The Hidden Metric Costing You Leads & Sales: Why Keyword Quality Score Matters

Pay Close Attention to Keyword Quality Score

In the world of digital advertising, marketers often focus their efforts on bidding strategies, keyword selection, and audience targeting. There’s a lesser-known factor quietly influencing performance behind the scenes. This is Keyword Quality Score.

Many overlook it, assuming it’s just a technical detail, but in reality, Keyword Quality Score directly affects how much you pay per click (CPC), where your ads appear, and how efficiently your budget is spent.

In my role as a PPC Account Director, I’m tasked with driving measurable ROI from paid search, and improving Keyword Quality Scores is a strategic priority and not an afterthought, as it allows me to drive lower CPC’s more clicks and more leads for my clients.

Why Should You Care About Keyword Quality Score?

Google uses a 1–10 rating system to assess the quality of your keywords. This score reflects how relevant and helpful your ad experience is to users searching on Google.

While it doesn’t appear on your invoices, Keyword Quality Score directly impacts three critical areas:

• CPC (Cost Per Click) — Higher scores generally result in lower CPCs.
• Ad Rank — Your position on the page is determined by both your bid and your Keyword Quality Score.
• Ad Visibility — Higher scores increase your eligibility for ad extensions and impressions.

Put simply, better Keyword Quality Scores = more visibility, for less spend.

Its Three Core Components

Google evaluates your keyword’s Quality Score using the following factors, with an above average, average and below average rating system for each element below.

1.Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This estimates how likely users are to click on your ad when it’s shown. It’s based on your historical performance, ad format, and keyword relevance.

Tip: Craft clear, compelling headlines with strong calls to action. Demonstrate value quickly and speak directly to user intent.

2. Ad Relevance

Google assesses whether your ad copy aligns with the keyword being searched. If your ad is vague or too broad, your relevance and your score will suffer.

Tip: Create tightly themed ad groups and tailor your ad copy to each group. This ensures better alignment and a stronger score.

3. Landing Page Experience

Your ad might attract clicks, but if your landing page is slow, unengaging or disconnected from the ad message, users will bounce and Google will notice.

Tip: Ensure your landing page is directly relevant, fast to load, mobile-optimised, and provides a clear user journey.

It Directly Affects Your Advertising ROI

It’s a common misconception that higher bids guarantee better ad placement. In fact, Google rewards advertisers who offer the best user experience, not just the deepest pockets.

This means that a competitor with a lower bid, but a better Keyword Quality Score can still outrank you and pay less per click.

By improving your Keyword Quality Score, you’re not just reducing costs. You’re creating a more efficient, high-performing account. Over time, this leads to:

• Higher ad visibility
• Increased conversions
• Lower cost per acquisition (CPA)
• Greater marketing ROI

As you see from the image below, a lower quality score will lead to a higher cost per click. If you push your scores higher, with solid improvement in click-through rates and a good landing page experience, you would see a sizable reduction in costs.

Practical Strategies to Improve Performance

Here’s how to take your campaigns from average to exceptional:

Restructure Your Ad Groups

Avoid large, generic keyword groups. Instead, group 5–10 closely related terms to enable highly relevant ad copy. Simply put, this allows you to tailor the ad copy for the keyword theme better, which will resonate better with your audience. You should see an increase in click-through rate.

You really need to think about the theme of each ad group and bucket keywords accordingly.

Embrace Responsive Search Ads

Use Google’s responsive ad format to test multiple headlines and descriptions. The system learns and adapts over time to improve performance.

You should have more than one responsive search ad in each ad group. A single ad holds 15 headlines, for instance, which is a lot of copy to test. However, a second or third ad allows you to test splitting our ads by theme. For instance, one ad has price point calls to action, while the second has “talk to a salesperson” calls to action. This will enhance your ad testing strategy.

Optimise Your Landing Pages

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Hotjar to analyse load speed, content relevance and conversion paths. Align every page with the intent of your ads.

Consider using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to increase page speed across mobile. Tagging can also be an issue with page speed. Make sure that all your tags are configured correctly with a tag management system (we use Google Tag Manager).

Leverage Negative Keywords

Actively exclude irrelevant traffic that drags down your CTR. Negative keywords help preserve your ad’s integrity and improve your overall Keyword Quality Score.

Not only will this help your click-through rate, but it will also impact your conversion rate, which will lead to more leads and sales as you will be showing more ads to a better audience. We like to set the irrelevant term in the keyword (free, job etc) to a phrase negative as it allows you to stop other searches around this term from showing in the future, therefore giving you a lot of control over the keyword matching.

Also, don’t be afraid to add negatives at an ad group level to stop a single search term from triggering more than one keyword.

Your Underused Competitive Advantage

My clients regularly ask me: “How can we increase leads without increasing budget?”

The answer often lies in the Keyword Quality Score. It’s one of the few levers that rewards smart strategy over spend. It encourages more thoughtful campaign architecture, better user experience, and tighter messaging.

And the best part? It’s entirely within your control.