{"id":1855,"date":"2017-10-14T23:47:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T21:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/147.91.204.66\/wordpress\/quality-score-in-2017-should-you-care\/"},"modified":"2017-10-14T23:47:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T21:47:26","slug":"quality-score-in-2017-should-you-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/147.91.204.66\/wordpress\/quality-score-in-2017-should-you-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Quality score in 2017: Should you care?"},"content":{"rendered":" <style>\r\n  .ui-tabs {display: table; }\r\n  .ui-tabs-nav {display: table;}\r\n \r\na.ui-tabs-anchor {\r\n\tfont-family: Tahoma;\r\n\tfont-size: 15px; \r\n\tcolor: #B52700;\r\n        margin: 5px 20px;\r\n}\r\n\r\ndiv.ui-tabs-panel {\r\n\tfont-family: Tahoma;\r\n\tfont-size: 14px;\r\n\tfont-weight: normal;\r\n\tcolor: #B35B22;\r\n}\r\n\r\n  <\/style><p>See details of post Quality score in 2017: Should you care? below<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-284625\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/judges-scoring-contest-ss-1920-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/>You\u2019ve got to hand it to the folks at Google \u2014 the idea of quality score is pretty brilliant. Unlike most search engines born in the \u201990s, Google realized that the success of paid search advertising was directly tied to the quality and relevance of their paid search ads.<\/p>\n<p>After all, if someone searches for \u201cbest dog food for rottweilers,\u201d and the first result they see on the SERP is a handful of text ads selling Toyota hatchbacks, they aren\u2019t likely to be wowed by your search engine. If people think your search engine is lousy, they won\u2019t use it\u2026 which means no one will pay to advertise on your search engine, either.<\/p>\n<p>But, if you incentivize advertisers to create ads that are relevant to a user\u2019s search, you can maintain the quality of your SERP and still make money from paid search advertising.<\/p>\n<p>The solution? Quality score.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if you\u2019ve been doing paid search advertising for a while, quality score probably isn\u2019t a new concept. Paid search platforms like Google look at your click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience\u00a0and assign your ads a quality score. As your quality score goes up, your average position tends to go up and\/or your average cost per click tends to go down.<\/p>\n<p>Seems simple enough, right? The better your quality score, the better your advertising results will be.<\/p>\n<p>But is it really that simple? Sure, quality score is great for Google, but should optimizing quality score be a key part of your paid search advertising strategy? To answer that question, let\u2019s take a look at the data.<\/p>\n<h2>Quality score and cost per conversion<\/h2>\n<p>When it comes to quality score and cost per click, the evidence is pretty clear: improving your quality score decreases your cost per click. Since your cost per conversion is essentially your cost per click divided by your conversion rate, you\u2019d expect that improving your quality score would also improve your cost per conversion.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, that\u2019s not how it actually works out.<\/p>\n<p>Now, you might be thinking,\u00a0<em>But Jake, I know I\u2019ve seen research somewhere showing how a higher quality score is associated with a lower cost per conversion.<\/em> And it\u2019s true. Odds are, you\u2019ve probably run into an article discussing the results of this study by Wordstream or this study by Portent.<\/p>\n<p>In both of these studies, cost per conversion typically dropped by around 13 to 16 percent for every point of increase in quality score.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-166545 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/07\/cost-per-conversion-vs-quality-score-adwords.png\" alt=\"the relationship between cost per conversion (CPA) vs. quality score in adwords\" width=\"644\" height=\"440\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At Disruptive Advertising (my employer), we\u2019ve audited thousands of AdWords accounts, so we decided to use our database to replicate Wordstream\u2019s study. Not surprisingly, we got about the same results: Every point of increase in quality score resulted in a 13 percent decrease in cost per conversion.<\/p>\n<p>A graph with thousands of data points (like the one above) is a bit hard to interpret, so I\u2019ve used a small representative subset of our data to make things easier below:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-283867 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/cpa-vs-quality-score-600x365.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"365\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Given the consistency of this data, you\u2019re probably wondering how I can say that improving quality score does\u00a0<strong>not<\/strong> reliably decrease cost per conversion. I mean, look at the graphs! There\u2019s clearly a connection between quality score and cost per conversion!<\/p>\n<p>Or is there?<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, while these graphs\u00a0<strong>look<\/strong> compelling, it turns out that the trendline has an R2 of 0.012. In non-statistical speak, that means a one-point increase in quality score only actually produces a 13 to 16 percent decrease in cost per conversion about <strong>1 percent of the time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Would you put a lot of time and effort into a marketing tactic that only behaves predictably 1 percent of the time? Neither would I.<\/p>\n<h2>Why quality score is a poor predictor<\/h2>\n<p>There are a lot of reasons quality score is an unreliable predictor of cost per conversion. However, I believe that the biggest reason is also the simplest reason: Quality score is Google\u2019s metric, not yours.<\/p>\n<p>Quality score matters to Google because it helps <strong>Google<\/strong> make money, not because it helps <strong>you<\/strong> make money. No one sees your ad on the SERP and thinks, \u201cMy, what a fine quality score they must have! Anyone with a quality score like that deserves my business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Google cares about providing a relevant experience to their users, they don\u2019t really care about whether or not you\u2019re sending\u00a0potential customers to your page or getting conversions at an affordable price. You got your click and they got their cash, so Google\u2019s happy.