Quality score is a term used to define the relevance between a pay per click (PPC) ad and the website landing page it is directed to. The goal of the quality score is two-fold.

1. Improve Consumer Experience
2. Reduce Advertiser Expense

It is the practice of unscrupulous advertisers to generate pay per click ads for a given search term, only to have that ad lead to an unrelated web page, or a web page that is filled with more sponsored listings. This practice not only created a bad user experience, but increases the advertising costs of legitimate websites who are competing for the same search terms.

Why Worry About Quality Score

One of the positives of quality score is that it cost fraudulent advertisers more money to place their pay per click ads than it does legitimate advertisers. The down side of quality score is that a legitimate advertiser needs to run a tight pay per click campaign to capitalize on the benefits of a quality score model. When done right, an advertiser can receive a higher ad placement for less money. Even high value keywords can be purchased for relatively low cost per click when your ad has a high quality score.

Improving Quality Score

Some of the key things that affect quality score include:

1. Ad Copy - The keywords, ad copy and destination URL of your pay per click ad. While enticing copy and keywords may get the click, enticing copy that is relevant to your landing page will improve quality score and user experience.
2. Keyword Set - The keywords contained in your ad campaign. It is better to run several campaigns with less keywords than one master campaign. Try to ensure that the keywords you are targeting match your ad and your landing page. Having the same core keywords on your landing page as in your ad goes a long way toward boosting quality score.
3. Landing Page - This is the page in your website where people will end up when they click your ad. The more closely the content of the landing page matches the ad copy and the keywords that trigger the ad, the higher your quality score.
4. Click Thru Rate - This is the percentage of times people click on your ad versus the number of times your ad is shown. Statistically click thru rate is impacted by position as well as keyword and copy. An ad that shows in a higher positions (usually the top three spots) will generate more clicks than an ad lower down on the page. Because of the auction type bidding models that most pay per click ads use, top spot is generally the most expensive. But with a good quality score, it is possible to rank higher than a competitor for a lower cost per click for the same keywords.

Measure and Improve

Like any form of advertising, pay per click campaigns are not "set it and forget it" and require a constant measure and improve process. Getting a good quality score and lowering your cost per click will take some trial and error. Test various keyword campaigns, landing pages and ad copy. Look at what your competitors are doing and see how that compares to your efforts. With time, you should be running efficient pay per click campaigns that are driving quality traffic to your website.