In my last post, I discussed how to use the historic quality score data to ensure you were seeing the broader context of your daily quality score. I want to continue along those lines; making sure you are seeing all of the data that adCenter has to offer, and seeing that data in context.

Another nice feature adCenter recently introduced was the Aggregated Quality Score. This nifty little number gives you a summarized view of your keywords’ scores, rolled up at the ad group or campaign level. (A quick note: throughout this article I discuss the Aggregated Quality Score in terms of ad groups. You can apply the same ideas for campaign-level aggregated scores.)

This new aggregated score is a great way to quickly do a check on each of your ad groups and identify areas that need attention. But there is more to the Aggregated Quality Score than first meets the eye. Let me explain why:

This story has two parts. First I want to give you some background on why your Aggregated Quality Score is so important and how you can use it to have a uniquely positive impact on ads created in adCenter. Then I’ll very quickly explain how dig a bit deeper to ensure you are seeing the whole picture.

Let’s begin with reviewing two basics rules of quality scores and rank:

1. Click-through rate (CTR) is a major component of a keyword’s quality score (a high CTR drives a higher quality score)
2. Rank = CTR * Bid. Thus the higher your CTR (and implicitly the higher your quality score), the lower your bid can be in order to achieve a particular ad rank

Now let’s turn to the Aggregated Quality Score (aQS). Your aQS is an impression-weighted average of all the keyword quality scores in a particular ad group. That sounds more complicated than it is. I simply mean that the more impressions a particular keyword has, the bigger impact it has on the Aggregated Quality Score. Let me say that again incorporating CTR:

The more impressions (higher CTR) a particular keyword has, the bigger impact it has on the Aggregated Quality Score.

Now, also remember basic rule #1: A higher CTR means a higher individual keyword quality score. So to put it all together:

• High keyword CTR = High keyword quality score
• High keyword CTR/QS = Big impact on aQS

A high aQS is driven by keywords with high individual quality scores and CTRs. Understanding this along with basic rule # 2 now makes it clear that a high ad group aQS is driven by keywords that require lower bids (to achieve the same rank). Lower bids means less money you need to spend. The net lesson: An ad group with a high aQS can save you money!

The practical use of this is that you can use the aQS just like a keyword quality score when evaluating your bidding strategy. As a very simple example, let’s say you have a rank of 10, which is determined by an aQS of 5 and a bid of 2. If your QS improves to 10, that means you can reduce your bid (your cost per click) to just 1 and still maintain that same rank. To keep all things equal, a higher aQS means you can achieve a lower cost per click (CPC).

That’s good news, but is really only half the story. Now that you know how to start using the Aggregated Quality Score, I want you to take the next step and dig into that score a bit further.

My first quality score blog a few weeks ago used an old story about an elephant as my lead-in. At the risk of getting a reputation for relying on worn-out clichés, I’m going to use yet another one: Don’t judge a book by its cover. Or in this case, don’t judge an Aggregated Quality Score by its cover. (That doesn’t really flow all that well, but let’s go with it…)

Let’s say you’ve got a nice list of Aggregated Quality Score goodness:

These are really good scores and you should take some time to feel proud of yourself…

OK, that’s long enough. Now let’s make those good numbers even better.

You should think about looking a little deeper into the nines (9s). Sure, a nine is very good, and as a whole your ad group is performing well. But take some time to occasionally look at the quality scores for the individual keywords that contribute to that aggregate ad group score. Chances are if the ad group has an aggregate quality score of 9, you’re not going to find much wrong at the keyword level. But it never hurts to check!

Here’s what you might find: Let’s say the quality scores for the individual keywords for ad group 1 are as follows:

These are pretty darn good, and I’d suggest you have nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, let’s say your scores are:

Uh oh. Overall your ad group is doing fine, but what’s going on with that last keyword? It would be good to do some investigation. Maybe you’ve got a keyword that is sending folks to a non-relevant or poor quality landing page. This landing page isn’t getting you any conversions and you are wasting budget on a poorly performing keyword. Worse yet this poor performer is impacting your overall ad group. Time to take action!

The moral of the story is that of you had just taken the aggregate quality score at face value, you would not have discovered this one bad apple. But doing due diligence, you now have the opportunity to get it fixed. A simple change to a single keyword could have a positive impact across the entire ad group. Good work!

So make sure to use the aggregated quality score as it was intended: A quick and good overview of the health of each ad group. It is a great way to inform your bidding strategy as well as quickly identify ad groups that need some work. But as you get those ad groups performing well, read beyond the cover and start to dig into the number even further.

Happy advertising!