Ad Quality Scores: Why Are They Important and How We Can Help

Search advertising is a form of digital marketing that helps businesses reach potential customers easily and quickly via search engine results. Through search advertising, businesses create ads that appear in response to the keywords and phrases customers use when they are searching for products and services. As the person attempts to find information on a product or service, their query triggers the paid search ads, allowing them to quickly access information about your business. 

Companies pay for these types of ads by paying each time someone clicks on their advertisement; it allows you to target consumers who are already interested in similar products or services that you offer. This type of advertising strategy is highly efficient since it ensures that your business reaches out only to people who have already expressed some kind of interest in similar products or services. However, one important metric to monitor and work on for your ads is the quality score. Ad quality scores are an important metric in the digital marketing world. They measure the performance of your ads, which is an essential part of any successful campaign. It’s important to understand what goes into ad quality scores, how they are calculated, and how we can help you maximize them. 

What Are Ad Quality Scores? 

Graphic of ad quality scores.

As a business, it’s important to understand ad quality scores because they are essential to know in order to optimize your digital marketing strategy. They also help identify what’s working and what’s not so you can make the most of your advertising budget. But what exactly is an ad quality score? Let’s break it down. 

What is an Ad Quality Score? 

Stairs with numbers 1-10 on each stair

The ad quality score is Google’s way of measuring the quality of an ad based on various criteria, such as relevance, engagement, and click-through rate (CTR). Google ads assigns scores ranging from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest).  Having a higher quality score means your ad will be ranked higher during placement than ads with a low quality score. This means that not only are you more likely to get more clicks and customers with a high-quality score but you can also expect lower costs per click due to cost savings generated by increased ad placement ability. On the other hand, if your ad has a low quality score then it may get dismissed right away or bid at higher cost compared to other competing ads that have had better success with optimization for better results in terms of quality score.

How do Ad Quality Scores Work? 

Ad quality scores measure how well ads perform against certain criteria, such as relevance and engagement. Relevance is determined based on how well an ad matches a user’s interests or search query. Engagement measures how users interact with an ad and includes metrics like CTR and cost per click (CPC). The higher the engagement for an ad, the more likely it will be seen by potential customers.  

Why Are Ad Quality Scores Important? 

Ad Quality Scores are important because they provide insight into how effectively ads are performing and what can be done to improve them. By understanding these scores, businesses can adjust their strategies accordingly in order to maximize their ROI from digital marketing campaigns. Additionally, high-quality ads tend to command higher bids and result in better performance across all channels. 

How Are Ad Quality Scores Calculated? 

Hand holding and pressing on a calculator.

The quality score assigned to a Google ad is determined using a sophisticated algorithm that considers multiple aspects of an advertisement. It takes into account elements such as the relevancy of your target keywords, the landing page experience and quality, expected click-through rate, and ad relevance. In short, Google looks at how closely your ad is relevant to its intended search query, how good or engaging the landing page it leads to is, and of course historical performance when weighting its quality score. If you meet these criteria Google rewards you with higher rankings and better ad position in search results and potentially lower prices per click with every successful google ad campaign.

Why DIY Google Ads Are Not The Best Option For Companies

DIY crossed out and Do It Yourself spelled out

Google Ads can be an effective tool for companies to use in order to drive more traffic and conversions, but it is important to understand the complexity of this type of digital marketing. Many companies opt to try and run their own campaigns without the help of a digital marketing agency. Unfortunately, there are a few reasons why this may not be the best option. 

Google Ads Have A Steep Learning Curve 

A human figure puzzled by a missing puzzle piece

Google Ads requires a lot of time and effort to understand the platform, as well as create and manage campaigns. Because of the complexity involved with running Google Ads, it often requires significant knowledge in order to make sure that campaigns are set up properly and have the right targeting parameters in place. Without this knowledge, it can be difficult to get the most out of your campaign budget or measure its effectiveness. 

Optimization is Key For Successful Campaigns 

Graphic of Optimization

Once you have set up your campaigns, it is crucial to continuously monitor them and adjust as needed in order to ensure maximum ROI from your ad spend. This means regularly checking budgets and bid amounts, analyzing performance data such as click-through rates and conversion rates, optimizing keywords for better targeting, creating A/B tests for different versions of ads or landing pages, etc. It’s also important to constantly review competitors’ strategies so that you can stay ahead of them in terms of visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) and make sure you’re using all relevant features available in Google Ads (such as remarketing). All these activities take time and require specialized knowledge — something that a digital marketing agency will have plenty of. 

