Introduction

The 5 Key Characteristics of a High 

Quality Score Account

Theoretically there are a lot of factors that go into Google 

Quality Score. But the single most important factor is definitely 

normalized click-through rate (CTR).

We used the AdWords Performance Grader to get some high-level insight into what this 

advertiser is doing so right. Using this report, we identified five key characteristics that are 

contributing to the super-high average Quality Score of 8.8.

Amazing Click Through Rate

Theoretically there are a lot of factors that go into Google Quality Score. But the single most 

important factor is definitely normalized click-through rate (CTR). And this advertiser’s average 

CTR is off the charts:

That little yellow line represents the typical curve, with CTR plotted against average position. This 

account’s click-through rates are way, way higher than average — it’s got an average search CTR 

of 14.06% (2% is usually the benchmark for a decent PPC click-through rate). How did they get a 

14% CTR in an average ad position of 2.88?

Most of the outlier keywords with CTRs of 30%, 40%, 50% and even 70% are branded keywords, 

which generally have very high CTRs — but the rest of the keywords aren’t branded. In fact, 

it’s interesting to note that there are even 0% CTR keywords that have perfect Quality Scores 

of 10. This suggests that the high account average CTR is pulling up the Quality Scores for 

all keywords in the account. I see this in a lot of accounts, and it’s one reason why I always 

recommend slating at least 15% of your PPC budget toward branded keywords. But what about 

the rest of the keywords in this account?

1.