<\/p>\n<p>You, however, still need to drive conversions at an affordable price.<\/p>\n<p>To do that, though, you can\u2019t rely on the metrics Google cares about. Sure, your ad might make Google happy, but if that ad isn\u2019t driving the right people to the right page, you could be wasting a ton of money \u2014 even on a keyword with a quality score of 10!<\/p>\n<p>Case in point, over the course of our AdWords audits, we\u2019ve discovered that the average AdWords account wastes 76 percent of its budget on keywords and search terms that never convert.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how that wasted ad spend affects your cost per conversion (using the same data subset as before):<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-283868 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/cpa-versus-wasted-ad-spend-600x365.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"365\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, this data is even scarier than the quality score data. Each 10 percent increase in wasted ad spend increases your cost per conversion by 44 to 72 percent. And, while this correlation isn\u2019t 100 percent accurate, it has an R2 of 0.597, which means that it explains about 60 percent of your cost per conversion.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a lot more compelling than 1 percent.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, we\u2019ve frequently helped clients significantly reduce their cost per conversion by reducing their wasted ad spend. For example, here\u2019s what happened to one client as we reduced their wasted ad spend from 91 percent to 68 percent:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-246120 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2016\/03\/cpa-vs-wasted-spend-600x358.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you think about it, it makes sense that core account factors like wasted ad spend would have a much bigger impact on your cost per conversion than an external metric like quality score. After all, as we pointed out earlier, you can have a great quality score and still be driving people who will never buy to your site.<\/p>\n<h2>How to use quality score<\/h2>\n<p>All that being said, I still believe that quality score is a valuable metric to track and optimize. Quality score affects your cost per click and average position, which can do wonders for your account \u2014 provided that you aren\u2019t hemorrhaging money in other areas.<\/p>\n<p>If, however, you\u2019re not wasting a ton of money on irrelevant clicks, and you feel confident in the quality of your traffic and landing page, quality score\u00a0<strong>can<\/strong> be a great way to improve your paid search account.<\/p>\n<p>First, open your AdWords account, go to the Keywords tab, and ensure that you\u2019ve added Quality score as a column:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-283869 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/adding-quality-score-column.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"535\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Next, pick a meaningful date range (I\u2019m always partial to the last 6 to 12 weeks), and export your results as a spreadsheet. Open your spreadsheet in Excel, and create a pivot table:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-283870 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/creating-an-excel-pivot-table.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The following settings will allow you to see how much you are spending on each level of quality score:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-283871 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/pivot-table-set-up.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"404\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Looking at the data above, it looks like 12 percent of this client\u2019s budget is being spent on keywords with a quality score of 1. If we assume that those ads are driving relevant traffic (maybe they\u2019re bidding on the competition\u2019s branded terms?), bumping the quality score of those ads up from 1 to 2 could save them thousands!<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, if you want to see exactly how much you\u2019re spending on specific keywords with a given quality score, you can set your pivot table up like this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-283872 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/figz\/wp-content\/seloads\/2017\/10\/pivot-table-by-keyword-cost.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"305\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this case, I\u2019ve included a filter for cost that allows me to see keywords with a quality score of 1 that the client has spent more than $500 on. This gives me nine high-priority keywords (representing the majority of ad spend on keywords with this quality score) to focus on, which should be a fairly workable number.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.searchengineland.com\/~r\/searchengineland\/~3\/602nO0HmMjA\/quality-score-2017-care-283852\">check out here<\/a><\/p>\n<script type='text\/javascript'>\r\n jQuery(document).ready(function() {\r\n    jQuery( \"#tabs_1855\" ).tabs({\r\n    collapsible: true,\r\n    active: false\r\n        });\r\n\tjQuery( \".scroller_1855\" ).width(jQuery( \".scroller_1855\" ).width()+1);\r\n\t\r\n\t\r\n\t\r\n  });\r\n  \r\n  <\/script>\r\n  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>See details of post Quality score in 2017: Should you care? below You\u2019ve got to hand it to the folks at Google \u2014 the idea of quality score is pretty brilliant. Unlike most search engines born in the \u201990s, Google realized that the success of paid search advertising was directly tied to the quality and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/147.91.204.66\/wordpress\/quality-score-in-2017-should-you-care\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Quality score in 2017: Should you care?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Quality score in 2017: Should you care? - test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/147.91.204.66\/wordpress\/quality-score-in-2017-should-you-care\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quality score in 2017: Should you care? - test\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"See details of post Quality score in 2017: Should you care? below You\u2019ve got to hand it to the folks at Google \u2014 the idea of quality score is pretty brilliant. 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