Budgeting Becomes Complicated Quickly  

Someone budgeting their cash on a table

It can be difficult to figure out how much money should be allocated towards each keyword or ad group within your campaign since bidding strategies depend on various factors such as competition level, budget size, cost per click (CPC), seasonality, etc. Figuring out how much budget should go towards each element also becomes more complicated when you consider other factors such as geographical targeting or device targeting which could affect CPCs differently depending on location or device type. This is where having an experienced digital marketing agency can save you time and money by setting up campaigns that are tailored specifically for your company’s needs. 

Overall, running your own Google Ads campaign may seem like a great idea at first but if you don’t have enough experience with running campaigns on Google Ads then it might end up being more trouble than it’s worth. Working with an experienced digital marketing agency who has a PPC (Pay Per Click)/Paid Search specialist that can manage Google Ads campaigns can help ensure that your campaigns achieve success while saving you both time and money in the long run. At DesignLoud we have years of experience with running successful campaigns on Google Ads! Curious to see how we can help? Read on!

How We Can Help You Maximize Your Ad Quality Score 

Graphic of bars and an arrow trending upwards

At DesignLoud, we have experience helping companies maximize their ad quality scores through our data-driven approach. Our team’s PPC services can help clients maximize their Google Ads quality score by providing Google Ads campaign management and optimization to keep your ad relevant. If you don’t have any experience with Google Ads or search advertising here are some key steps that we take with you to help you set up your account with us:

Step 1: Establish Goals and Objectives 

A paper with Goals spelled out on a paper.

The first step in creating an effective Google Ads campaign is to establish some clear goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve with your campaign? Are you looking to increase website traffic or drive more sales? Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will help you create a focused strategy that’s tailored towards your desired outcomes. 

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience 

Graphic with Target Audience spelled out and a circle around a select few human icons.

The next step is to identify your target audience—who are the people you want to reach with your ads? Be as specific as possible when defining your target audience; consider variables such as age, gender, location, interests, etc. This will help ensure that your ads are reaching the right people who are likely to become customers. 

Step 3: Set Budgets and Bidding Strategies 

Keyboard tiles spelling out BID

Once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s time to set some budgets and bidding strategies for your ads. You should determine how much money you’re willing to spend on each ad and decide which type of bidding strategy (e.g., cost-per-click, cost-per-impression) works best for achieving your goals. This is also a good time to review any existing campaigns that may need optimization or improvement. 

Step 4: Landing Page

A home computer showing a website's landing page.

Our services don’t stop with paid search advertising, utilizing our website design services can be incredibly beneficial when you need us to evaluate and improve your website. We can provide professional insight into where you’re going wrong, or how your current setup is hindering potential customers from having an enjoyable landing page experience. With this expertise, we can recommend necessary changes that need to be made in order to improve your ad quality scores. These changes may range from wider implementation of call-to-action buttons, the streamlining of your site’s navigation, the addition or removal of certain design elements such as images, animation, or videos; or even creating a better balance between copywriting and visuals. Working with a digital marketing agency like DesignLoud provides all these advantages and more, giving you the extra push your website needs to stay relevant with constantly evolving trends in Google Ads and online marketing.

Step 5: Maintenance

A wooden board with Maintenance and a worker on it.

As an agency providing Google Ads services for clients, we make sure that we are consistently mindful of maintenance on our client’s ads. Without timely optimization and upkeep, your ads may experience reduced relevance, incorrect targeting, or even worse – an unnecessary rise in prices. It is important to implement effective measures that are tailored to each unique ad and customer – these can range from adding relevant keywords and excluding negative keywords, to adjusting bidding strategies and ad copy. Overall, ongoing maintenance of a client’s Google Ads requires time and specialized knowledge – but it’s essential in order to ensure the advertisements best reach their intended audiences and yield the desired results. If you’re starting entirely from scratch, we are able to create Google Ad campaigns for you that are tailored to your unique needs. By creating tightly themed ad groups and keywords that are relevant to your business goals and ad budget, and helping with your website we help clients achieve a higher quality score and ad rank at a more efficient rate. Through this process, our agency assists in driving leads for our clients, ultimately leading to increased profits. If your business needs help improving its current google ads quality score, or setting up a Google Ads account, feel free to contact us! 

Ad quality scores are an important metric in digital marketing because they measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and determine whether or not they will be successful. It’s important to understand what goes into calculating these scores so that you can optimize your campaigns accordingly and get maximum value from every dollar spent on advertising. At DesignLoud we have experience helping companies maximize their ad quality scores through our data-driven approach so reach out to us today if you need help!

DesignLoud

DesignLoud is a web development & digital marketing agency located in Wilmington, NC. Our team takes great pleasure in teaching others how to build and market their websites to see higher returns.

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