Dissecting Quality Score
- September 6, 2010
- by Andrew Harris
Over the past four months I have been analysing quality score trends and I have discovered some very interesting trends. Analysing these trends will help us to understand how Quality Score is rewarded and therefore how to gain the best possible quality score in your Adwords account.
Quality Score Vs Average Position
An old blog from 2008 from Google suggested that they account for the influence of ad position on CTR and therefore removed it from the Quality score algorithm. (http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/11/update-on-improvements-to-ads-quality.html)
Therefore, pushing your bids to get a higher average position and therefore getting a higher CTR% WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY IMRPOVE YOUR QUALITY SCORE.
My analysis and graph has confirmed that this is the case. The graph below highlights quality score averages for different average positions. As you can see, it is fairly consistent from position 7th through to 1st, with only a small positive trend from 3rd to 1st.
My conclusion from this, is that Adwords will only reward your keyword with a higher quality IF you achiever a higher than average CTR% compared to your competitors when they achieved the same average position.
Quality Score Vs CTR%
I was then interested in establishing how important CTR% is when quality score is rewarded.
The graph below highlights that CTR% and quality score goes hand in hand. Improve your CTR% and your quality score will improve also. Simples!
So we have established that an improved quality score cannot be established by simply pushing CPC’s in order to gain a higher CTR%. Therefore to improve your CTR%, you should focus on the following
- Ensure the adverts are relevant to the search term used.
- Gain greater brand awareness via a higher marketing investment
- Write, test and refine your adverts frequently
- Ensure your adverts are compelling
- Aim to improve your USP’s
- Stand out from the competition
Quality Score Vs Keyword Length
This section looks at the relationship between Quality Score and keyword length. Your AdWords account will contain a balance of brand, generic and long tail terms dependant on the strategy you have implemented.
The graph below is highlighting a low quality score average for keywords which only contain 1 – 2 keywords. This would mainly include generic terms. Due to the large volume of impressions, we can assume the CTR% will be low here and therefore it is harder to achieve a high quality score for these terms. Unless you have a much larger PPC budget compared to your competitors.
The graph would suggest that keywords which are 4 – 7 words long achieve the best quality score, however, please bear in mind that the more “complex” the search term, the less impressions it will generate.
The analysis would also suggest that you shouldn’t generate keywords which are more than 7 words long on the basis that no one will search for them and will then be rewarded will a lower quality score due to low search volume.
Quality Score Vs Daily Budget
The graph below highlights that with an increased daily budget, you can “expect” your quality score to increase slightly. This is based on the red trend line. However the large fluctuations highlights that every AdWords account will perform differently.
The larger daily budgets will improve quality score mainly due to the fact that a larger budget will involve more investment into the “buying cycle”. This investment will result in a higher CTR% as searchers will be more familiar with that brand.
Quality Score Vs Ad Copy Content
Ad relevancy and CTR% plays a large element when scoring Quality Score. Both elements are largely dependent on Ad Copy content. Keyword relevancy is also dependant on landing page content etc, however including the search term used within the Advert is an obvious step to make to improve quality score, however how does capitalization, full stops, exclamation marks etc impact CTR% and therefore quality score?
The chart above highlights QS changes when adverts contain different content such as call to actions.
It is interesting that adverts which contain a “Sale”, they will experience a higher QS compared to the overall average.
Including your price in your advert, will improve your CTR%, especially if your price is in your title, however it will not have a direct impact on your quality score.
Interestingly, adverts which contain dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) achieve a higher than average quality score.
The call to action “Contact Us” is our poorest performer for both quality score and CTR% .
Conclusion
My take away points from the analysis above are:
1) Do not simply push CPC’s in order to achieve a higher average position.
2) Aim to improve your CTR% by improving your advert copy
3) Carefully choose your keyword list. Get a balance between generic, long tail and brand.
4) Structure your Adgroups into targeted themes, to ensure your adverts gain a higher relevancy score.
5) Carefully choose your call to actions, USP’s and ad copy content.
6) Carefully choose your click budget, based on your marketing objective.
1 Comment
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Andy @ FirstFound
I had no idea quality and position weren’t linked!