How are your Google AdWords campaigns doing? Watching those impressions, clicks, and conversions break new personal records? Sweet! How about your ads? Are all of them showing? You may not have noticed that Google is withholding some of them. Why? Well, it’s possible you need to improve the Google AdWords ad quality score.
First, a quick review. A Google AdWords ad quality score measures the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages on a 1 to 10 scale. This score is relevant to user experience, or how accurately an ad and the corresponding landing page reflects a keyword search.
For example, imagine a customer searches the keyword “the best red velvet cupcakes Jacksonville FL.” They’re more likely to click on an ad that reads, “Taste the Best Red Velvet Cupcakes in Jacksonville Today!” because the language echoes their search. However, if the landing page is for German chocolate cupcakes, customers are less likely to complete a purchase (yes, even for delicious German chocolate cupcakes) because it wasn’t what they originally searched for.
Improving your Google AdWords ad quality scores is essential for earning ad clicks and converting visitors into customers. After all, even cupcakes don’t sell themselves.
Quality scores are calculated using three factors: ad relevance, expected clickthrough rate, and landing page experience. Let’s break these down.
Ad Relevance – A status that compares your ads against your keywords. Make sure the keywords you’re trying to rank for are written into your ads for consistency.
Expected Clickthrough Rate (CTR) – A status of how likely your ads will get clicked based on past keyword performance and ad position. Include the keyword in your headline, URL, and description, while utilizing extensions, features, and benefits to keep ads relevant.
Landing Page Experience – A status of how relevant your landing page is compared to your ad, based on text and loading speed. Make sure your landing page features the keywords you’re ranking for, offers high-converting content, is clear, mobile-friendly, and loads quickly.
Higher ad quality scores can impact your entire campaign in multiple ways.
Lowers Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – CPC, or how much you pay for an ad click, is calculated using your ad quality score.
Lowers First Page Bids – Higher quality scores lower the bid necessary for your ad to show on Google’s first page.
Increases Impression Share – The percentage of impressions your ad currently receives compared to the potential impressions it could be receiving. Higher quality scores improve your impression share, and therefore, exposure.
Improves Ad Rank – Higher quality scores allow ads to rank higher on Google’s results page, so customers see your ads among the first.
Allows Ad Extensions – Ad extensions require higher scores, allowing you to add site links, product extensions, and location extensions for more informative ads.
Now that we’ve reviewed calculating ad quality and the benefits of higher scores, let’s boost those scores and electrify your campaigns!
Create specific ad groups – Remember the cupcake example earlier (who could forget cupcakes)? Breaking your campaigns into ad groups by specific flavors, brands, services—any segment that allows you to use a more focused set of keywords—keeps ads as relevant as possible, so customers find exactly what they’re looking for.
Include keywords in ad text – Include your exact match keyword within multiple components of your ads, including headlines, URLs, and descriptions, to improve your CTR.
Make sure keywords reflect on the landing page – If customers click on an ad expecting “red velvet cupcakes,” make sure that’s what they find on the landing page. Have you noticed the pattern here? Consistency is key to relevancy!
Use strong call-to-actions (CTAs) – Encourage customers to click on your ads by using concise verbs. CTAs such as “Buy Now,” “Sign Up Today,” and “Learn More” direct customers to your landing page with a set goal in mind. Feature a similar CTA on the landing page for consistency, so customers follow through.
Test ad copy – Experimenting with different ad language and CTAs will help you discover what works most effectively with your customers. Google also automatically rotates ads to show the best-performing ones more often.
Review campaign performance – By reviewing your campaigns regularly, you can make changes as needed to further improve your ads.
With these changes, you’ll increase your Google AdWords ad quality score in no time! Need help improving your quality scores? By hiring an experienced Google AdWords team like us, you can save time and money while increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns—which ultimately provides a greater ROI. That’s what we Doo!
With high-quality scores, your ads will bring in lower cost and higher quality traffic, while remaining relevant to potential customers, inspiring a surge of success for your campaigns!
Now…Does anyone else feel like cupcakes?