This must be one of the most commonly talked about topics in PPC advertising via Google AdWords. Its simple name and slightly detached concept, means that for some users it is difficult to identity quite what Quality Score is, what it means, and how it can affect their campaign.
Put simply, Quality Score is an essential cog in the centre of AdWords. It analyses a number of different factors to decide how relevant Google believes your ad is, and ultimately effects how much you pay to advertise.
How does Quality Score effect how much I pay?
Your position in the ad rank is calculated using your Quality Score:
Ad rank = Quality score * Maximum Cost Per Click
As you can see, improving your quality score can dramatically improve how much you have to pay to achieve a certain ad rank. As Google Adwords Evangelist Frederick Vallaeys explains it in his recent excellent interview with David Szetela for PPC Rockstars – if you have 2 advertisers, one has a quality score twice a high as the other, that advertiser will only have to pay half as much to achieve the same ad position.
Ok, so its important, but how is it calculated?
Its based on three primary factors:
CTR – This is the main element. Your CTR is an indication of how successful users feel your triggered ads are to the search query they have inputted.
Relevance – Not only to the search query, but also to the ad copy. Basically a safeguard to stop a well-healed advertiser from buying their way to lots of traffic by using a popular but unrelated keyword.
Landing page – A lesser but none the less important factor. You’ll want your landing page to have good original content that is relevant to the keyword and ad that you displayed. This also acts as a safeguard to stop advertisers from using ‘doorway pages’ to feature multiple times in the ad rankings.
More information can be found in the AdWords Help centre Quality Score site. If you have 40 mins then I would definitely advise listening to David Szetela’s PPC Rockstars interview with Google Adwords Evangelist, Frederick Vallaeys.
Finally, here is a video featuring Google Chief Economist Hal Varian explaining how AdWords works and how Quality Score is used:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7l0a2PVhPQ[/youtube]
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