-
Does Quality Score Still Matter in 2024?
I have been seeing a lot that Quality Score is meaningless now.
Ad Rank used to be a very simple formula of Max Bid x Quality Score. This made Quality Score a crucial factor because a higher score directly led to lower CPCs
But, now everyone is saying it doesn't matter.
Here's what Google Says currently about Ad Rank:
Ad Rank
Ad Rank is a set of values that are used to determine whether your ads are eligible to show and if eligible, where on the page your ads are shown (if at all) relative to other advertisers’s ads. Ad Rank scores are calculated based on many factors, including your bid amount, the quality of your ads and landing page, the ad rank thresholds, the competitiveness of an auction, the context of the person’s search (for example, the person’s location, device, time of search, the nature of the search terms, the other ads and search results that show on the page and other user signals and attributes) and the expected impact of assets and other ad formats.
When estimating the expected impact of assets and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, click-through rates and the prominence of the assets or formats on the search results page. So, even if your competition has higher bids than yours, you can still win a higher position at a lower price by using highly relevant keywords and ads.
Note the lines in bold. Quite clearly it says the Quality of your Ads and Landing pages.
Now, while the formula might not be as simple as Max Bid × Quality Score anymore, it’s obvious that Google still factors in ad and landing page quality. People often forget that it's the same system assessing both Quality Score and Ad Rank. So if your Quality Score is low, it’s a signal from Google that improving your ads and landing pages can directly boost your positions and lower your CPC.
Think about it: if your QS is below 3/10, you’ll struggle to show ads at all due to low relevance. On the other hand, if you hit 10/10, you’re typically the top competitor, dominating the top spots.
What I don’t understand is why many PPC experts seem to have stopped caring about Quality Score. Personally, I still see it as one of the most important metrics we should focus on. At the end of the day, Google rewards relevance and a good user experience. If you improve those, your results will improve, and your CPC will drop.
In my opinion, too many people are giving smart bidding far too much credit and forgetting about the basics.
-
1 Reply
-
Have not looked at Quality Score in a decade and been more than ok. The issue is too many people are way to obsessed with Quality Score, that they don’t focus on getting the basics of a well run ad account right. As you made bold in your post, the key to great QS is **relevant keywords and ads.** Most people forget to do that and wonder why results are crap. Plus as Google says on their own QS support page:
**Good to know about Quality Score**
* Quality Score is not a key performance indicator and should not be optimized or aggregated with the rest of your data.
* Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction. It’s a diagnostic tool to identify how ads that show for certain keywords affect the user experience.Getting the basics right matter but some people need to chill about QS because Google has made it a point to change Ad Rank support pages to not say that it is simply QS x bids that gets you your ad rank. There is a clear reason why they made that change and you can not easily find it on those support pages anymore.
-
yeah, it matters. built an AI that’s been consistently cutting our clients’ CPC by an average 35% by creating on-brand, dedicated landing pages and maximizing ad relevance.
-
It doesn’t matter. I have seen a quality score of 7-8 on keywords on one account costing $10 on average and on another account the same keyword, same Bid Strategy, and same location, but on this account, the quality score was a 2-3, and the average cpc was $4.
-
To add:
Sure, Quality Score isn’t part of the ad auction per se, but it’s a diagnostic tool ***for*** the ad auction. In essence, it reflects how well you’re performing on those key auction-time factors (expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience). If you’re getting a low QS, you’re probably not doing as well in those areas as you might think or, at least in Google’s eyes, you can improve.
If you improve your QS from, say, 5/10 to 10/10, you’re likely to see better performance and lower CPCs because Google will reward those improvements. That’s why I believe QS deserves more attention, because it highlights weaknesses that directly affect Ad Rank.
In short, by ignoring QS entirely you are in danger of overlooking a critical indicator of where you can improve. It’s not about obsession – it’s about using it as a tool to optimise relevance and user experience, which Google consistently rewards.
-
I have no idea what Google uses to determine QS for some keywords I get a high click through rate of 10% to 15% but my QS isn’t high and some I have a QS of 8.
I just ignore the metrics Google gives unless my CTR and conversions are low.
-
Quality Score has never been part of the calculation of ad rank.
Quality Score is based on historical impressions for exact searches of your keyword. If you find that useful, then that’s good, but Google itself says that there are better KPIs than QS.
If you’re not using exact match, I think it’s pointless.
If you are using exact match, it’s very nearly pointless.
-
While I’m happy to see more people acknowledging and discussing this issue, it will be argued back and forth with ppc practitioners either one aide or the other:
– the side that say QS matters even though Google now says it doesn’t because on another help page it says ad rank may use some factors that we think are the same or similar to the ones QS uses so it still has relevance.
– or the side that say QS doesn’t matter because Google have said it’s no longer an auction factor on their QS help page, and our view is that you optimise for conversion and what resonates with the audience rather than another Google calculated score, when we know Google sets thresholds and manipulates auctions.
Either camp could be right, and just like atheists who take a religion to hedge their bets in case god does exist, if you have the time to optimise for conversion and work to align this with vying for a higher quality score then why not do it.
Until someone provides some data-driven evidence on either side let’s not dance around something Google hasn’t directly provided firm guidance on. Moving on…
-
It still matters but is impossible to decipher because of automated bidding and broad match keywords having such variable CTRs and CPCs because of the thousands of matching queries from exact to not even close. Add to this that there is so much more crossover of competitors and it makes things pretty messy in ad rank land.
Bottom line you should still try to ensure relevance between ads, keywords, and landing page. But the days of spending a lot of optimization time focusing on quality scores is behind us.
-
[deleted]
-
My personal experience is that quality score has become irreverent. I have ROAS bidding campaigns where keywords have a 10/10 QS but are losing up to 34-76% IS due to ad rank.
-
What I have found very interesting about the discussions in this thread is that everyone has an opinion, but – in an industry where data is everything to us – nobody has actually gone back and looked at the data.
Whether or not you believe that QS affects your CPC, you have the data in the account that will tell you.
**So pick an EM keyword where you’ve improved the QS, run a historical report, and track the historical QS against the CPC. Surely that would settle the argument once and for all?**
(I’m not going to do that is because nowadays I run exclusively BM keywords with smart bidding, so apart from the data being unreliable, CPC is quite a long way down the list of KPIs for me)
-
This is a really good question.
Quality Score used to be gospel, with it being a crucial part of the Ad Rank. However Google has changed their tune on it in the last couple of years. Saying it is now merely just a diagnosis tool.
There are two issues I have seen with QS.
1) When you delve deeper into it, the data does not really make sense (like a lot of things in Google Ads) with top performing keywords, having a low QS.
2) It seems near on impossible to improve. The only time where I have seen QS significantly improve. is when there has been drastic improvements to a website. I.E A barely functional website being completely revamped by a web dev guy. Apart from that other changes I have made have barely made a difference to QS, both in the account and on the LP.
For that reason I base all my data and decisions I make in the account, on the KPI metrics. Conversions and CPA mainly.
-
Yes it does
Log in to reply.