We expose five commonly held but inaccurate beliefs about how Google uses Quality Score to rank your ads and determine your PPC costs.

1. Debunking Quality Score Myths How Quality Score Really Works

2. Myth #1 I’m doing levels There are multiple levels of Quality Score And I have to take care to protect the “history” of everything in my account.

3. Fact Quality Score is calculated at exactly one level for each network: Keyword-Level … for Search Ad-Level ……………for Content BUT……

4. Google uses lots of data to calculate your Quality Score.

5. Best Practice Choose and organize the keywords in your whole account wisely. Feel free to experiment

6. Myth #2 Exact Match keywords will always have a higher Quality Score than Broad Match keywords [whoohoo!] “eh” %@#!

7. Fact Quality score does not depend on match type. If you had the same keyword in the same ad group multiple times, but with different match types, they’d all have the same Quality Score. This is actually a pretty common strategy, so go ahead and ask someone who does it. We’ll wait.

8. Best Practice Pick your match types based on cost, reach, and keyword research.

9. Myth #3 To improve my Quality Score, I have to improve my Conversion Rate

10. Fact Google doesn’t care about your conversion rates. And for a lot of advertisers, they don’t even know. It’s probably true that your keywords with good Quality Scores have good conversion rates, too.

11. Best Practice Focus on Click-Through-Rate, not conversions. Clicks CTR Impressions Show your ads to fewer people Get more people to click on your ads Show your ads to people who are more likely to click on them

12. Myth #4 To get the best Quality Score, you need to start by bidding to the highest position

13. Fact Quality Scores are adjusted for position. Really. We checked.

14. Best Practice Google rewards good Quality Scores with higher positions, not the other way around. Keep your bidding strategy in line with your costs and returns. Focus your Quality Score strategy on keeping your ads and keywords relevant. Golf Clubs

15. Myth #5 The best Quality Score strategy is to create one individual ad group per keyword.

16. Fact This is unnecessary and unmanageable.

17. Best Practice Golf clubs Golf clubs set Golf clubs complete set Set of golf clubs Golf clubs full set Golf clubs irons set Complete set of golf clubs Golf clubs in a set Golf club sets Create keyword niches Golf balls Ladies golf clubs Golf clubs Golf shoes Golf balls Golf pants Golf bags Golf putters Golf gloves Golf tees Golf carts Golf shoes Ping golf clubs Golf pants Golf bag stand Junior golf bag stand Best golf bag stand Black golf bag stand Ladies golf bag stand Golf bags Golf bag stand Golf putters Travel golf bag Golf gloves Callaway golf bag Golf tees Golf carts

18. Resources WordStream’s Quality Score Toolkit www.wordstream.com/quality-score-toolkit Video: Mastering Quality Score. A comprehensive Quality Score 101 session from the comfort of your own desk. Quality Score White Paper: Learn how Quality Score is calculated, why it's important and how to optimize your campaigns for the highest score. Quality Score Cheat Sheet: All the information you'll need to master Quality Score. Special offer for attendees.Watch your Inbox!!

19. Questions, Comments, Concerns Andy Stefano PPC Specialist astefano@wordstream.com

20. Thank You!