Digital marketing professionals, who constantly obsess about their Google AdWords Quality Scores, may be doing themselves more harm than good. This is particularly true, if this obsession does not consider proper experimental procedure. If you wish to view the full impact of a change in your digital marketing tactics, it is important to conduct controlled experiments. If you execute all tactics at the same time, you will not be able to measure the effectiveness of each digital marketing tactic, individually.

Digital marketing specialists have a natural competitive streak. In most conferences about digital marketing, it is common to hear audience members asking questions on how to improve their ‘Quality Score’. Such questions are framed to make the audience member look competitive. However, in reality, these questions seem to revolve around an underlying fear that a competitor has a better ‘Quality Score’ than them, or that there is some Quality Score improving strategy, which the digital marketing professional is not aware about.

In general, the Quality Score that is possible for certain key phrases in some industries may reach highs, which is just a bit below the maximum score of 10. However, if a digital marketing professional has a Quality Score of five, when their business rivals display a nine or a ten, it means that there is certainly room for improvement. In some industries, while it may be possible to increase your Quality Score marginally, you may never be able to achieve the 9 or 10 score, which you desperately covet. Some reasons why this could happen are:

• A majority of search queries in your particular industry have low commercial intent.
• A certain segment of your audience may never be interested in your specific digital marketing ads.
• Some key phrases may have a vague meaning. This results in numerous searchers visiting your website, who have absolutely no interest in the product you are selling. For example, china (country or plates), surfing (internet or beach), or delta (river, airlines, insurance).

It can be difficult to get high Quality Scores even for branded keywords, as different companies with the same name, which sell completely different products, can exist in different parts of the world. Hence, keep in mind your industry, while working to reach the best Quality Score possible, with your limited resources.

Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing agency, and can be contacted on 0845 388 5583 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk.