Ads Rarely Show Due To Low Quality Score

Guess what? Your ads are not running. Don't panic, you can fix the problem.

When Adwords gives you the "Ads Rarely Show Due To Low Quality Score", Google is really saying your Adwords ad and landing page are not relevant to the keyword you are bidding on. Because of that, Adwords is going to make it impossible to see your ads, or make it so expensive that you'll lose money buying clicks.

Google got to be the number one search engine by producing the most relevant results. Adwords seeks to bring the same level relevance to paid search traffic. Google strives to keep not relevant ads from appearing in the results.

Adwords judges keywords, ads and landing pages by assigning quality scores. Get a low quality score and you get the message. Get a high score ad get cheap clicks and traffic.

Most of the time a low quality score is due to a poor landing page,  But before we get to that...

The quality score is measure of how relevant your keyword, ad and landing page are. Outside of Google, no one knows the exact formula for it, but we do not an awful lot.

First and foremost, quality score is based on CTR or click through rate. This a Darwin-esque view. Google says, I'll run your ad and track the impressions and clicks. If you get a lot of clicks (CTR) then consumers must find the ad meaningful and compelling. Get a CTR over 10%, and you'll fit in the is category. Conversely, if you get a low CTR, consumers do not find your ad compelling. Go below 2% CTR and look out. So, CTR is a survival of the fitest game.

Keep in mind that CTR is only meaning have you have a couple thousand impressions. Until the CTR doesn't have a large enough sample size to be statistically meaningful. If you've had ads running for months or years with lots of impressions, you have to worry about CTR. If you just launched a campaign or don't have many impressions, CTR doesn't matter much. Also, CTR is more subjective, since it involves consumers. Sometime consumers will ignore a highly relevant ad.

Beyond CTR you have technical relevance. This is the relevance Google can determine by scanning your ad and landing pages with automated processes.

The rules for ad relevance are simple, use the keyword in the ad as much as possible. Put it in the headline and ad descriptions if it will fit. If not, use parts of the keywords. Put the keyword in the destination url. You may be stuck with your domain name, but you can control the filename of your landing page - make it the keyword. Put the keyword in the display url. Adwords doesn't force you to have the display url the same as the destination url (but there are some rules).

Next, you've got the landing page. You optimize a page for Adwords the same way as you would do SEO. The Googlebot is going to scan the page, and you want to optimize it for the keyword.

You put the keyword in specific plans on the page...

1. The filename of the page. If your keyword is "college football", name the file "college-football.htm"

2. the tite of the page

3. the meta tags for keywords and description

4. the H1 tags of the page

5. the content of the page (with a 2-5% percent keyword density)

6. in the "alt" attributes of your "img" tags.

Tailor your ad and landing page to the keyword and your quality score will go up.

So what things can you do to improve your scores?

• Get the keyword in the Adwords ad.  Have a unique, tailored ad for EVERY single keyword (or maybe a few tightly grouped keywords for the same ad).  Use it in the the headline, description, display url and destination url. 

• Optimize the landing page for the keyword.  This means a custom page for EVERY single keyword (or one page for a small tightly grouped set of keywords).

• Delete keywords that have less than 2% CTR.  Poor performing keywords affect the overall health of the campaign, so trim away dead keywords (or take steps to revitalize them).

• Add links to your privacy policy, contact us and sitemap pages on all of your landing pages.  Google calls this transparency and wants consumers to be able to link to these pages easily.

• Split test the ads to make sure you squeeze every drop of CTR out of them your can.  The only way to know what ads will appeal to consumers is to test them.