What Are The Three Main Factors That Determine Ad Quality?

When it comes to creating effective ads, quality is key. You may wonder what separates a higher-quality ad from a low-quality one.

However, there are several things one may refer to when talking about the quality of your ad. You might mean how effective it is at meeting your goals. One of the most common meanings, however, is the Quality Score.

There are three major factors that, if done right, can greatly increase your return on ad spend (ROAS). Thinking of quality in terms of the Quality Score, what are the three main factors that determine ad quality? That’s why in this article, we will explore what are the three main factors that determine ad quality and how you can improve your ad quality score.

An Overview of Quality Score 

Well, before getting started with the three factors that determine ad quality it is essential to have an understanding of the quality score is essential. 

So, a quality score is the number between 1 to 10. In digital marketing, it is a strategy that is used by social media platforms and search engines to measure the effectiveness and uniqueness of an ad. Quality score assesses the quality of your ad, including the landing pages, keywords, and performance in ad auction. 

In case you have a high-quality score, this means the search engine refers to your landing pages and the keywords as relevant and useful. Your quality score is influenced by the time your website is charged per click. It’s partially based on the performance of your previous ads. However, if there isn’t enough data to go off of, your score may appear as “—” or a null quality score. Quality scores are considered basically on several factors. 

Three Main Factors That Determine The Ad Quality

So, it’s time to get on with the main factors that determine the ad Quality— Ad relevance, expected click-through rate (CTR), and landing page experience. Google is quite transparent about these factors making it easier for websites to maintain their quality score. These scores are used to determine where your ad will appear how often it will appear and how much you will pay per click. 

These factors as mentioned below with their improving strategies: 

The three main factors that determine ad quality are ad relevance, expected click-through rate (CTR), and landing page experience.

1. Ad relevance

As per Google ad relevance is considered as “how uniquely the ad matches the targeted audience search queries.”  Being an advertiser, understanding the keywords in your ad group to the keyword is more relevant to your ads, the more personalized it is to the visitor. 

Let’s understand this by an example– suppose you run a marketing agency then the relevant keyword for your ad campaign will be, web designing service, “content marketing agency” or “SEO agency”

However, something to remember, if you use a similar ad for all your keywords rather than creating specific ads targeting each keyword, you can lose your ad’s relevance.  This is why Ad relevance is essential.

Ad Relevance Improvement Strategies 

• Create specific ad groups — Subdivide your keywords by theme and build ads tailored specifically to each group. This ensures ad relevancy to the user’s search query.

• Use Unique Keyword Insertion — This strategy allows to automatic insertion of the user’s search term into the ad copy, which helps increase relevance and grabs user attention.

• Focus on the user’s intent — Try to understand what the user is looking for and tailor your ad to meet their needs. For example, if a user is searching for “best coffee shops near me,” your ad should focus on the location and quality of your coffee shop.

• Use ad extensions — Ad extensions can provide additional information to users, such as your business address or phone number, which can help increase relevance and make it easier for users to contact you.

2. Expected click Through Rate (CTR)

This is a keyword-related factor that measures the possibility of the audience clicking your AD while finding the associated keyword. This strategy is based on the past performance of the keyword. To maintain the ad visibility or the quality score it does not consider the ad position, asset, or other ad format. However, Google makes use of an accurate expected CTR version based on demographics, device types, and other auction factors.

Levels assigned by Google for expected CTR –

• Above average – This means your expected CTR for this Keyword is better or as good as all other Keywords on the Google Ads network.
• Average – Your Keyword has no major Expected CTR issues.
• Below average – Your click-through rate for this particular Keyword is lower than all keywords across Google Ads. 

Improvement Strategies For Expected CTR

• Choose the right keywords — Make use of specific keywords that are relatable and match the search intent. Keyword tools can also be used to find the most relevant and highest-volume keywords.

