What is Ad Rank in Google Ads, and how do I improve it?

Google calls Ad Rank a formula, and its help pages print no equation for it. They list what goes into it. Its page on Ad Rank says the scores are based on six factors:

• Your bid. It’s the maximum you’re willing to pay for a click, and what you end up paying is often less.
• The quality of your ads and landing page. Google assesses how useful and relevant the ad and the page are, whether the page is what the ad led people to expect, and how easy it is to navigate.
• The Ad Rank thresholds. Google sets minimums an ad must reach to show, which the next section covers.
• The competitiveness of the auction. Two ads with similar Ad Ranks have a similar chance at a position. As the gap between them grows, the higher one is more likely to win it.
• The context of the search. Google looks at the search terms, where the person is, the device, the time, the other ads and results on the page, and other signals about the user.
• The expected impact of your assets and other ad formats. Google estimates what the sitelinks, phone numbers and other assets you’ve added will do for the ad, from their relevance, their clickthrough rates and how prominent they’d be on the page.

The pages give the factors and no weights, so there is no Ad Rank calculation you can do by hand. If you’ve seen it written as your bid multiplied by your Quality Score, Google’s help pages give no such sum, and its definition of Quality Score says the score is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank. What the auction uses is quality measured at that moment: Google names expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience as auction-time measurements, among other factors.

Two things follow. The bid is one factor of six, and Google says that even if your competition bids higher than you, you can still win a higher position at a lower price with highly relevant keywords and ads. And three of the six, the competition, the context and the thresholds, change with every search, which is why a figure for one keyword over 30 days is always an average of many auctions.

An Ad Rank threshold is the minimum an ad must reach to show in a position. Google says thresholds determine your ability to compete in an auction at all, and that it sets them to help ensure high quality ads. Like Ad Rank, a threshold is set at the time of each auction. Google names four things it moves with:

• Your ad quality. Lower quality ads have higher thresholds.
• The position. Ads that appear higher on the page have higher thresholds than ads lower down. Google says the thresholds to appear among top ads are generally greater than those to appear elsewhere, which is why top ads typically cost more a click.
• Who is searching. Thresholds can vary with the user’s location, country by country, and with the device, mobile against desktop.
• What is searched. Google’s example is that thresholds for wedding-related searches may differ from those for basket-weaving classes.

A threshold is also a floor under your price. If yours is the only ad eligible to show, you pay the reserve price: the threshold, rounded up to the smallest amount your country bills in, the next penny in the US. So an ad can be relatively expensive with no ad immediately below it, Google says, depending on its quality and its thresholds.

Google’s help pages give no figure for any threshold, and none of the pages read names a column that reports one. What you can read is what a threshold leaves behind: the searches a keyword loses to rank, and the bid Google estimates a position takes.

Your bid is the most you’ll pay, and Ad Rank sets what you do pay. The actual CPC is the final amount you’re charged for a click. Google says you pay only what’s minimally required to clear the Ad Rank thresholds and beat the Ad Rank of the competitor immediately below you. With no competitor below you, you pay the reserve price.

The example is worked in Ad Ranks, not in money. Google’s help pages give no actual CPC formula that turns one into the other, and name no report of another advertiser’s Ad Rank. Three things they do say:

• Quality lowers the price. Google says higher quality ads can often lead to lower CPCs. With low quality ads, it says, your actual CPC may be close to your maximum CPC even when there’s little competition for the search.
• The top costs more. The actual CPC above the search results is often higher than below them, even with no other advertiser immediately below you, because the thresholds there are typically higher.
• A wide lead costs more too. As the gap in Ad Rank between two ads grows, the higher one is more likely to win and may pay a higher cost per click for that certainty. So your price is influenced by the competitors below the one immediately below you as well.

Your account shows the result in the Avg. CPC column. Under Manual CPC a click won’t cost more than your maximum CPC bid, and Google names three things that can take the bid past it: Enhanced CPC, bid adjustments and manual bidding for search partners. The keyword guide covers a cost per click that climbs.

The two get mixed up because both are about quality. Quality Score is a diagnostic: a figure from 1 to 10 on each keyword, meant to give you a sense of how your ad quality compares with other advertisers’. Ad Rank is what the auction runs on. Google is plain about the line between them: Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction.

