough to recognize the high volume keywords and analyse their performance on important parameters such as Bids, Avg. Position, Conversion, Revenue metrics, Quality Score, Impression Share and others.
LogicSpeak:
In summary, it is necessary to pay more attention to CTR and Quality score as and when possible. The keyword bidding so undertaken is directly responsible for increase in revenue and thereby ROI
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