Adwords Quality Score - Is it Hard to Do Well On These Days?

Hi Oilman,

AdWords, like most PPC programs is a competitive auction based system. That means you are always going up against competitors seeking the same ad slot. You are competing based not only on how much you bid, but also on how high your quality score is.

Quality score is primarily based on how your CTR compares to your competitors' CTR. to win an auction for an ad slot you need to win the ad rank score. Ad Rank score is you Max CPC bid multiplied by your Quality Score. Another way of looking at this is you are competing for ad slots based on what you are paying per impression compared to what your competitor is paying per impression.

The key to getting a high quality score is to get the most clicks per impression as possible, if you get more clicks than competitors you will have a high Quality score and will be able to purchase ad slots at a lower cost than competitors must pay.

There are a couple other factors that go into the total QS, like ad relevance to keyword, and landing page experience, but they are relatively minor factors as compared to CTR. So, if you want to pay less money per click then write compelling ads that get high CTR.

Here's a video that gives a general explanation of how Quality Scores work:

This video goes a little more n depth on how the ad auction works and how Quality score is calculated:

Hi Lucid,

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the AdWords folks have been very careful to distinguish the effects of ad formats, like ad extensions, as separate factor from Quality Scores, and that they apply the effect to your Ad Rank score, not to your Quality Score. Everything that I have heard from them implies that to be the case, however I haven't confirmed it with them as of yet.

When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for them to do it that way, since you could have many ads in an ad group and ad extensions are not always displayed, and the combination of ad extension may change from one impression to the next, either by the advertiser, or the AdWords system. Plus ad formats that include ad extensions take up more page real estate, which may impact the CTR of other ads on the same SERP. By calculating those effects separately, it allows for a more dynamic application of ad formats.

Here is how I understand ad rank score is now calculated:

(Max CPC * QS) + (expected effect on CTR by ad format) = Ad Rank Score