What is Ad Quality Score?

Ad Quality Score is a metric used by platforms like Google Ads to estimate how relevant and useful your ad is to users. It directly influences your ad position and how much you actually pay per click.

In practice, Ad Quality Score reflects how well your keywords, ads and landing pages match a user's search intent. A higher Ad Quality Score usually means better positions at a lower cost, which is crucial for performance driven e commerce and B2B campaigns.

How Ad Quality Score is calculated

Although platforms do not reveal the full formula, Ad Quality Score typically combines three core elements. First is expected click through rate, or how likely users are to click your ad based on its history and setup. Second is ad relevance, which looks at how closely your ad text matches the searched keyword.

The third factor is landing page experience. This covers page speed, mobile friendliness, content relevance and how clearly the page delivers on the promise of the ad. If any of these elements are weak, your Ad Quality Score drops, and you pay more to keep the same position.

Why Ad Quality Score matters for growth teams

For growth minded founders and marketing leaders, Ad Quality Score is not just a "nice to have". It is a direct lever on your cost per acquisition and overall media efficiency. Improving Ad Quality Score lets you win more auctions without simply raising bids.

On competitive terms, such as branded or competitor searches, a stronger Ad Quality Score helps you maintain visibility even when rivals increase budgets. This is especially relevant if you run structured search campaigns or manage competitor campaigns within Google Ads policy.

How to improve your Ad Quality Score

  • Align keywords, ad copy and landing pages tightly so the user sees a consistent message at every step.
  • Write specific, benefit driven ads that match clear search intent rather than generic brand slogans.
  • Segment campaigns and ad groups so each group targets a narrow, coherent keyword theme.
  • Optimise landing pages for speed, mobile experience and conversion, not just aesthetics.
  • Use ongoing testing and data analysis to refine messages, extensions and targeting over time.

These actions push your Ad Quality Score up over time, which reduces average CPC and frees budget for additional tests or new markets.

Ad Quality Score in a broader paid media strategy

Ad Quality Score should sit inside a wider search and paid media strategy, not be chased in isolation. For example, sometimes lower Quality Scores on highly profitable niche terms are still acceptable if the return on ad spend is strong.

Senior growth teams look at Ad Quality Score together with conversion rate, lifetime value and funnel metrics. A partner like 6th Man can help you integrate Quality Score work into your search engine advertising setup so every euro works harder, across e commerce and B2B pipelines.

In short, Ad Quality Score is a powerful efficiency metric. Treat it as a continuous optimisation process rather than a one time fix, and it will compound your results across all your search campaigns.