Two advertisers can bid the same amount on the same keyword and pay wildly different costs per click. The difference is Quality Score — Google's 1–10 rating of how relevant and useful your ad and landing page are to someone searching that keyword. A high Quality Score lowers your cost per click and improves your ad position. A low Quality Score raises your costs and pushes your ad down the page. Understanding and improving Quality Score is one of the highest-return activities in Google Ads management.
What Quality Score is: the 1–10 rating and its three components
Quality Score is a diagnostic metric displayed in Google Ads at the keyword level, rated from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). It's composed of three sub-components, each rated Below Average, Average, or Above Average: Expected Click-Through Rate (how likely someone is to click your ad when it appears for this keyword, compared to other advertisers), Ad Relevance (how closely your ad copy matches the intent of the keyword), and Landing Page Experience (how relevant, useful, and easy to navigate your landing page is for someone who clicked that ad). Google calculates each component by comparing your performance to other advertisers targeting the same keyword.
Why Quality Score matters: the cost and position multiplier
Google determines ad position and actual cost per click through Ad Rank — a calculation that combines your bid with your Quality Score. A higher Quality Score means you need a lower bid to achieve the same ad position, and you pay less per click than a lower-Quality Score competitor. Concretely: an advertiser with a Quality Score of 8 might pay £0.80 per click for a position. The same position for an advertiser with Quality Score 4 might cost £1.60 or more. Over a month of advertising, that difference is material — it's the difference between a profitable campaign and one that's barely breaking even.
QS 10: estimated CPC modifier ~50% below average — you pay half what poor-QS competitors pay
QS 7–9: estimated CPC at or slightly below average — you're competitive on cost
QS 4–6: estimated CPC at or slightly above average — you're paying a penalty for average relevance
QS 1–3: estimated CPC significantly above average — poor relevance is actively costing you money
How Google calculates Quality Score (and what it doesn't tell you)
Google calculates Quality Score based on historical performance data for your keyword-ad-landing page combination. Expected CTR is calculated using your historical CTR for that keyword, normalised for position — so appearing lower on the page doesn't penalise you. Ad Relevance is assessed by Google's systems comparing the semantic relationship between your keyword and your ad copy. Landing Page Experience is assessed by Google's crawler evaluating your landing page for relevant content, page speed, mobile usability, and transparency. Importantly, Quality Score is a lagging indicator — it reflects past performance, so improving the underlying factors takes time to show up in the score.
The compounding effect of poor Quality Score
Poor Quality Score creates a compounding problem. Higher CPCs reduce your budget efficiency, so you get fewer clicks for the same spend. Fewer clicks means less conversion data, making it harder for Google's Smart Bidding to optimise. Lower ad positions mean worse visibility, further reducing CTR, which keeps your Expected CTR component low. This feedback loop can spiral a campaign into low-performance equilibrium. Breaking out requires deliberate intervention on all three Quality Score components simultaneously — not just bidding adjustments.
How to improve Expected Click-Through Rate
- Write more compelling headlines: lead with the keyword, follow with the benefit, end with a differentiator — 'Google Ads Management | Expert PPC Team | No Long-Term Contracts'
- Use Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) correctly: provide 15 headline options with genuine variety — don't just write the same headline 15 different ways. Google tests combinations and surfaces the best performers
- Add ad extensions (now called Assets): sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions all expand your ad's footprint on the page and improve CTR without changing your bid
- Test ad copy systematically: run two RSA variants per ad group and pause the lower performer after 200+ impressions each — iterative testing compounds CTR improvements over months
- Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion sparingly: DKI automatically inserts the searched keyword into your headline, improving perceived relevance — but only use it if the inserted text still makes grammatical sense
How to improve Ad Relevance
Ad Relevance is primarily driven by keyword-to-ad alignment. The most impactful lever is ad group structure: tighter, more specific ad groups allow you to write ad copy that closely matches the specific keyword theme. An ad group containing 'digital marketing agency', 'online marketing company', 'internet marketing services', and 'SEO agency' is too broad — your ad copy cannot simultaneously be highly relevant to all of these. Split into more focused groups: an SEO-specific ad group, a paid-ads-specific ad group, a digital marketing general ad group — each with copy that closely matches the keyword theme.
How to improve Landing Page Experience
- Relevance: the landing page must clearly address the keyword and ad promise. If your ad says 'Fast SEO Results for Startups', the landing page must immediately reference SEO for startups — not a generic digital marketing homepage
- Page speed: Google uses Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) to assess landing page performance. Check PageSpeed Insights and target LCP under 2.5 seconds. Slow pages are rated Below Average for Landing Page Experience regardless of content quality
- Mobile optimisation: with the majority of Google searches on mobile, a landing page that works on desktop but is difficult to navigate on mobile will receive a poor Landing Page Experience rating
- Clear calls to action: the landing page should have one primary CTA — a form, a phone number, or a specific button — positioned above the fold and repeated at the bottom. Ambiguous pages with no clear next step signal poor user experience
- Transparency: include your company name, contact information, and a clear statement of what you offer. Google's quality evaluators look for transparency signals
Quality Score troubleshooting: diagnosing which component is low
In Google Ads, you can add the 'Exp. CTR', 'Ad Relevance', and 'Landing Page Exp.' columns to your keyword view. When Quality Score is low, identify which component is rated 'Below Average' — that's your priority fix. Below Average Expected CTR: focus on ad copy and extensions. Below Average Ad Relevance: restructure ad groups and rewrite ad copy to match keyword themes. Below Average Landing Page Experience: fix page speed, relevance, and mobile usability. Rarely is all three below average simultaneously — diagnose before acting.
Quality Score for brand vs non-brand keywords
Brand keywords (searches containing your company or product name) almost always achieve Quality Scores of 8–10, because searchers clicking on a branded ad and landing on the brand's own website find exactly what they expected. Use brand campaigns as a baseline for what excellent Quality Score looks like. Non-brand keywords require significantly more work to achieve high Quality Scores because you're competing against other advertisers for relevance. Segment brand and non-brand campaigns and evaluate Quality Score separately — conflating them masks non-brand performance problems.
Common Quality Score myths worth correcting
- Myth: pausing low-QS keywords improves your account-level Quality Score — False. Quality Score is calculated per keyword; there's no account-level score
- Myth: bid higher to improve Quality Score — False. Bid has no direct effect on Quality Score; the three components are what matter
- Myth: Quality Score is the only thing that matters — False. QS affects cost and position, but your conversion rate, audience targeting, and bid strategy determine whether the campaign is actually profitable
- Myth: a QS of 7 is 'good enough' — Context-dependent. For competitive commercial keywords where competitors have QS 9–10, QS 7 means you're paying a significant CPC premium
Omakaase manages Google Ads campaigns for B2B companies and agencies, with Quality Score optimisation built into every account restructure. If your campaigns are burning through budget with underwhelming results, the problem is often fixable through ad group tightening and landing page relevance work. We'd be glad to take a look at your account.
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