quality score

Definition

Google's report card for your ads, rating relevance, landing page quality, and expected click-through rate to determine how much you pay and where you appear. It's the algorithm's way of rewarding good behavior and punishing lazy advertising.

Example Usage

Our quality score improved from 3 to 8 after we actually made our landing page relevant to our ad copy, shocking everyone involved.

Origin

Introduced by Google AdWords in 2005 to improve ad quality and user experience

Fun Fact

Improving your quality score from 5 to 8 can reduce your cost per click by up to 50%, making it the closest thing to free money in advertising.

Source: Google Ads platform mechanics

Related Terms

Intermediate

UGC

User Generated Content, which is a polite way of saying you're using your customers' photos and videos instead of paying for a professional shoot. It's the marketing equivalent of asking someone to bring a dish to a dinner party you're hosting.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

shill

A person secretly paid to hype up a product while cosplaying as an unbiased enthusiast, essentially the original influencer before Instagram made it a legitimate career. They're the planted audience member at an auction driving up bids, or that 'random customer' in the infomercial who just can't believe how amazing this vegetable chopper is. The word itself has become the ultimate callout in online discourse for anyone suspected of suspiciously enthusiastic endorsement.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

account-based marketing

A targeted B2B strategy that treats individual high-value accounts as markets of one, essentially putting all your eggs in a few carefully selected baskets. It's the sniper rifle approach versus the shotgun spray of traditional marketing.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

Pain Point

A problem that a customer or employee has, rebranded as something clinical so you can charge money to fix it. Every pain point is someone's job security -- if the pain goes away, so does the consulting contract.

💼 Corporate / Business📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

Dark Social

Traffic that comes from private channels like texts and DMs where marketers can't track it, making it the speakeasy of social sharing. It sounds sinister, but it's really just your aunt forwarding articles in the family group chat.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

makegoods

Compensatory advertising inventory provided when campaigns underdeliver on promised impressions or performance. The media equivalent of 'sorry we ruined your wedding, here's a gift card.'

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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