Top 5 AdWords Quality Score Myths You Should Be Aware Of

You are probably making several mistakes when it comes to your AdWords Quality Score.

While this aspect of your account is both significant and useful, there are a lot of misconceptions that revolve around it.

This blog post will discuss the role that quality score plays in an AdWords campaign and five of the most common myths that surround it.

How it Works

According to a white paper released by Google last year,

“the quality score reported in your AdWords account is as warning lights in a car; something that alerts you to potential problems.”

Accounts with higher quality scores benefit in several ways, including:

1) Better Ad Positions

2) Lower costs-per-click

3) Eligibility for Enhanced Ad Formats

While these factors are both desirable and important for a successful campaign, it is also necessary to examine other metrics in your account to pinpoint areas for improvement.

Elements such as click-through-rate and site engagement are also connected with the performance of your AdWords activity and can influence the overall health of your campaigns.

The quality of your ads is calculated every time they are entered into an auction. However, the quality score that is displayed in your account is not representative of these real-time calculations. So, rather than relying on Quality Score as an all-inclusive indicator, it is better to view it as a general metric of your performance.

Now let’s examine a few of the common misconceptions.

1) Altering Quality Score with Match Types

Whether you use broad, phrase or exact match for a certain keyword, the same score will apply to each one. Since the score that is assigned to a keyword is dependent on the query rather than the match type, changing the match type will not alter the score.

2) Pausing Keywords or Ads Harms Quality Score

Choosing to pause specific campaigns does not affect your score because the score is based on performance. When keywords or ads are paused they aren’t active and will not continue to be scored.

3) Higher Ad Position = Higher Quality Score

While a strong score can result in higher ad positions this does not mean that your ad position influences score. When your quality score is being calculated, Google considers the influence that ad positioning has on click-through-rates and makes adjustments to reduce the bias.

Other factors such as the ad format that is being used will also be factored into the formula to normalize your score. Bidding for higher positions in an attempt to increase your score is an ineffective practice.

4) Trying to Erase History to Improve Quality Score

Deleting or changing up the elements of an account can impact the future quality score associated with them. However, it will not change the history that has already been established.

Historical performance is a permanent fixture that is tied to your account but deleting poor performing ads will prevent them from continuing to damage your quality score. Over time, your score can be improved by enhancing the performance of your campaigns.

5) Account Structure Impacts Quality Score

As long as the setup of your account doesn’t affect user experience then it shouldn’t change your score. This encompasses campaign names, number of ad groups and placing keywords into new ad groups or campaigns.

For example, moving a keyword to a new campaign will not influence the score as long as the elements of the group are the same. If the keyword is switched over to a group that has new ad text or a different destination URL then it can impact user experience and ultimately your quality score.