How do I get my Advert to show? Ad Rank & Ad Auctions

The most common misconception about Google Ads is that the highest bid wins and that is the only condition for ads to show in search engine results. This is false.

Good ad experience is critical to Google as a business, so they have Ad Rank and Google Ads Auction to deliver the most appropriate adverts.

Google uses an auction system in order to decide which advert to show in the search results and how much that click would cost. The calculation is called the Ad Rank. Now while bidding the highest dollar amount is an important consideration, Google also want adverts that are relevant to the search (so they are clicked often) and provide good user experience and relevancy on the landing page (searchers get what they are expecting).

In realtime Google calculates an Ad Rank Quality score for every advert in the search and assigns them a position based on it. Typically, the advert that has best combination of dollar bid value and ad quality will get the highest spot – the second best will get second spot and so on.

The conclusion to this is that higher quality ads in theory should lead to lower costs, better positions and more relevant traffic.

Google say they consider three things: Expected Click Through Rate (CTR), Ad Landing Page Experience and Ad Relevance.

Expected Click Through Rate: High eCTR would lead to the ad being clicked frequently (and making Google money). This means that the advert is relevant to the search, that the ad is well written, and has a CTR and is appropriate for that search…. And all that makes Google money.

Ad landing page experience: This is slightly trickier to figure out. A high quality landing page is one that contains appropriate content, is easy to navigate, responds and performs quickly and is relevant to the search. All round good UX.

Ad relevance: In many ways this is linked to CTR, it stops businesses paying their way onto the search results by bidding high with unrelated products and services.

During a realtime auction, Google may also consider other factors like user’s device, time of day, location, the context of the query and other user signals in deciding.

If you’re advert is never showing it probably means that it has not met the minimum Ad rank threshold for that search. Google obviously can’t go through every single ad account for every search, so it makes an easily accessible shortlist of the best ones.

You will need to increase your Ad Rank by writing a better, more compelling advert, changing your keyword choices or adding negative keywords to the adverts so they are more relevant.

Inside your Ads account there is a Quality Score metric – this is an estimated quality of the combination of your ad quality, keyword relevancy and landing page performance. It is scored 1 – 10 (10 being the highest). You can also see scores for the component parts: Landing Page Experience, Ad Relevance and Expected Click Through Rate.

This score predicts how likely your keyword choice is likely to lead to an ad click.

• Be specific in your advert, include your keyword in your headline and description – show that your advert and landing page is relevant to the search query.
• Experiment with different call to actions and ad copy – testing new things is often the best way to improve.
• Highlight unique selling points – what makes you so special? Do you offer a lifetime guarantee, free worldwide shipping or have a worldwide support team?

This indicates how relevant your ad is to the search and the landing page you present.

• Add negative keywords that stop your advert from showing to unwanted or irrelevant search queries.

This analyzes how relevant, transparent and easy-to-navigate the page is.

• Make sure you are sending traffic to a correct and relevant page.
• Make sure your consistent in your keyword choices, Ad Copy and landing page style and topic.
• Make sure your site speed is optimal.
• Keep the priority core content above-the-fold

Aware offer a suite of Google Ads Management solutions. We can offer consultancy, management as a service and handle all your creative assets.