While Quality Score is complex calculation, understanding the fundamentals of this calculation can enable marketers to run cost-effective and profitable SEM campaigns. Unlike most advertisers focused on bids, eSearchVision has experienced great results when focusing first on Quality Score (QS). The days of “paying your way” to a high ad rank are long gone, and we now live in a world where relevancy is key.
This week starts a two-part series, entitled “Effectively Managing Quality Score,” in which we will cover an in-depth look at how Quality Score works (Part One) and how to effectively manage SEM campaigns to improve Quality Score (Part Two).
Quality Score Basics
What is Quality Score?
Google defines Quality Score (QS) as “a dynamic variable calculated for each of your keywords. It combines a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query.” In short, Google says the primary goal of the QS is to measure relevancy. An advertiser’s position (or rank) in the paid listings is determined by both the bid and the QS.
Since the introduction of Google’s Quality Score, Yahoo! launched their version, referred to as Quality Index. In November 2008, Microsoft began a limited pilot to test their own keyword quality score, with the intention to roll it out sometime in 2009.
How Quality Score Works
Understanding the goals of Quality Score (QS) make understanding how QS management that much easier. The three main goals of Google’s Quality Score (and any search engine’s ranking algorithm) are to:
- Develop consumer loyalty by only displaying high-quality advertisements directly related to the search query.
- Maximize search engine revenues by making sure that every search result page displays the most relevant and attractive sponsored links, thus providing the Search Engine with maximum click-through opportunity.
- Reduce non-profitable clicks for the advertiser by offering controls to only display advertisements to customers interested in your products.
The QS determines the ad rank and the actual Cost-per-Click (CPC). An excellent Quality Score will allow the advertiser to be displayed above its competitors, for a lower CPC. While a keyword can be in more than one match type at a time (except on Yahoo!), the search engines view each keyword/match type as its own entity, and therefore, it receives its own individual QS.
The Goals of Quality Score – Dissected
As previously explained, Quality Score (QS) seeks to achieve three main goals: develop consumer loyalty; maximize search engine revenues; and reduce non-profitable clicks for the advertiser. But what does this really mean?
Like any business, in order to continue to survive, the search engines must keep consumers coming back. In order to do so, they are constantly updating their algorithms to make the results page as relevant as possible to the consumer. This includes both natural search results and paid listings. By making the page valuable to the consumer, the hope is to continue bringing the consumer back for future searches.
Bringing the consumer back is only valuable when they generate revenue for the search engine. As such, the search engine hopes to maximize its click-through opportunities with “relevant” paid listings and banner ads on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). With each query, Google will allocate advertisers to each rank with the objective of generating the highest CTR for a given rank multiplied by the highest CPC. Lost? Put simply, Google ranks ads based on their potential revenue (CTR * CPC).
While the search engines rely on consumers returning, they also rely heavily on advertisers continuing to bid. Just like they need consumers to click to generate revenue, the search engine’s potential revenue is based on advertisers’ bids. To encourage advertisers to return, the service offered has to remain compelling. To do this, the search engines offer controls to remove as many unprofitable impressions as possible. These controls include geo-targeting, language targeting, match type options, and negative keywords.
The Components of Quality Score
While the exact components used to calculate Quality Score (QS) are not public knowledge, it is known that the QS index mainly relies on:
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
- Ad relevance (ad matches precisely with the query)
- Landing page quality (content relevance, loading speed, etc.)
- Advertiser’s history (the QS the account has had in the past)
By heavily relying on CTR, the search engines have a clear gauge of consumer interest. The more consumer interest (read: clicks) an ad receives, the more relevant the search engine deems it; the more relevant an advertiser, the more money the search engine receives – which makes that advertiser profitable. This profitability is the driving force of QS.
The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) climate is ever-changing; with new advertisers joining in the masses and existing advertisers adding more keywords, the SEM marketplace continues to grow. For these reasons, the search engines need a way to gauge the risk involved in new keywords from existing advertisers and in new advertisers. To do so, other factors are also considered, such as ad relevance, landing page quality, and an advertiser’s history. By taking other factors into consideration, the search engine has a way to “pre-measure” the revenue potential a keyword and ad have for the engine. After all, one of the main goals of QS is to maximize the search engine’s revenues.
Next Week
As it has become abundantly clear, Quality Score (QS) measures the potential revenue a keyword and ad combination have on a query-by-query basis. The higher the potential, the more opportunity the keyword and ad combination have to be displayed. Next week, we will cover basic techniques and advanced techniques to improve your SEM campaigns.
