Google has spent years telling PPC managers that ad strength is a workbench guide, not an auction lever. A new study across more than 5,900 Google Ads accounts suggests the label is quietly driving which responsive search ad actually gets served.
The traffic split
Brad Geddes, co-founder of Adalysis, isolated ad groups running two RSAs with different ad strength ratings.
The higher-rated ad won the impression battle 63% of the time. An Excellent ad beat a Poor ad in 78% of ad groups. Even a one-step gap, Good versus Average, went to the higher-rated ad 59% of the time.
Where the labels stop predicting
Performance tells a messier story. The higher-rated ad posted a better CTR in only 52.5% of ad groups, and a better conversion rate in just 45%. On conversions per 1,000 impressions, the lower-rated ad won 54.3% of the time.
Cost is the sharper warning. Across all ad groups, higher-rated RSAs ran an 11.8% higher CPA. Geddes frames it simply: a lower-rated ad at $100 CPA would compete against a higher-rated rival at $111.80.
As Geddes puts it:
“Google will serve the higher-rated ad more often, even if it has a worse conversion rate or CPI.”
Pinning is the hidden variable
The lower-rated ads are often pinned on purpose. You pin a price, a disclaimer or a qualifier to filter clicks, not chase them. Ad strength rewards variety and keyword coverage, so a pre-qualifying pinned ad gets a lower score while doing the real job.
Unpinned ads behave differently: CTR and CPI climb with each step up in ad strength. So the honest summary isn’t that the metric is useless. It predicts well when you let Google’s system run free, and badly when you’ve deliberately overridden it.
- Unpinned: around seven assets can reach Good; plan at least 11 distinct headlines for Excellent.
- Pinned: minimum assets to reach Good jumps to 10, and pinning two positions usually caps an ad at Good.
- Workaround: pin three or more different assets in the same position to leave room for Excellent.
What to change this week
Start by sorting RSAs by pinning status, not by the rating. Tag each ad as unpinned, partly pinned or fully pinned in Google Ads Editor or a report export. The score means something different in each group.
Push unpinned ads to Excellent with variety, not volume: mix keywords, benefits, features, calls to action and authority lines. Rebuild pinned ads by removing pins, building to Excellent, then re-pinning and adding assets until the rating lands at Average or Good. Judge tests on CPI and CPA, and give lower-rated ads more time because they collect fewer impressions.
Geddes closes with a thought every manager should keep handy: “often, the human ability to create compelling ads will outperform the machine’s ability to serve the ads properly.”
The machine still decides how often your best human-written ad gets seen. Treat ad strength as a traffic allocator you have to manage, not a score you have to win.
Source: Search Engine Journal
