hi, i’m amr. quality score is the number in your keyword table that clients ask about first. google’s help page is direct about what it is, and what it isn’t.
what google ads help says
- “Quality Score is a diagnostic tool meant to give you a sense of how well your ad quality compares to other advertisers.”
- it has three components: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. each is rated above average, average or below average
- the score runs from 1 to 10 and is “available at the keyword level”
- “Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction.”
- “Quality Score is not a key performance indicator and should not be optimized or aggregated with the rest of your data.”
that matches what google says about ad strength, which i covered in an earlier post: both are diagnostics, and neither is the number the auction runs on.
what to check this week
- if a report averages quality score across the account, take it out. google says not to aggregate it
- use the three component ratings the way google frames them, as pointers. a below-average landing page experience tells you where to look first
- judge keywords on your own results, such as cost per lead and lead quality from your crm, not on the 1 to 10 value
- when a client asks why a keyword shows a 4, answer with the component that’s below average, not with a target score
where this stops applying
the page doesn’t say what a good score is or how the components are weighted, and gives no performance figures. so this post names no target and makes no claim about cost or position. i haven’t seen your account, so the list above is a starting point.
start scaling — if your reports lead with quality score instead of cost per qualified lead, a short account review will reset the scoreboard. let’s connect.
Sources: Google Ads Help, “About Quality Score for Search campaigns” (support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6167118). Figures are published product documentation, not verified results from Amr’s own client accounts.