We often wonder about the different factors that Google takes into evaluating your Google ads account/ AdWords account performance. Well, there are a lot of different scoring methodologies that Google employs in scoring your Google ads account performance. You can also use this scoring criterion in creating the Google Ads Audit report.
Page Contents
Account level performance Scoring & Evaluation
At the top level, there is account level scoring. At this Google might score based on the settings performance across different verticals. Those verticals which contribute to your Google ads account performance are:
- Budget Index (10 points)
- Extension Index (15 points)
- Settings Index (20 points)
- Mobile Index (15 points)
- Keywords Index (15 points)
- Ads Index and (15 points)
- Audience Index (10 points)
These indices make a total of 100. Some of the important factors are campaign settings, mobile, keywords, ads, and extensions used. Though this high-level scoring is enough to get an insight into the performance of your account, let us dive into the details.
Google Ads Budget Score (Total Points=10)
Google ads budget index is made up of basically two below elements.
- Budget delivery mode (points=3) and,
- Search Lost IS (Points=7)
Budget Delivery – 3 points
It determines how fast you want to spend your budget based on targeting. Read more here. Here is the point breakdown for the budget delivery.
- Accelerated – 0 points
- Standard – 3 points
Search Lost IS (Impression Share) – 7 points
The percentage of time that your ads weren’t shown on the Google Ads or Bing Ads Search Network due to insufficient budget. This data is available at the campaign level only. Read more here. Here is how the search impression lost affects your account performance as per the scores:
- 0% = 7 points
- 0-25% = 5 points
- 25-50% = 3 points
- 50-75% = 1 point
- 75=100% = 0 point
Google Ads Extensions Score (Total Points=15)
Here is the list of elements that might help you in determining your extensions score:
- Is Using Sitelinks – 4 points
- Is Using Callout – 3 points
- Is Using Structured Snippets Extensions – 2 points
- Is Using App Extensions- 1 point
- Is Using Call Extension- 1 point
- Is Using Location Extension- 1 point
- Is Using Price Extensions- 1 point
- Is Using Click To Message Extensions- 1 point
- Is Using Promotion Extensions- 1 point
- Is Using Seller Rating Extensions- 1 point
Well, it is no more a secret that extensions help you increase the ad score. However, your business might not need or use all the extensions. But, it is better to use as many extensions as possible. Top three Google ads extensions which should at least be used for a better account score are:
- Is Using Sitelinks – 4 points
- Is Using Callout – 3 points
- Is Using Structured Snippets Extensions – 2 points
Furthermore, these extensions scoring have also been developed.
Is Using Sitelinks – 4 points
- True – 4 points
- Automated – 2 points
- False – 0 point
Is Using Callout – 3 points
- True – 3 points
- Automated – 2 points
- False – 0 point
Is Using Structured Snippets Extensions – 2 points
- True – 2 points
- Automated – 1 point
- False – 0 point
Rest of the extension get 1 point in case if they have been implemented. Otherwise, there is 0 point for them. So, another cue you get from the above is that, even though automation eases out the work of the Google ads manager, but Google really wants a human intervention in these. Does Google still not rely on its machine learning?
Google Ads Settings Score (Total Points=20)
Though mostly ignored or not much time spent but Settings really hold the key to increasing your account score. Here is the list of elements that might help you in determining your Settings score:
- Ad Rotation Mode – 5 points
- Search Partners Opt-in – 3 points
- Is using Conversion tracking – 2 points
- Bid Strategy Type – 6 points
- Data-Driven Attribution – 4 points
Ad Rotation Mode – 5 points
- Optimize – 5 points
- Rotate indefinitely – 0 point
Search partners opt-in – 3 points
- True – 3 points
- False – 0 points
Is using Conversion tracking – 2 points
- True – 2 points
- False – 0 points
Bid Strategy Type – 6 points
- Manual CPC – 0 points
- ECPC / Enhanced CPC – 2 Points
- Any Google ads Bid Strategy Type – 6 Points
Data-Driven Attribution – 4 points
The Data-driven attribution may not be available in Your Google ads account even though you are eligible for it. It is certainly not available to all the advertisers. You can read about Data-driven attribution here
Mobile score – 15 points
Mobile becoming a major device to play the role and the future. Google really wants the advertisers to focus on the mobile experience.
