Ad relevance - Definition

Your ad relevance is a component of your quality score and indicates how relevant your ad and landing page are to the customer's search query or other input. Learn why it's important and take a look at an example.

What it is

Ad relevance indicates how relevant your ad and landing page are to the customer's search query or other input and is one of three components that determine your quality score.

What else you should know

Your ad relevance can have a score of Above Average, Average and Below Average.

Why it's important

A Below Average ad relevance score can lead to a low quality score. A low quality score ultimately means that your competitors' ad campaigns are performing better than yours. This can result in their ads showing more often and more prominently on the search results page. Get your ad relevance score to Average to help your ads display more often.

Keep your ad relevance score high in order to help your ads display more often.

An example

Ad relevance can frequently cause problems for businesses that sell several different products or services. The ad text can be too generic for potential customers who are searching for something specific.

Here's an example:

The setup: You own a sporting goods store and have keywords for many of the products you sell, from swimsuits to golf clubs to snowboards. However, all of these keywords are in the same ad group and all ads in that ad group have similar ad text: 40% off sports equipment.

The problem: Now let's say it's June and a customer is searching for "swimsuits". Her search triggers your ad but your ad says sports equipment. She is looking for a swimsuit or sports clothing. So she doesn’t click your ad.

The fix: You want to show ad text that gets your customer's attention so you need to create individual ad groups for each type of equipment you sell and then specific keywords and ad text related to that equipment:

  • Create an ad groups called Swimsuits
  • Add related keywords like bathing suits and bikini
  • Write specific ad text: 40% off swimsuits
  • Link your ad to the swimsuit page on your website

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