Google’s page on ads quality puts it as the difference between auction-time quality and the 1 to 10 number in your account. The number rests on past impressions for searches that exactly match your keyword, with each of its three components rated against other advertisers’ ads for the same search over the last 90 days. The auction measures quality for the search in front of it. Google lists things the score might not capture: the device, the user’s location, the time of day and your assets.

So use the score the way Google asks: to diagnose low quality ads, not as a number to optimize. It is still worth acting on. Google says higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions, and the score says which of the three parts to look at first. The low Quality Score guide works through each part.

None of Google’s help pages read for this guide names a column that reports Ad Rank. They point at what it produces, and those figures are in your tables:

• Where your ads showed. Impr. (Top) % is the percent of your ad impressions shown among the top ads, and Impr. (Abs. Top) % the percent shown as the very first of them. Google’s page on Ad Rank sends you to these two to see where your ads sit on the page.
• What rank lost you. Search lost IS (rank) is the percentage of time your ads weren’t shown on the Search Network because of poor Ad Rank. Search lost top impression share (rank) and Search lost absolute top impression share (rank) estimate how often the ad wasn’t among the top ads, or wasn’t the first of them, for the same reason.
• What a position would take. For each keyword Google estimates three bids: Est. first page bid, Est. top of page bid and Est. first pos. bid. Each is the bid you likely need for that position on a search that matches the keyword exactly.
• Whether a keyword is held back. In the Status column, a keyword marked Eligible (limited) for Below first page bid estimate is active and, Google says, isn’t currently showing ads on the first page, likely due to Ad Rank. Rarely shown due to low Quality Score is the same column’s reason for a keyword that isn’t showing ads often.
• The quality behind it. The Quality Score columns show it for each keyword: Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad relevance and Landing page exp.
• Who ranks above you. The Auction insights report compares your ads with the other advertisers in the same auctions. The Auction insights guide reads it column by column.

Three limits are worth knowing before you read them. Search partners are left out of the top metrics, since they don’t tell the top of a page from the rest. Google says the top of page and first position estimates aren’t available for campaigns using automated bidding or ad scheduling: on those, read the top metrics and the shares lost to rank. And Google leaves Search lost IS (rank) off the ad groups table if the campaign ran out of budget at any point in the date range.

Search lost IS (rank) also doesn’t count every search you missed. Impression share covers the auctions your ad showed in and those where it was competitive enough to show. Google’s example includes an auction your ad could have shown in at twice its bid, and leaves out one where it would have needed a 1,000% bid increase. So the column counts the searches within reach, and a keyword with a low Ad Rank on most of its searches can read better than it is.

For a campaign on Manual CPC, three sets of columns side by side say where each keyword’s Ad Rank falls short, and whether the bid or the quality is behind it.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords and set the date range to the last 30 days.
2. 02Select the columns icon above the table, then Modify columns. From Attributes add Est. first page bid and Est. top of page bid.
3. 03Open the Quality score section and add Quality Score, with Exp. CTR, Ad relevance and Landing page exp.
4. 04Open Competitive metrics and tick Search impr. share. Add Search lost IS (rank) and Impr. (Top) % too: typing a column’s name in the search box finds it. Select Apply.
5. 05Read each keyword’s Max. CPC against its two estimates. Under the first page estimate, the ad is less likely to show on the first page for a search that matches the keyword exactly. Over it and under the top of page estimate, it’s less likely to show among the top ads.
6. 06Read Search lost IS (rank) and Impr. (Top) % beside them: how often the ad missed the search altogether, and how many of the impressions it did get were among the top ads.
7. 07Where an estimate stands far above your other keywords’, read Quality Score before the bid.

• [solid wood bookcase] bids over both estimates, and it shows. 88% of its impressions were among the top ads, and it lost 6% of its searches to rank.
• [oak bookcase] and [cheap bookcase] reach the first page and miss the top. Each bids between its two estimates, loses few searches to rank (12% and 15%), and shows among the top ads on about a third of its impressions. Search lost IS (rank) can’t see this: it counts the searches an ad missed, and these ads showed, lower down.
• [corner bookcase] bids under the first page. Its $0.80 is under an estimate of $1.05, and it lost 71% of its searches to rank.
• [bookcase] is the one a bid won’t fix. Its first page estimate, $2.90, is more than double any other keyword’s, and its Quality Score is 3, with expected clickthrough rate and ad relevance both rated below average. Google says a very high first page estimate may mean the quality of your ads and website is poor. Here the columns agree.

