Google assigns (and continually tweaks) Quality Scores to the websites and landing pages used by customers who purchase ads on their search results pages. Quality Scores are a frequent topic of conversation in the search engine marketing circle, but are they really that important?
The short answer is definitively YES! Quality Scores affect how much you pay per click as well as where your ad shows on the page. Your ad rank (ad position) is determined by a combination of your Quality Score, your Click-Through-Rate (CTR), and the Maximum Cost Per Click (CPC) you’ve bid. This means that a higher Quality Score combined with a lower Max CPC could place your ad above a higher-spending competitor.
Also, your Quality Score (along with your competitor’s Ad Rank) helps to determine how much each click will cost your dealership. Essentially, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your CPC, and the higher the ROI on your ad spend.
It’s pretty clear that the Quality Score of your landing page is very important if your dealership is participating in a PPC campaign. So what are the driving factors that Google uses to assign Quality Scores?
Click-Through-Rates (CTR) — Your ad copy needs to the best it can be. This means that your ad text needs to be continually tested, measured, and tweaked to attract as many clicks as possible. Use the keywords you are purchasing in the headline copy and ad copy to convey relevancy to searchers. Any keywords in the search that match your ad copy will result in them being bolded in your ad, which has been proven to increase CTR.
Landing Pages — Deceptive and non-relevant landing pages will lower your Quality Score. Sending your click-through traffic to pages that reflect the keywords that were actually searched for will not only help with your Quality Score, but also help build trust with your future customers. Additionally, it will lower the bounce rate of your landing page and increase your conversion—which again increases the ROI on your spend.
Targeted, relevant copy in both the ad and the landing page has a huge multiplying effect on your ROI.
- You pay less for the ad to get the same position if you have a higher CTR.
- You will get more clicks because of the higher CTR
- You will have a higher conversion off of your landing page because of the relevant content.
You’re actually leveraging 3 different factors that ultimately impact your PPC ads’ ROI when you optimize your ad and landing page copy. If you increase the effectiveness of each factor by 10%, you can actually increase your ad’s ROI by 33%, which may be the difference between your PPC having a positive or negative ROI.
