One of the biggest mistakes many Google search advertisers make is to spend too little time on the ‘Quality Score‘ of their adverts. For a given budget, the ads will show far less often and cost far more per click if the Quality Score is rubbish, so we all need to be constantly working on improving every single one (and removing those keywords that simply aren’t scoring well).
Google’s first tip is to make our ads more relevant to the keywords they’re targeting. Primarily, this means matching the ad text more directly to real search terms. It may involve splitting ad groups into smaller, more targeted ones with their own ads.
The second thing to investigate is improving the click-through rate. Again, editing ad text to be more compelling is probably a shrewd move. Strong calls to action work well.
Finally, Google loves it if we “provide visitors with an excellent experience“. We might think that the landing page delivers on the promise of the advert, but to score well here, the link between them has to be really clear. Consistent messaging helps, as does mobile friendliness and fast loading speed.
If you manage your own Google Ads campaigns and haven’t looked at the Quality Score figures for a while, it’s time to do so. The cost implications can be significant.