An estimate says what a position costs, not whether it pays. Before you raise a bid to one, put what each keyword cost and brought beside it, with the campaign’s own row from the Campaigns table.

• [oak bookcase] has earned the top of the page. It returns 10.81 on 4 conversions, more than the campaign’s 8.04, and its top of page estimate is under the $1.75 the campaign already pays for a click.
• [cheap bookcase] hasn’t. It has spent $67.20 and sold nothing, where a conversion costs the campaign $54.50. A dearer position would buy more of the clicks that haven’t paid.
• [corner bookcase] is worth the first page. Its 9 clicks say nothing yet, but the campaign pays its way, and the first page estimate is under what the campaign’s clicks cost now.
• [bookcase] isn’t worth its estimate. $2.90 for the first page is well over what the campaign pays for a click. Its ad and its page are the place to start.

To raise the bids, tick the keywords, select Edit, then Change max. CPC bids, and choose to raise them to the first page or top of page CPC. Then give it a week and read the same columns again. Google calls the estimates a guide: meeting one isn’t a guarantee of placement, which still depends on the competition, your Ad Rank, your budget and settings, and how people search. The keyword bidding guide works the same five keywords from the other end: what a click is worth, and so the most each bid can be.

To increase Ad Rank, Google names two ways: improve the quality of your ads and landing page experience, or increase your bid. The first leaves your bid where it is, and Google says higher quality can lower what a click costs. Four things its pages name:

• Fix the part Google rates below average. For ad relevance, match the language of the ad more directly to the search terms, and split an ad group whose keywords one ad can’t answer. For expected clickthrough rate, make the offer more compelling and more specific. For landing page experience, give people what they searched for, on a page that loads quickly and works on a phone. The low Quality Score guide and the landing page experience guide cover each.
• Add assets. Their expected impact is one of the six factors, and Google’s tips for a top spot name creating ads with assets, such as sitelinks. Google also says you can often get more clicks for less money from additional assets than from a higher position. The sitelinks and callouts guide covers finding the campaigns without them.
• Keep keywords, ads and pages about the same thing. Google says ads that aren’t relevant to what people search for might still show, but they won’t get as many clicks and may have a high CPC.
• Look at the phone. Google takes the user’s device into account when it calculates ad quality, and says to make sure your site is easy to use on mobile.

Google is as plain about what doesn’t change your ad quality. Restructuring the account doesn’t: moving keywords to a new ad group or campaign without changing the ad or the landing page has no effect on their quality. Nor does showing on search partners or the Display Network, a higher position on the page, how often your ads show, or the conversions you report. And a bid may raise your Ad Rank, but it doesn’t change Google’s assessment of your ad quality.

Where the bid is the right lever, how you reach it depends on who sets it. Under Manual CPC it’s the step above: Google says raising your max. CPC will probably increase your ad’s chances of appearing. The bid simulator, the icon in the Max. CPC column, estimates what a different bid would have brought over the previous 7 days. Under automated bidding Google sets the bid in each auction, and what you can move is the target: the Auction insights guide covers that, and the search impression share guide a whole campaign with a low Ad Rank.

Goldbeater reads the same columns, for every enabled keyword, every day. Where a campaign bids with Manual CPC, it sets each keyword’s maximum CPC against the two estimates Google gives it, and raises a bid under an estimate only where the position looks worth its price.

A keyword bid too low to show among the top ads is one whose maximum CPC is at or over the first page estimate and under the top of page one. Goldbeater raises it where the campaign has 5 or more conversions in the last 30 days, is at least as efficient as the median of your other campaigns, and already pays the estimate or more for a click on average. The keyword itself must not be losing money: if it converted, at no worse than that median (or than its own campaign, where you have no other); if it hasn’t, having spent less than a conversion costs its campaign. A bid of the currency’s smallest amount is left alone, as parked on purpose.

