When managed optimally, running Google Ads can provide one of the cheapest and most effective means of driving targeted traffic and leads to your landing pages. Your ad costs are affected by your Quality Score to a large degree. The higher your Quality Score, the better ad placement and the lower cost-per-click (CPC) you can achieve, which means better ROI.
In this guide, we’re going to dissect what Quality Score is, how it works, and offer up some top tips on ways to improve your own Quality Score (and drive down that CPC in the process).
What Is Google Ads Quality Score?
Quality Score is Google’s measure of the quality and relevance of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. It is measured on a scale of 1 to 10, with higher scores representing better functioning.
Quality Score is determined by three key components, according to Google:
- Expected Click Through Rate (CTR): The chance your ad will be clicked on when shown.
- Ad relevance: This is the degree to which your ad matches / relates to the search term (and intent of) the person searching.
- Landing Page Experience: Relevance, usefulness and user-friendliness of the landing page.
Why Quality Score Matters
Not only does increasing your Quality Score please Google, but it also actually affects your bottom line. A higher score can lead to:
- Low CPC: Less than your competitors with the identical scores as yours.
- Improved Ad Position: Your ads may display towards the top of the page, without you having to increase your cost-per-click bid.
- Greater ROI: Achieving more clicks at a lower cost results in higher effectiveness and capital gains.
Proven Ways to Improve Quality Score
Optimize Your Keyword Selection: Target high-intent, relevant keywords that closely match your ad copy and landing pages. Leave junk keywords out of a tightly related ad group.
- Target intent-based users with long-tail keywords.
- Periodically check the Search Terms Report for new negative keywords.
Write Highly Relevant Ad Copy: Your ad copy should say precisely what the user is looking for.
- Feature the primary keyword in the headline and description.
- Focus on user intent — what problem the former are trying to solve.
- Include clear CTAs (e.g., “Get a Free Quote,” “Shop Now,” or “Book Today”).
- Test A/B your ad variations to capture the ones that speak best with your audience.
Improve Landing Page Experience: Your landing page must offer precisely what you advertise.
- Keep your keywords in sync between ads and landing pages.
- Keep load times fast — use Google PageSpeed Insights for optimization tips.
- In sum: Make it mobile-ready with a responsive design.
- Pack in an easy-to-navigate and readable CTA.
Increase Click-Through Rate (CTR): Click-through rates send a clear message to Google that your ad is relevant, improving your Quality Score.
- Leverage ad extensions (sitelinks, callout, structured snippets) to drive more value and visibility.
- Try out new ad formats such as responsive search ads.
- Fish in key demos and areas for better traction.
Maintain Organized Ad Groups: Avoid clustering too many keywords. Instead, organize your campaign into closely themed ad groups — each containing only a handful of highly relevant keywords.
This leads to better ad copy and landing page targeting, directly boosting ad relevance and CTR.
Monitor and Refine Regularly: Performance of Google Ads across time.
- Never stop watching your Quality Score stats in Google Ads.
- Pause or adjust underperforming ads.
- Test new keywords and ad variations that you haven’t used before based on performance metrics.
How Quality Score Reduces CPC
Google prefers advertisers who create pertinent, quality experiences for the user. When your Quality Score improves:
- You can achieve a higher Ad Rank at a lower bid.
- You’re paying less per click for the exact ad placement.
- You see more and better over time for less money.
In other words: higher quality leads to greater efficiency — a win-win for both advertisers and users.
Final Thoughts
Optimizing your Google Ads Quality Score isn’t a problem you can solve once and consider it done — it’s an ongoing effort to improve continually. You can consistently raise your score (and lower your CPC) by optimizing keywords, improving ad relevance and making landing pages more straightforward.
At PushFire, we offer PPC management services that are guaranteed to support your business and yield the highest ROI. Poor Quality Scores and high CPCs got you down? Our experts work to optimize your campaigns for success, long-term.
Are You Ready to Reduce Your CPC and Increase Conversions?
Get in touch with PushFire today and have our PPC Blended Rank experts create a killer Google Ads campaign that aligns with your business objectives.
