As a business owner, ad rank is an important metric to monitor when managing your business, particularly your ads.
Having this knowledge can help you make more informed decisions to improve your business’s performance.
So what is ad rank?
What does ad rank mean?
Ad rank is a score on ad platforms such as Google Ads that measures how likely your ad is to be shown to people and its ranking on the SERP.
This is based on your bid amount, the quality of your ad, the quality of your website’s landing page, and, of course, the user’s search context.
A higher ad rank gives you a higher position in search results, leading to potentially lower Cost per Click.
Ad Rank vs. Ad Position
The two are very similar, but there is a small difference. Ad Position is the actual place where your ad is displayed on the SERP, whereas Ad Rank is Google’s method of determining the SERP rankings.
How do I check my ad rank?
To check your ad rank, you can use Google’s formula of Bid Amount * Quality Score. For example, this is how it would look:
| Advertiser | Quality Score | Maximum CPC | Ad Rank | Final Position |
| You | 9 | $1.50 | 13.5 | 2 |
| Competitor A | 7 | $2.00 | 14 | 1 |
| Competitor B | 6 | $1.80 | 10.8 | 3 |
| Competitor C | 5 | $1.60 | 8 | 4 |
Bid Amount * Quality Score = Ad Rank
You can also use the top and absolute top impression metrics in Google Ads.
What does low ad rank mean?
Low ad rank can mean a multitude of things, but first and foremost, it means that your ads aren’t being shown to as many people as they could be.
Consequences of Low Ad Rank:
- Lower Visibility: Ads may not appear at all or appear very low in the search results
- Reduced Traffic: not being seen by many people means fewer interactions
- Higher Cost: Low-quality ads cost more to achieve the same position as higher-quality ads.
In the next section, we will discuss ways you can improve this.
How to improve your ad rank
Improving ad rank is boiled down to two components, since it is calculated from Quality Score, and how much you are paying.
If you find your ad rank is low, you may want to focus on improving your Quality Score and/or increasing your bid amount. You can also use relevant, specific keywords to strengthen your ad.
How to improve Quality Score
If you don’t already know what quality score is, you should read our article on Quality Score before continuing.
Improving Quality Score can be simplified to three components:
- Optimizing CTR: To optimize CTR (Click-Through Rate), testing ad variations is essential. Making multiple different versions of an ad and seeing which performs best, using new words, sentence structure, calls to action, is a great way to find what appeals to your audience.
- Improving Key Word Relevance: Focus on keywords relevant to your product/service. You can also use negative keywords to ensure that your ad is shown only to your target audience.
- Improving Landing Page Experience: Improving your landing page helps keep people on the site after clicking, which signals to Google that you deserve a good quality score. Having a clear call to action and a clean site layout helps.
Let MPire Marketing help you to fix your Google Ads CTR.