What it actually takes to hit Quality Score 10 in Google Ads

Quality Score is the metric everyone cites and almost no one improves. Part of the problem is that Google reports it as one number when it's actually three sub-components — and you have to fix all three to move the headline number.

What Quality Score actually is

Three sub-components, weighted roughly equally by the auction:

• Expected CTR — Google’s prediction of how often your ad gets clicked at top position.
• Ad relevance — how closely your ad copy matches the search query.
• Landing page experience — speed, mobile friendliness, content match, trust signals.

Fixing expected CTR

Expected CTR is a forecast. To move it you need historical CTR on tightly themed ad groups — which means fewer keywords per ad group, not more. The single biggest QS lever for most accounts is splitting bloated ad groups into themed pods of 5–15 keywords each.

Ad relevance

RSAs should hit Ad Strength: Excellent. That requires using all 15 headline slots, including the keyword in at least three of them, and pinning sparingly. Ad relevance is roughly the cosine similarity between query, headline and description text — make them point at the same intent.

Landing page experience

This is where most accounts hemorrhage QS. A page passes if it: loads under 2.5s on mobile (LCP), has a heading that mentions the query, has a visible CTA above the fold, and isn't a generic homepage. The homepage almost never wins on intent — build dedicated LPs per ad group.

The 10/10 checklist

• Ad groups: 5–15 closely related keywords each
• RSAs at Ad Strength: Excellent, keyword in 3+ headlines
• Dedicated landing page per ad group — not the homepage
• Mobile LCP under 2.5s on a mid-tier Android
• H1 mentions the primary keyword verbatim
• Conversion tracking matched to the LP CTA