I’ve constantly emphasized the importance of Quality Score. It reduces your cost per click and CPA while boosting your ad rankings. Simply put, excellent Quality Scores are a strong indicator of overall account success. You might be thinking, “Okay, I understand! But how can I actually achieve these high Quality Scores?” Instead of giving you the usual advice, let’s examine a real account with exceptionally high Quality Scores to see how they’re doing it. This account belongs to a nexus-security client, a small insurance business. Despite operating in one of the most competitive AdWords verticals, this advertiser is experiencing remarkable success with their AdWords campaigns. In fact, they have an average impression-weighted Quality Score of 8.8 – nearly perfect. So, how did they accomplish this?
The 5 Key Characteristics of a High Quality Score Account
I used the AdWords Performance Grader to gain insights into this advertiser’s success. The report revealed five key characteristics contributing to their exceptional average QS of 8.8.
#1: Outstanding Click-Through Rates
While numerous factors theoretically contribute to Google Quality Score, the single most important factor is undeniably normalized click-through rate (CTR). This advertiser boasts an exceptional average CTR:
The yellow line illustrates the typical curve, plotting CTR against average position. This account’s click-through rates significantly surpass the average – with an average search CTR of 14.06% (2% is generally considered a decent PPC click-through rate). How did they achieve a 14% CTR with an average ad position of 2.88? While outlier keywords with CTRs of 30%, 40%, 50%, and even 70% are primarily branded keywords (which typically have high CTRs), the remaining keywords are not branded. Interestingly, even keywords with 0% CTR have perfect Quality Scores of 10. This suggests that the high account average CTR elevates Quality Scores for all keywords within the account. This trend, common in many accounts, is why I recommend allocating at least 15% of your PPC budget to branded keywords. But what about the other keywords in this account?
#2: Extensive Use of Long-Tail Keywords
Competitive keywords are challenging to rank for in both organic and paid search, especially in highly competitive industries like insurance. Achieving high CTRs requires a discerning approach to keyword selection. This advertiser excels in long-tail keyword usage, ranking in the 87th percentile:
Long-tail keywords are generally more effective because they:
- Are highly specific and effectively pre-qualify traffic
- Align closely with the final stages of the purchasing funnel, resulting in higher conversion rates
- Experience less competition, leading to lower cost per click This advertiser primarily utilizes long-tail keywords – over 80% of their keywords consist of three or more words, with only 1% being single-word terms. This likely plays a significant role in their exceptional average CTR and Quality Score.
#3: Continuous Ad Text Optimization
Besides choosing the right keywords, CTR improvement hinges on ad optimization techniques such as A/B testing, dynamic keyword insertion, and persuasive ad copywriting that sets your offerings apart from competitors. Writing more ads is one way to ensure high targeting. Small business AdWords accounts often lack sufficient text ads. Increasing the number of ads provides more opportunities to demonstrate to searchers that you have what they need.
This advertiser has nearly 100 active text ads, a considerable number for an account of this size (the average, depicted by the yellow bar, is around 50).
#4: Frequent and Dedicated Account Management
Account activity is arguably a stronger predictor of AdWords success than Quality Score. The lack of sufficient effort from PPC managers is a common reason for the failure of small business accounts. They might claim to be actively managing their accounts every week:
However, the data often reveals a different story. Based on my observations:
- 20% of AdWords account managers are completely inactive within a month.
- Only 10% of advertisers consistently optimize their accounts every week for 90 consecutive days. This business demonstrates a much better approach by regularly logging in and implementing improvements:
The account’s change history logs show significant activity from the owner in the past 30 days:
- Created 10 new text ads
- Added 164 keywords
- Established 4 new ad groups This wasn’t a one-time effort – the 90-day history reveals consistent account optimization efforts, which is crucial for maintaining high Quality Scores and achieving sustainable results.
#5: Full Compliance with Best Practices
Furthermore, this business adheres to 100% of our recommended PPC best practices:
While these eight best practices (such as using ad extensions and modified broad match) are relatively simple to implement, many SMB accounts overlook them. In fact, only half of small businesses utilize conversion tracking! This business excels in all eight best practices. Additionally, they leverage negative keywords (essential for cost control) and follow landing page optimization best practices (landing pages can influence QS).
Tangible Results Demonstrate Success
This account’s impressive metrics translate into tangible benefits. The advertiser has reduced their monthly PPC spending from $1,000 to around $500. Their cost per click is approximately half the industry average, with an average CPA of about $12. Impressive, right? If your Quality Scores aren’t as high (which is likely), you can easily identify the reasons behind it. Get a free account assessment to pinpoint areas for improvement across these five key characteristics. Then start optimizing! Connect with me on Twitter: Follow @larrykim