Paid Ads Strategy
Quality Score Is Costing You: How to Diagnose and Fix It
Quality Score is Google's 1–10 read of how relevant your ad experience is for a keyword — and higher scores generally mean paying less for the same clicks. It isn't a vanity metric; it's a diagnosis. This guide covers what the score reflects, how to find the keywords worth fixing, and the lever that moves each component.
What Quality Score actually tells you
- A per-keyword grade of the whole path — search, ad, and the landing page behind them
- The auction rewards relevance — a more relevant ad can win the same click for less
- A low score means you're outbidding a problem instead of fixing it
- Don't chase tens for their own sake — a seven that converts profitably isn't a problem
The three components behind the number
- Expected clickthrough rate: how likely Google thinks a searcher is to click your ad
- Ad relevance: how closely your ad's message matches what was actually searched
- Landing page experience: whether the page delivers what the ad promised, quickly and clearly
- Each is graded below average, average, or above average — those grades are your map
Find the scores worth fixing
- Start where the money is: high-spend keywords with low scores, not every number below ten
- Read which component drags — the below-average grade tells you which fix to reach for
- Treat new keywords' scores as provisional — they start on thin data and settle with traffic
- Leave the low-spend stragglers alone — a weak score on a keyword spending nothing costs nothing
Match the fix to the component
- Ad relevance drag: split the ad group until one ad can genuinely mirror one search theme
- Expected CTR drag: say what the searcher said — their words in the headline, not your slogan
- Landing page drag: keep the ad's promise — the searched question answered, not your homepage pitch
- Speed and contact count too — a slow page or a buried phone number reads as poor experience
Book a demo and we'll read your account before we touch it — what the grades say, and what we'd fix first.