Is it worth reviewing your website before an ad campaign?
Yes, particularly the pages your ads will lead to. Google Ads assesses ad and landing-page quality when calculating Ad Rank. Checking the page before the campaign helps you find problems before paying for visits. Higher quality can contribute to a lower cost per click, but a review alone does not guarantee that change, more enquiries or a return on your spending.
What does Quality Score show?
Quality Score is a keyword-level diagnostic on a scale of 1 to 10. It compares the quality of your ads with other advertisers whose ads showed for the same search over the previous 90 days. This is a historical comparison, rather than an assessment of a particular current auction.
It has three components: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Each receives its own status: above average, average or below average. This helps you locate a problem instead of working only towards the overall number. A dash in place of a score can mean insufficient exact searches for the calculation, rather than necessarily a poor page.
The number itself is not an input into the ad auction or a measure of business success. Ad and page quality contribute to Ad Rank at auction time, but that does not make the historical Quality Score a direct measurement of the real-time assessment.
How does the page affect Ad Rank and cost per click?
Ad Rank determines whether an ad is eligible to show and where it appears. It is calculated for each auction and different ad positions. Google lists six factors: your bid; ad and landing-page quality; the thresholds for showing an ad; competition; the context of the search, including device and location; and the expected impact of assets and other ad formats.
Google Ads says higher-quality ads can often lead to lower costs per click. This is a possibility, rather than an automatic discount for a good page. Other auction conditions affect the price too. A review can identify page problems; it cannot promise a particular price or campaign result in advance.
What makes a landing page useful?
Google Ads describes landing page experience through the usefulness and relevance of the information, ease of navigation, the number of links and the expectations set by the ad. This is not an instruction to aim for a particular number of links. Check whether people find what was promised and understand what to do next.
Four practical checks follow from Google’s recommendations:
- The page provides the content or offer the person searched for and the ad promised.
- The ad and page carry consistent messages.
- The page is easy to use on a mobile phone.
- Loading does not obstruct access to the content and next step.
You do not need to fill the page with the exact keyword phrase. Google recommends matching the intent behind the search rather than chasing an exact wording match. Check that links work too: a promise leading to a missing page does not help the visitor.
How can you track the change?
If you already have reliable conversion data, conversion rate can serve as an approximate signal of the experience. It does not affect the landing page experience component’s status and is not its numerical score. An increase alone does not prove that a particular fix caused it.
Compare the conditions too: traffic, the offer or the campaign may have changed.
Questions
Does a perfect ad-to-keyword match guarantee a high Quality Score?
No. Expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience are separate components. A wording match alone cannot guarantee a high score if the page is irrelevant or difficult to use.
Is Quality Score a direct input into the ad auction?
No. The diagnostic number from 1 to 10 is not an auction input. Google assesses ad and landing-page quality as an Ad Rank factor during the auction itself. Keep that assessment separate from the historical diagnostic measure.
Which page elements should you check first?
The match with the search and the ad’s promise, consistent messaging, mobile usability and loading speed. These are specific checks, rather than a guarantee of a particular Quality Score.
How can you tell whether the page is improving?
Follow the component’s status in Google Ads and, where suitable data exists, conversion rate as an additional signal. It does not determine the landing page experience status. Look at changes alongside traffic and the campaign, without attributing every result solely to the page.
Sources
Related reading
Next step
Check the page before sending paid traffic to it
A Website Review checks speed, mobile behaviour, broken links and content match on the pages you plan to send ad traffic to. Focus the review on the pages you will use for the ad campaign. This prepares the website; it is not a promise to manage or launch the campaign.
or write to contact@ergostrat.com