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#InfoBites: Improve performance and save money with Quality Score

Understanding Quality Score and knowing how to improve it will not only improve your campaign performance, but could also save you money. So, what is Quality Score?

Let’s start with this question: Who is going to win this race?

It’s impossible to tell from the picture. We need more information on the swimmers; how are they performing now as the picture's being taken; how were they performing previously, and how are their competitors' performing? With this information we’re in a better position to determine the winner.

Replace the swimmers in the race with keywords in the marketplace and Quality Score is the answer to the same questions; how is your keyword performing now; how was your keyword performing historically; and how is the same keyword performing for your competitors? Quality Score is therefore a measure of your keyword's performance and competitiveness in the marketplace.

Quality Score looks at a number of factors from whether a keyword participates in an auction to the quality of the ad's website. It then produces a score between 1 and 10 (with 10 being the highest). Your Quality Score is updated daily, and is made up of 3 sub-scores.

In other words, the sub-scores measure the following:

  1. Expected Click Through Rate – The likelihood your Ad will be clicked & how your keyword competes against others targeting the same traffic.
  2. Ad Relevance – The relevance of the Search Query, to your Ad and your Landing Page.
  3. Landing Page Experience – The expected and actual customer experience when landing on your Website.

How is Quality Score calculated?

Each sub-score is marked as either ‘above average’, ‘average’, or ‘below average’. When the sub-scores are combined, they produce your Quality Score.  

 

Note: Where a Quality Score is below 6, your Ad has limited eligibility to serve.

Why is Quality Score important?

1. Improving your Quality Score can lower your Cost per Click (CPC) in a given Ad Position.

 How?   CPC is calculated as   Competitors Bid * Competitors Quality Score     

                                                                Your Quality Score

 So, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your CPC, or the less you spend per click in your ad position.

2. Improving your Quality Score can have a positive impact on the future performance of your keywords.

Remember, Quality Score looks back at historical performance. In the future, your Quality Score will look back at your performance today.

3. Quality Score sub-scores indicate where, when and how you can improve your overall performance.

If your Expected Click Through Rate is ‘average’ or ‘below average’:

a) Improve your impressions, clicks and CTR (by improving your Ad Copy, your bid, your Ad Position, or organising your campaigns);

b) Remove underperforming ads and keywords;

c) Add only relevant keywords;

d) Make your ad grab the attention of your audience

If your ad relevance is ‘average’ or ‘below average’:

a) Group related keywords and ads into their own ad group and create a unique landing page for the ad group;

b) Make sure your ad is relevant to the search query:

c) Give customers an overview of your products and services; 

d) Avoid keyword stuffing (too many keywords for the same landing page)

If your landing page experience is ‘average’ or ‘below average’:

a) Improve your website quality and make sure your landing page loads quickly;

b) Link your destination URL’s to the correct webpages;

c) Make sure your webpage content adheres to the Bing Ads editorial policies

d) Keep advertising links on your webpages to a minimum;

e) Use original in-depth content. 

3. Improving your Quality Score sub-scores can have a positive influence over your Ad Position

 While Quality Score is not used in determining Ad Rank, there is an indirect relationship between these two scores, where improving one can positively influence the other.

Quality Score is assigned to each keyword, but for easier visibility of your performance, we’ve also assigned a Quality Score to your Campaigns and Ad Group. These aren’t merely an average of all your keyword Quality Scores in that Campaign or Ad Group, but an impression weighted average, meaning the Quality Score appropriately reflects the bigger impact of your highest impression keywords.

Use these Campaign and Ad Group level Quality Scores to identify where your keywords are performing well, and where they could be more competitive. Then drilldown to use the individual sub-scores as action signals to improve your Quality Score.

For this, and more, find attached an ‘all you need to know’ one pager on Quality Score.

Check out other articles in the #InfoBites Series:

How Ad Position Can Impact Your Performance

Understanding Your Audience Can Help Improve Your Performance