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The Truth About Google Ads Quality Score

What is Quality Score?

Let’s start by looking at Google’s definition:

There are a couple of other metrics I prefer to look at when determining if my ads and landing pages lead to a positive user experience…

These are things that matter!

You can’t deposit quality score in the bank.

You can’t go to Google and say, “Ok Google, I have a 9/10 quality score on this keyword. I would like my money please.” That’s not how it works.

You can deposit revenue in the bank. When I’m managing an account, I spend all of my time doing things that will impact leads and sales. I spend none of my time focusing on quality score. It’s not even a column that I have selected to show on my dashboard.

To prepare for this presentation, I looked at the quality score for the keywords in some of my accounts.

Big surprise, they were all pretty high! Not because I try to optimize for high-quality scores, but because I optimize for conversions. The campaigns perform well, so naturally, the keywords have high-quality scores.

People who preach about quality score are focused on the wrong things. They’re trying to game the system, basically. And if Google has taught us anything by constantly updating their search algorithms, it’s that they don’t take too kindly to their system being gamed.

Bottom Line:

Quality score is a trailing indicator of success. It isn’t a true measure of account performance, so it isn’t something you should focus on. Instead, focus on optimizing for conversions because it is the only real measurement of whether or not your campaign is successful.

If you want to learn more about optimizing for conversions, and about how you can get great results by giving people what they want, then check out my Advanced Google Ads training. You’ll discover the most advanced strategies I know for getting more out of your Google Ads, and there isn’t a single lesson about quality score.