I would say mobile optimization is one of the most important factors in the Google ads account performance evaluation. Unlike other categories, mobile scoring has no subcategories. That means Google is focussing heavily on the mobile side. Here is the point score distribution
- Opted out of mobile – 0 points
- No conversion tracking but mobile is opted-in – 5 points
- Underbidding on mobile – 5 points
- High bidding on mobile with conversion tracking – 15 points
Keywords Score – 15 points
Here are different subcategories with different scores:
- KW with Low QS – 7 points
- KW with High QS – 3 points
- KW with Bid Below First Page – 3 points
- Conflicting Negative KWs – 2 points
- Avg. KW Per Ad Group Avg. – 1 point
We spend a lot of time optimizing for the keywords. Here is a sneak peek into how Google scored your keywords.
KW with Low QS – 7 points
Keywords with low quality score refer to a quality score of 1-4.
- 0% – 7 points
- 0-25% – 5 points
- 25-50% – 3 points
- 50-75% – 1 point
- above 75% – 0 point
That means Google really dislikes keywords with the low-quality score because they result in bad customer experience.
KW with high QS – 3 points
Keywords with a high-quality score refer to a quality score of 8-10.
- 0% – 0 points
- 0-25% – 1 point
- above 25% – 3 points
KW with Bid Below First Page – 3 points
Here is how Google scores your keywords’ bid
- 0 keywords – 3 points
- 1-100 keywords – 1 point
- 101-300 keywords – 2 points
- Above 300 keywords – 3 points
Conflicting Negative KWs – 2 points
Here is how Google Ads scores the negative keywords
- 0 conflicting negative keywords – 2 points
- 1 to 100 negative conflicting keywords – 1 point
- Above 100 negative conflicting keywords – 2 points
Average Keywords per Ad Group Scoring – 1 point
- 0 to 50 – 1 point
- Above 50 keywords per ad group – 0 Points
Ads Score – 15 Points
- Estimated ads Per Ad Group – 6 points
- Search Lost IS (Rank) (30 Days) – 4 points
- Average position for last 30 Days – 3 points
- Number of Disapproved Ads – 2 points
Estimated ads Per Ad Group – 6 points
- Less than 2 ads – 0 points
- 2 to 4 ads – 2 points
- More than 3 ads – 6 points
Search Lost IS (Rank) (30 Days) – 4 points
- 75 to 100% – o points
- 50 to 75% – 1 point
- 25 to 50% – 2 points
- 0 to 25% – 3 points
- 0% – 4 points
Average position in the last 30 days – 3 points
- More than 4 – o points
- Any position less than 4 – 3 points
Number of disapproved ads – 1 point
- No ads disapproved – 1 point
- Any ad disapproved – 0 points
Audience Index (Total Points=10)
Here is the list of elements that might help you in determining your Settings score:
- Audience depth – 3 points
- Audience with bid modifier – 3 points
- RLSA Coverage – 2 points
- Similar audience coverage – 1 point
- Customer Match coverage – 1 point
Audience depth – 3 points
Audience depth is calculated as the audience spends / total spend.
- 0 to 10% – 0 points
- 10 to 25% – 1 point
- 25 to 40% – 2 points
- More than 40% – 3 points
Audience with Bid modifier – 3 points
This is calculated as % audience spends with bid modifier other than zero.
- 0 to 50% – 0 points
- 50 to 75% – 1 point
- 75 t0 100% – 2 points
- 100% – 3 points
RLSA Coverage – 2 points
RLSA coverage is defined as the spending of RLSA covered audience / total spend.
- o to 50% – 0 points
- 50 to 100 % – 1 point
- 100% – 2 points
Similar Audience coverage – 1 point
Similar audience coverage is defined as the spending on similar audience/ total spend.
- 0 to 100% – 0 points
- 100% – 1 point
Customer Match coverage – 1 point
Customer match coverage is defined as the spend on Customer Match Covered Ad Groups / Total Spend.
- 0 to 100% – 0 points
- 100% – 1 point.
Important Takeaways points to get good Google ads Account score
- Focus on Search Lost Impression Share. It’s really important to optimize your Google ads account
- Accelerated budget delivery is not a good practice unless needed
- Out of all the extensions, Sitelinks, Callouts, and Structured snippets are the important ones in decreasing order of their importance. It is good to have them manually setup
- Optimize is the best ad rotation mode. Rotate indefinitely is not a good option to use unless it is aligned with the business goals
- Google wants you to use opt-in search partners option to have a good account score.
- Google prefers any Google ads bid strategy type
- Focus high on mobile optimization. Top three points in mobile optimization are conversion tracking and higher bidding on mobile
- Focus high on the keywords with the low-quality score
- Try to have more than 3 ads per ad group
- The average position of your ads should be under four.
- Focus on the audience bidding
What Google wants you to really focus on?
- Ads experience
- audience experience
- manual intervention in the Google ads account
- Rely on Google ads platform for the bidding strategy
- Maintain the quality of your ads
- Mobile experience
Also, know how to conduct a Google Ads account audit.