What Is Ad Rank? How to Improve Ad Rank to be Higher?

What is ad rank? all know the basics of ad rank that the specific position that your ad occupies on paid search results.

But when you break it down even further, do you know what factors are at play? What moves, edits or selections can you make to improve or potentially harm your current ad rank? If not, that’s what you are here to find out. Ad rank is simple in nature. But finding ways to improve your ad rank isn’t.

Read also: 10 Paid Search Engine Marketing Advantages To Help Business

What is Ad Rank and Its Formula?

What is Ad Rank?

An auction determines the position of ads within the SERP. But, unlike with most auctions, the winner is not necessarily the highest bidder. In the Google Ad auction, the amount bid is only one factor used to determine the overall Ad Rank. The Ad Rank score is what determines ad positions in the search results.

So, if a pay per click (PPC) ad is the first listing at the top of the SERP, it won’t always have the highest bid behind it but it will have the highest Ad Rank.

The highest ad positions typically deliver the highest number of clicks, which is why getting your ads to rank as high as possible matters.

What is Ad Rank Formula

Ad rank formula? A value that’s used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page relative to other ads) and whether your ads will show at all. 

Ad Rank is calculated using your bid amount, your auction time ad quality, the Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of an auction, the context of the person’s search (for example, the location, device, time of search, the nature of the search terms and other user signals and attributes) and the expected impact of extensions and other ad rank format example.

• When estimating the expected impact of extensions and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, click through rates and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page. So even if your competition has higher bids than yours, you can still win a higher position at a lower price by using highly relevant keywords and ads.
• Your Ad Rank is recalculated each time your ad is eligible to appear and compete in an auction, so your ad position can fluctuate each time depending on your competition, the context of the person’s search and your quality at that moment.

What is a Low Ad Rank?

If your ad rank is low, that means that you may have a below-average quality score or a low bid compared to your competitors or both. I listed some of the main reasons your ad rank may be too low for you to appear in the ads results portion of Google.

Read also: 10 Top Tips for Small Business Search Engine Marketing

How to Increase Ad Rank?

How to improve ad rank? Now that you know the ins and outs of ad rank, here are three ways to improve it without spending more on clicks than you have to:

More Isn’t Better: Focus on Relevant Ad Extensions Only

Bidding more is the most obvious way to improve your ad rank. But nobody wants to spend more for clicks. Not when it impacts your bottom line, your acquisition costs and more. Instead, focus on producing ads that are more relevant. Ad relevance is a huge piece of the ad rank puzzle.

Improve Your Quality Score: Utilize More Specific Ad Groups

If you haven’t noticed yet, there are two specific themes when it comes to improving your ad rank: relevance and specificity. And that begins with a well constructed ad group. Ad groups are critical components of success in ad ranking.

If your ad groups aren’t specific enough, you run the risk of producing ads that underperform on expected CTR. For instance, let’s say you run an electronics company. You want to improve overall sales of your products.

Better Landing Pages: Create Unique Offers for Each Ad

If you’ve ever clicked on a paid search ad and gotten something other than what you expected, you know how frustrating it can be. The ad says one thing, and the landing page is generic. Maybe it’s even their homepage. And as a searcher, nothing is more annoying than that.

You literally searched for a specific term. It’s not like the advertiser had no idea what you wanted to see. The keyword is a clear indication of what you expected to get. Landing pages should have a clear message match. In fact, message matches from ads to landing pages can improve conversions by more than 200 percent.

The problem with creating unique landing pages for each ad group is that it’s time-consuming.

What’s the Importance of Increasing Ad Rank?

Which one is not a benefit in using CPC bidding in Google ads? Google Ads estimates how ad formats and extensions will impact your ad’s performance when calculating your Ad Rank.

There are various formats available within Google ads Philippines, such as text, image, responsive (which automatically adjust to fit available ad spaces), app promotion, in-stream video, Product Shopping, Showcase Shopping and call only ads. These each serve different purposes and Google will consider how well they match with your ad.

Extensions allow you to add elements such as a phone number or links to more specific pages on your site within your ad.

Beyond Ad Rank, there are another couple of factors that may influence whether or not your ad appears in search results:

Search Context

Google looks at several factors to understand the intent of a user’s search and how relevant your ad is in this context. 

Google also considers other ads and search results appearing on the same page, and other user signals and attributes. If Google feels your ad would not be relevant within the search context it will not be displayed.

Ad Rank Threshold 

The threshold is the lowest Ad Rank score needed for your ad to show. If you don’t meet the threshold, your ad is ineligible to appear. Google does not disclose information about the threshold, but the amount depends on a variety of factors

Conclusion

As ad campaigns for marketing strategies become more commonplace, the number of available guides also increases. However, the most important tip is to create a strategy that works for your specific product or service and target audience and stay up to date.