The finding reads low. Goldbeater drafts the bid at the estimate, where that is no more than double today’s bid, and you can set it anywhere up to double before you approve it. The raise is recommended where the keyword has converted, and offered without a recommendation where it hasn’t. Beside the estimates it shows the share of the keyword’s impressions that were among the top ads, and doesn’t judge by it: the estimate is for a search that matches the keyword exactly, and the share counts every search it showed on.

That is the marked keyword from the tables above: its $1.40, its two estimates, its 31% among the top ads and the campaign’s $1.75 a click are the tables’ figures. It converted 4 times, so the raise is the recommended change. [cheap bookcase] sits between the same two estimates and raises nothing: it has spent more than a conversion costs the campaign, for none.

The same rows raise two more findings. A keyword bid too low to reach the first page is a Manual CPC keyword whose maximum CPC is under the first page estimate, in a campaign at least as efficient as the median of your others that already pays the estimate or more for a click on average, where the keyword itself isn’t losing money. [corner bookcase] is one, and Goldbeater drafts its bid at $1.05. [bookcase] isn’t: its estimate is more than the campaign pays for a click, so it isn’t raised. Its ad group raises a quality finding instead, since Google rates expected clickthrough rate and ad relevance below average on all of its spend.

Four more checks read what Ad Rank leaves behind, each shown in the guide about it:

• A keyword converting well, losing searches to ad rank. Goldbeater raises a keyword with five or more conversions in 30 days that lost 20% or more of its searches to rank, where it converts at least as well as its campaign, isn’t under its campaign’s target, and sits in a campaign at least as efficient as the median of your others. Under Manual CPC it drafts the bid 20% higher, and a keyword it does that for is left out of the top of page finding. Otherwise it names the lever. The Auction insights guide shows it.
• A campaign converting well, losing searches to ad rank. Goldbeater raises a campaign that lost 20% or more of its searches to rank, and more than to budget, while converting better than your typical campaign by more than chance explains, where it has a target or manual bids to move. The search impression share guide shows it.
• A brand campaign losing the top spot. Goldbeater raises a brand campaign that showed first on a smaller share of its searches than in any of its weeks before, and on under three quarters of what those weeks held, or that paid a quarter more a click. The branded keywords guide shows it.
• Ads and landing pages Google rates below average. Goldbeater raises an ad group where keywords rated below average on expected clickthrough rate or ad relevance carry more than half the spend of its rated keywords, and a landing page where more than half the spend reaching it comes from keywords rated below average on landing page experience, each on at least $20 in 30 days. The low Quality Score guide shows it.

Every line Goldbeater checks is in the audit checklist.

What is Ad Rank in Google Ads?

A set of values Google calculates in every auction to decide whether your ad is eligible to show and, if it is, where on the page it shows relative to other advertisers’ ads. It’s calculated twice in each auction, once for eligibility and once for position, and again for every search.

How is Ad Rank calculated?

Google’s help pages list six factors and print no equation: your bid, the quality of your ads and landing page, the Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of the auction, the context of the search, and the expected impact of your assets and other ad formats. Quality is measured at the time of the auction, and Google says the 1 to 10 Quality Score isn’t used then.

What’s the difference between Ad Rank and Quality Score?

Ad Rank is calculated in every auction and decides whether and where your ad shows. Quality Score is a diagnostic from 1 to 10 on each keyword, built from past impressions. Google says Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction and is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank.

Can I see my Ad Rank in Google Ads?

Google’s help pages name no column that reports it. They point to its effects: Impr. (Top) % and Impr. (Abs. Top) % for where your ads showed, Search lost IS (rank) for the searches missed on rank, the first page and top of page bid estimates for each keyword, and the Quality Score columns.

Does the highest bid always get the top position?

No. The bid is one of six factors. Google says that even if your competition bids higher than you, you can still win a higher position at a lower price with highly relevant keywords and ads.

What are the first page and top of page bid estimates?

Google’s estimates of the bid you likely need for your ad to show anywhere on the first page of results, or among the top ads, on a search that exactly matches the keyword. They rest on the keyword’s Quality Score and recent competition, and Google calls them a guide, not a guarantee. It says the top of page estimate isn’t available for campaigns using automated bidding or ad scheduling.

What happened to average position in Google Ads?

In February 2019 Google said it planned to sunset average position in September of that year, and pointed advertisers to the top and absolute top metrics. Google says those describe where your ads actually sit on the page, where average position gave their order among other ads.