You turned on the Quality Score column, saw a bunch of 4s and 6s, and now you want to know whether you have a problem. Short answer: the number itself is not your problem, but the thing it's measuring often is.
Here's what it is, in plain terms.
What the number actually is
Quality Score is a 1-10 rating that sits at the keyword level — not the ad level, not the campaign level, not the account level. Google describes it as a diagnostic tool that tells you how your ad quality compares to other advertisers who showed up for the same searches (Google Ads Help).
Two things Google states outright on that page, both of which surprise most advertisers:
- Quality Score is not a key performance indicator, and shouldn't be averaged together with the rest of your data.
- Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction.
Read that second one again. The 1-10 number stored in your account does not get plugged into the auction when someone searches "emergency plumber near me." What does get used is a real-time assessment of the same underlying components, calculated fresh for that specific search, on that device, in that location, at that moment (Google Ads Help).
So the column is a rear-view mirror. It's a summary of how you've been doing on exact searches for that keyword over roughly the last 90 days. Useful. Not the scoreboard.
The three parts, and which one you can actually control
Quality Score is built from three components, each labeled Above average, Average, or Below average:
Expected clickthrough rate — how likely your ad is to get clicked when it shows. This is a prediction, not your historical CTR, and it's normalized for ad position. Google is explicit that being in position 1 doesn't inflate this rating and position 3 doesn't deflate it.
Ad relevance — how closely your ad copy matches the intent behind the search.
Landing page experience — how relevant and useful the page is to someone who clicks.
The ratings are relative. "Average" means average compared to other advertisers who showed for the exact same search in the last 90 days. That's why a keyword can sit at 5/10 while producing perfectly profitable calls: you're being graded against your competitors, not against your own P&L.
Of the three, ad relevance is the fastest to fix and landing page experience is the one most local service businesses ignore completely.
Why it still matters even though it's "not in the auction"
Because the same quality signals show up in two places that cost you money.
Ad Rank thresholds. Google sets a minimum bar your ad must clear to show at all, and to show in a given position. Those thresholds are set per-auction, and lower-quality ads get higher thresholds (Google Ads Help). That's the mechanism behind the frustrating situation where you raise your bid and still don't appear.
Your actual CPC. Higher-quality ads typically cost less per click. Google notes that if your ad quality is low, you may find your actual CPC sitting close to your maximum CPC even when there isn't much competition for that search (Google Ads Help). If you're a roofer paying near your bid cap on every click in a quiet market, quality is a likely suspect.
So: don't chase the number. Do care about the thing the number is describing.
What actually moves it for a local service business
Almost everything that helps comes down to keeping one chain tight: search term → keyword → ad headline → landing page → the thing the person wanted.
Split ad groups by service, not by convenience. One ad group holding "drain cleaning," "water heater repair," and "sewer line replacement" cannot have an ad that's specifically relevant to any of them. Google's own guidance for weak ad relevance is to split keywords into ad groups that better match the searches and to mirror the searcher's language in the ad text (Google Ads Help). For a five-service company, five ad groups with five ads is not overkill. It's the baseline.
Send clicks to a matching page, not the homepage. If the keyword is "AC not blowing cold air" and the ad says "Same-Day AC Repair," the landing page headline should say the same thing. A homepage that lists twelve services, three financing offers and a company history is a worse experience than a page about the one problem the person has right now. This is the single most common landing page experience issue in local service accounts.
Take mobile seriously. Google confirms the user's device is factored into ad quality, and specifically advises making sure information is easy to find and navigation is intuitive on mobile (Google Ads Help). For emergency services, most of your traffic is a person standing next to a broken thing holding a phone. If your phone number isn't tappable above the fold, that's a quality issue and a conversion issue at the same time.
Clean up the searches you're actually matching to. Irrelevant search terms drag expected CTR down because nobody clicks an ad that doesn't fit their query. This is where negative keywords earn their keep — see the negative keyword guide for local service businesses for the specific lists worth building first.
If you want the full build order — account structure, ad group splits, landing pages and negatives set up in the right sequence rather than patched in one at a time — that's what the Launchpad system walks you through.
What does not move it (stop wasting time here)
Google is unusually specific about this, and it saves you from a lot of internet advice:
- Account structure by itself. Renaming campaigns or splitting keywords into new ad groups without changing the ad text or landing page has no effect on quality. There is no such thing as an account-level or campaign-level Quality Score.
- Changing match types. Quality Score is based on historical impressions for exact searches of the keyword, so flipping a keyword from phrase to exact doesn't change it.
- Bidding for a higher position. Expected CTR is normalized for position. You don't need to buy your way to the top to improve quality.
- Running Display or search partners. Targeting other networks doesn't affect your quality on Google Search.
- Pausing low-scoring keywords to raise your "average." There is no account average that Google uses. You'd just be turning off traffic to make a spreadsheet look nicer.
The dash, and other reasons not to panic
A "—" in the column means there haven't been enough exact-match searches to calculate a score. For a plumber in a mid-size city bidding on a specific service in a specific suburb, that's normal, not broken.
New keywords also don't start from zero. Google says it uses information from your related ads and landing pages as a starting point, then leans on real data once it exists. A well-built account gets the benefit of the doubt on new keywords; a sloppy one doesn't.
How much attention this deserves
About twenty minutes a month, and only in one direction: use the three component columns to find specific broken things.
Add Exp. CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Exp. as columns. Sort your top-spending keywords by cost. For any keyword spending real money with a "Below average" component, you now have a named problem — rewrite the ad, split the ad group, or fix the page. Ignore the 1-10 number entirely.
Then go back to the metrics that actually pay you: cost per lead, booked jobs, and how many of the calls were the kind of work you want. A keyword at 6/10 producing $90 leads beats a keyword at 9/10 producing tire-kickers, every time.