The Clickable Search Engine Marketing Blog

In my last article, I tried to place Google's "Quality Score" in historical context as a technical solution to a then-new business problem. This week, it's time to get down to brass tacks and answer the question, "How does Quality Score affect my business?"
Your Quality Score is directly related to your costs and revenues in three ways. On the cost end, it affects your actual CPC and a keyword's first page bid minimums. On the revenue end, it determines where your ads appear on a page.

1) Quality Score and Ad Placement
Your Quality Score comes into play every time a user's keyword search triggers one of your ads. Every time they display an ad, Google multiplies each advertiser's bid by their Quality Score, and ranks them based on the results. Therefore, an advertiser with a Maximum Cost Per Click (CPC) bid of $2 might be trumped by one with a Max. CPC of $1, if that second advertiser's Quality Score is that much higher. Along with your bid, the Quality Score determines where you show up on a page (or, as we'll see below, whether you appear at all).

2) Quality Scores and CPC Bids
Here's an even more direct impact on your costs: the Quality Score is the value that Google uses to turn "Maximum CPC bids" into actual costs per click. After Google ranks ads, it charges the lowest amount possible to keep advertisers in the order they determined. Let's say the #10 ranked ad on a page ends up with an actual bid — based on their Max. CPC and Quality Score — of $1.62. The #9 ranked advertiser will need to pay the lowest amount possible to keep that position: $1.63. And so on.

(Not to worry though: you'll never pay more than your Max. CPC.)

3) Quality Scores and First Page Minimums
To help you set realistic bids, Google provides "First Page Bid Estimates" for every keyword. This is the lowest amount that you can bid, based on your Quality Score, to show up on the first page of search results. It's not an exact value: in a live auction, the CPC bid you'd need to appear on the first page of results might be slightly higher or lower. But, the important thing to keep in mind is that the higher your Quality Score is, the lower your first page bid minimum will be. Of course, if your Quality Score is extremely low (or if your bids are unrealistically low) your ads will not be displayed at all.

It should be clear by now that the Quality Score isn't just another random metric, but an absolutely crucial factor in any search marketing campaign. As we mentioned earlier, the Quality Score is a measure of "relevance," so the best way to improve your Quality Score is to choose keywords relevant to your business, write ads relevant to those keywords, and keep your landing pages relevant to both. Those are only general principles, though. In next week's tutorial, I'll outline the actual factors that go into determining your scores.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by LeeRosen: Reading: Demystifying Quality Score: How Quality Score Affects Your Business http://j.mp/dgwTEv

“Can I get more value out of search engine marketing than traffic?” Yes! In this post I will