• Create compelling ad copy — Websites can use engaging and persuasive ad copy that conveys your products and services. Add up a strong call to action to enable users to click on your ad.

• Use ad testing — Test different ad copy and ad extensions to analyze what suits best for your website. Make use of A/B testing to compare different versions of your ads and optimize for the best-performing versions.

3. Landing page Experience

The third major factor that determines the ad quality is the user’s experience on the website’s landing page. It’s a phase where the user steps ahead towards your website through the ads. As the landing page holds a direct influence on ad quality and user  satisfaction, google demands some considerations which are as follows: 

• The “clarity and usability” of the landing page to your audience. 
• The relatability of the keywords users are searching for. 
• The possibility of providing a good experience to the customers. 

While these considerations by Google are fine what does it exactly refer to with the wordings, “clarity and usability”? And what makes the “relatability” word connect landing page content with keywords? Let’s understand these points below:  

• Clear – The landing page should be easy to navigate and have a clear layout, a prominent yet minimal headline, a clear call to action, and relevant images or videos supporting the content.
• Useful – Design is one thing; content is another. The content should be easy to consume, clearly highlighting the product’s or service’s benefits, with little to zero fluff.
• Related – Ensure that the landing page is closely related to the ad group and keywords that triggered the ad. The landing page should contain the keywords used in the ad and other relevant keywords that match the user’s search intent.

Avoiding “keyword stuffing”, or using the same keyword repeatedly on the page, is also important. This can be seen as spammy and hurt the user’s experience.  Rather, prioritize creating a high-quality landing page that provides value to the user and is closely related to the ad and keywords being used.

Other factors that determine the Ad Quality

So, while the above-mentioned three factors are proficient in determining the Ad quality, you still should be aware of other factors that matter and don’t matter for the website’s quality score. With the above-mentioned main factors google directly implements these factors just to improve your quality score. 

So let’s understand what factors matter and do not matter side by side below! 

Factors that Matter 

1. User’s Device

Make sure you reach the audience around the globe, regardless of whatever device they use. As per the reports of Statista, most of the web traffic in 2024 is from mobile. Just for this reason it is essential to ensure you have a mobile-optimized website. You may also want to consider pages and ads specifically designed to be mobile-friendly. 

2. Relevance to the User Intentions

Expect a better Quality Score if your ad and website help visitors complete tasks (including sales), easily navigate, or gather relevant information.

3. Related Keyword Performance

In the case of newly launched keywords, Google will look at your past performance for related keywords. This will only be the case until there is enough data on the new keywords.

Factors That Don’t Matter

1. Your Account Structure

Your account structure isn’t considered in the factors that determine the quality score as long as it does not influence the user experience. Breaking keywords into new ad groups or campaigns (without changing the ad text or landing page) does not affect their quality. However, shifting a keyword to a new ad group that has new ad text could change your ad quality estimations. 

2. Running Your Ads in Other Networks: Doesn’t Matter

Targeting the Google Display Network or Google’s search partners in your Google Ads account won’t affect a website’s quality scores. As with keywords, websites can use their existing performance strategies —conversions, cost-per-action, etc.—to test out search partners and the Display Network to drive more volume.

3. Your Ad’s Placement on the Page: Doesn’t Matter

Having a high position on a page is great but it does not enhance the CTR rating of the ads.  In fact, the expected CTR is normalized for your actual position on the page. The top position is expected to receive more clicks than the below rankings. You don’t need to bid for higher positions to increase your Quality Score, rather it is important to bid on the performance: the clicks, conversions, and costs that work best for your business.

Conclusion 

Overall we hope now you are aware of the three main factors that determine the ad quality. However, while optimizing ad quality scores, websites can enhance their ad rankings, increase visibility, and boost better performance. All they need to do is to prioritize creating relevant and engaging ads. You can do so by optimizing your bid strategies and delivering a seamless user experience on your landing pages. Take your understanding of these factors to good use and let your website maintain high quality.