Quality Score - Definition

Your Microsoft Advertising quality score shows you how competitive your ads are in the marketplace. Learn why it's important and take a look at an example.

What it is

Your Microsoft Advertising quality score shows you the quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages, which helps you understand how competitive your ads are in the marketplace. Your quality score can range from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.

Your quality score has three components:

  • Expected click-through rate which has sub-scores of Above Average, Average, and Below Average
  • Ad relevance which has sub-scores of Above Average, Average and Below Average
  • Landing page experience which has sub-scores of Above Average, Average and Below Average

Why it's important

A low quality score means that your competitors' campaigns are performing better than yours. This can result in their ads showing more often and more prominently on the search results page. Reviewing your quality scores across keywords, ad groups and campaigns can help you determine where to focus your optimization efforts and improve your ROI.

An example

While reviewing the quality scores for keywords in two different ad groups, you find the following:

Ad group 1 Quality score
Keyword 1 9
Keyword 2 10
Keyword 3 9
Keyword 4 9
Ad group 2 Quality score
Keyword 5 10
Keyword 6 10
Keyword 7 10
Keyword 8 4

Ad group 1 looks pretty good. Probably no changes needed there. But that last keyword in ad group 2 needs some investigation. This poor performer can impact the quality score for your overall ad group.

Time to take action! Check the three components of quality score

  • Expected click-through rate
  • Ad relevance
  • Landing page experience

Find out which one or more of these components are Below Average and then make changes to improve them. For tips on how to do this, see Quality score and quality impact in depth.

Addressing this keyword will improve your overall quality score and improve your ad’s opportunity to be displayed to customers.

Get more information

Note

Quality scores are calculated only based on Search Traffic. You may find blank values in the following areas of your report: Quality score, Ad relevance, Expected click-through rate, Landing page relevance, Historical ad relevance, Historical expected click-through rate, Historical landing page relevance, Historical quality score.

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