Google Adwords Update 2018 – New & Improved Quality Score Reporting

It’s not surprising that whenever Google rolls out a product update, it makes to the news. No wonder, Google’s latest Adwords updates, features and news has garnered advertisers’ attention and the speculations regarding its impact on Quality Score and page rankings have heightened recently.

Let’s discover what is in store for advertisers with Google’s new update.

Google Adwords Now Becomes Google Ads

Yes, Google Adwords is now officially Google Adwords and the shift has been in effect since July 24, 2018.

So, what does this mean? How will it affect the advertisers?

Thankfully, with the release of the new Adwords update, Google made one thing clear:

Additionally, they ensured that “these new brands will help advertisers and publishers of all sizes choose the right solutions for their businesses, making it even easier for them to deliver valuable, trustworthy PPC ads and the right experiences for consumers across devices and channels.”

To put it simple, Google Ads will have everything advertisers loved about Adwords, yet with more powerful tools that will make it easier to reach your customers with a higher impact.

So, it is not just about name changes. It is a paradigm shift towards ease, flexibility and more powers in the hands of the advertisers. For small business advertisers, Google Ads will make it simpler to kick-start online advertising like never before.

At the same time, they would be able to generate better results, “without any heavy lifting.” This means we can see more machine-learning this time. The basic objective is to enhance the ease with which Google advertisers can reach their target audiences.

Get Improved Quality Score Reporting

Latest product updates and roll-outs are nothing new for Google. But this year, they have put more emphasis on Quality Score it seems.

Is there any improvisation in Google’s Quality Score reporting? Will the latest Google Ads have an effect on the Quality Score?

Indeed it has. And this became more evident with Google updating its advertising platform recently.

Lately, Google announced changes to its Quality Score reporting which is believed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the QS metric, allowing you to take more informed actions with ease.

Let’s delve little deeper.

Get Better Insight into Constituent Components

Earlier, Google provided just basic information on three primary constituents: Click-Through Rate, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience.

The data included the Quality Score out of 10 and whether the target keyword was below or above average with respect to click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.

However, this was not ample enough for the advertisers. These bits of information are vital for the success of any PPC ad campaign. If one is badly hit, it can affect performance of other parameters as well.

Acknowledging this, Google updated its Quality Score reporting, providing “a comprehensive snapshot of [our] keywords’ current scores.” The objective is to provide easy and quick access to QS information.

In its latest version, Google Ads search has introduced 3 optional status columns under the Keywords tab for Expected CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience. Additionally, we could see 4 historical QS columns: Qual. Score (hist.), Landing page exp. (hist.), Ad relevance (hist.) and Exp. CTR (hist.)

Having historical data onto your fingertips will help better understand how your Quality Score has changed over time.

With this updated reporting format, Google expects to offer an in-depth understanding of how your PPC ad and landing page optimization is affecting Quality Score and everything else, from CPC to CTR to conversion rates.

Here is the updated Quality Score reporting format:

Now, when using Google’s latest QS reporting, there are 3 important things to keep in mind –

• You can get the last known Quality Score for the Date range you choose
• Historical data on Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience will be available not earlier than January 22, 2016
• Apply the “Day” metric to your keyword reports to have the daily values that reflect what your Quality Score was at the end of each day

Google explains this with an example as shown below:

In the above example, the report is segmented by “Day.” For instance, it is February 10 and you want to track what was your Quality Score for the keyword “Oranges” from February 3 to February 8.

In the “Qual. Score” column, you can see 3/10 which is your current Quality Score. The current QS will always show up in the column irrespective of the date you want to have the report of.

Next, the Quality Scores (hist.) column shows the last-known quality score for the period and the historical score for each day within that reporting period, which is 4/10.

In scenarios where the clicks and impressions are not enough to determine the keyword’s QS accurately, like on February 7 and February 8, the column will show a null Quality Score, i.e. (“—”).

• Evaluating Historical Performance Will be of Utmost Importance

For PPC advertisers prioritizing their Quality Score, historical data means everything.

However, it was only till recently that the advertisers had to slice this data by manually comparing the changes in historical data with changes to Quality Score.

Thanks to Google; the historical Quality Score information is now accessible via separate columns under the Keywords tab as shown earlier. This makes comparing your historical QS with current QS a breeze.

This will be of utmost importance to the advertisers because they will be able to understand how their ad or a particular keyword is performing currently in comparison to sometime in the past.

Based on the understanding, they can take appropriate initiatives to tweak the keyword or better optimize the landing page to improve Expected Click-through Rate, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience.

How Can Advertisers Benefit With a High Google Quality Score

No doubt about it, Quality Score is directly related to the success of your PPC campaign. When you optimize your Google Quality Score, you actually set yourself for higher ROI. This is because high Quality Score tends to lower your cost per conversion.

Here, it is important to understand that cost per conversion and cost per click is not the same thing. Cost per click is what you pay when someone clicks on your PPC ad.

Cost per conversion is what you pay when a visitor takes the action you expect them to take – buying a product, signing up for free trials or subscribing for newsletter. Since not all clicks get converted, cost per conversion is greater than cost per click.

A strong Quality Score typically lowers your cost per click as well as cost per conversion, improving return on investments.

By awarding you a high Quality Score, Google highlights that your PPC ad meets the needs of your potential customers.

The better you service the audiences’ needs, the lesser Google will charge for the ad click or conversion. See the example below:

With Google’s updated Quality Score reporting, it becomes easier for the advertisers to track performance of their PPC ad campaigns in depth and in real-time. Historical data comes handy in comparing current performance with that of the past.

This helps advertisers make informed decisions pertaining to necessary changes in ad campaign, keyword targeting, landing page optimization and other parameters.

Advertisers Will See Two Other New ‘Brands’ to Work With 

With its latest Google Ads roll out, the giant technology company has introduced a new platform called the Google Ad Manager.

It combines two commonly used tools – Double Click for Publishers and Double Click Ad Exchange. In months to come, the existing Double Click interface will reflect the new Google Ad Manager.

The new platform will help the advertisers target more prospects via multiple channels such as Apple News, television, live streaming, apps, gaming, AMP and more.

Advertisers will see yet another new brand, the Google Marketing Platform. The revamped version will blend together Google Analytics 360 and DoubleClick advertiser network as one entity.

This initiative by Google will help enterprise marketers who use both Google Ads and Google Analytics to have in-depth reports, better understanding and improved results.

Using this platform, advertisers can “plan, buy, measure and optimise digital media and customer experiences in one place.”

Google now has a new Integration Centre where advertisers can connect all their preferred Google products.

In addition to this, they will also have a wide range of 3^rd party services to improve their marketing and reporting efforts.

The Takeaways…

You know it well – Quality Score matters. Google’s new and revamped Quality Score reporting makes it simple for you to use current and past performance to ensure success of your PPC ad campaign.

If used properly, the improved Quality Score information can help you identify the strong and weak areas of your PPC ad campaign. Say for example, if your ad text needs to be improvised a bit or if the landing page needs some emotions.

Having the data with you, there is no need to waste time in guesswork, potentially optimizing the wrong QS components. Thus, you have more time and money to do what you are best at.