A falling Quality Score quietly increases your cost per click even when nothing else about your account has changed. Most advertisers notice the CPC increase before they notice the score itself.
What’s Really Driving It Down
- Ad-to-landing-page mismatch — the keyword promises one thing, the page delivers another
- Low expected CTR — generic ad copy that doesn’t stand out in the results
- Slow landing page load times — Google factors in page experience
- Overly broad ad groups — one ad group targeting too many unrelated keywords dilutes relevance
How to Rebuild It
- Split large ad groups into tightly themed groups of 5–10 closely related keywords
- Rewrite ad copy to mirror the exact intent of the keyword, not a generic brand message
- Make sure your landing page headline directly answers what the ad promised
- Run a PageSpeed check — anything over 3 seconds load time is hurting you
Quality Score isn’t cosmetic — a 2-point improvement can meaningfully lower your CPC on the same bid.
Want a Quality Score audit? See our Google Ads services or get in touch.