Does Google Ads Ad Strength Actually Matter? A Data-Driven Breakdown
When you create responsive search ads in Google Ads, you’ll notice Google constantly grading your ads in real time. As you add headlines and descriptions, you’ll see an Ad Strength score ranging from Poor to Excellent.
For many advertisers, this raises an important question:
Should you actually care about Ad Strength?
Google strongly encourages advertisers to aim for an “Excellent” score, but does achieving it genuinely improve campaign performance, or is it simply another recommendation from Google that doesn’t always translate into better results?
In this article, we’ll break down:
- What Ad Strength is
- How Google calculates it
- The factors influencing your score
- Whether Ad Strength impacts conversions and ROAS
- What real-world data says about its importance
What Is Google Ads Ad Strength?
Ad Strength is a real-time quality rating Google applies to responsive search ads.
As you build your ad, Google evaluates the quality and variety of your headlines and descriptions and assigns one of four ratings:
- Poor
- Average
- Good
- Excellent
The purpose of the score is to encourage advertisers to create more varied, relevant, and flexible ad copy that Google’s machine learning system can mix and match.
However, many advertisers experience frustration when ads they believe are strong still receive mediocre scores.
That’s because Google isn’t judging your ad based purely on persuasive copywriting. Instead, it evaluates ads against a specific set of criteria.
The Four Factors That Influence Ad Strength
According to the transcript, Google’s Ad Strength system is primarily driven by four key elements.
1. Number of Headlines and Descriptions
Responsive search ads allow up to:
- 15 headlines
- 4 descriptions
Google generally rewards advertisers who maximise these available assets.
The more headlines and descriptions you add, the more combinations Google can test automatically.
But More Isn’t Always Better
This is where many advertisers go wrong.
Often, the first few headlines are high quality and strategically written. But as advertisers try to fill all 15 headline slots, quality can decline rapidly.
You may end up with:
- Repetitive messaging
- Weak filler headlines
- Generic statements
- Low-impact copy added purely to improve Ad Strength
In some cases, adding too many mediocre assets can actually reduce performance rather than improve it.
Best Practice
If you’re going to maximise all headline and description slots:
- Take your time
- Ensure every asset is meaningful
- Avoid filler content
- Focus on quality over quantity
2. Variety and Uniqueness of Messaging
Google also evaluates how different your headlines and descriptions are from one another.
For example, these headlines may technically differ:
- Fast UK Delivery
- Free UK Delivery
- Delivery Nationwide
But Google sees these as repetitive because they communicate essentially the same benefit.
Instead, Google prefers a wider range of messaging angles such as:
- Pricing benefits
- Trust signals
- Guarantees
- Product quality
- Speed
- Customer support
- Experience
- Social proof
Why This Matters
Unique messaging gives Google more creative combinations to test and can potentially improve click-through rate.
It also forces advertisers to think more deeply about their unique selling propositions rather than repeating the same benefit multiple times.
3. Pinning vs Unpinning Assets
Google strongly prefers advertisers to leave headlines and descriptions unpinned.
Pinning allows you to force specific headlines or descriptions into fixed positions within the ad.
For example:
- Pinning a headline to Position 1
- Locking a brand name into every ad variation
- Ensuring compliance messaging always appears
However, pinning reduces Google’s ability to dynamically test combinations, which lowers your Ad Strength score.
The Trade-Off
Pinning gives advertisers:
- Greater control
- Consistent messaging
- Better brand positioning
But it reduces machine learning flexibility.
This creates one of the biggest debates in Google Ads optimisation.
4. Keyword Relevance
Google also checks whether your targeted keywords appear within your ad copy.
This is arguably the most useful aspect of Ad Strength.
Including keywords inside ads can improve:
- Ad relevance
- Quality Score
- Click-through rate
- User experience
If someone searches for a phrase and sees that exact phrase reflected in the ad, the ad naturally feels more relevant.
This is one area where Google’s recommendation aligns strongly with established PPC best practices.
Google’s Claim About Ad Strength
Google states that advertisers who improve Ad Strength from “Poor” to “Excellent” can see up to 12% more conversions.
At first glance, this sounds compelling.
But there’s an important detail worth questioning:
Google specifically references improvement from Poor to Excellent.
They don’t provide equivalent figures for:
- Average to Excellent
- Good to Excellent
- Poor to Good
This raises concerns that the statistic may be highly selective or “cherry-picked”.
The real question is:
What does independent performance data actually show?
Real-World Data: Over 1 Million Ads Analysed
PPC software company Optmyzr analysed over 1 million ads across managed accounts to evaluate whether Ad Strength truly correlates with performance.
The findings were surprisingly revealing.
Does Higher Ad Strength Improve ROAS?
According to the data:
- Ads with Poor Ad Strength achieved an average ROAS of 195%
- Ads with Excellent Ad Strength achieved an average ROAS of 176%
In other words:
Poor-rated ads actually outperformed Excellent-rated ads in return on ad spend.
This is significant because if Ad Strength strongly predicted success, the opposite should happen consistently.
Interestingly, ads with an “Average” score delivered the highest ROAS overall in the study.
What This Suggests
Ad Strength alone is not a reliable predictor of profitability.
Strong commercial messaging and strategic positioning may matter far more than satisfying Google’s scoring system.
What About Conversion Rate?
The study also examined conversion rates.
Results showed:
- Poor Ad Strength: 6.98% conversion rate
- Excellent Ad Strength: 6.95% conversion rate
That difference is effectively negligible.
While some mid-range scores performed slightly better, the overall variation was small enough to fall within a typical margin of error.
Key Takeaway
There was no meaningful evidence that achieving an Excellent Ad Strength score consistently improves conversion rates.
The One Metric Ad Strength Did Improve
Where Excellent Ad Strength did show improvement was click-through rate (CTR).
Ads with Excellent scores achieved slightly higher CTRs on average.
This makes sense because:
- More asset variety creates broader appeal
- Google can test more combinations
- Diverse messaging can attract more clicks
However, higher CTR alone does not guarantee:
- More conversions
- Better ROAS
- Lower CPA
And those are the metrics most advertisers truly care about.
The Pinning Debate: What the Data Shows
One of the most interesting parts of the analysis involved pinned versus unpinned assets.
ROAS Findings
Accounts that pinned some or all content often achieved stronger ROAS than accounts with fully unpinned ads.
This directly contradicts Google’s recommendation to avoid pinning.
Conversion Rate Findings
However, conversion rate data painted a more mixed picture:
- Fully unpinned ads achieved better conversion rates in some cases
- Fully pinned ads often had the highest CPA
This suggests that pinning is highly context-dependent.
So, Should You Care About Ad Strength?
The answer is:
Yes — but only to a point.
Ad Strength should be treated as a guideline, not a primary optimisation target.
What You Should Pay Attention To
1. Keyword Relevance
Ensure your ads reflect the keywords you’re targeting.
This improves:
- Relevance
- Quality Score
- User trust
2. Strong Unique Selling Points
Focus on messaging that genuinely differentiates your business.
3. Testing Pinning Strategically
Don’t blindly follow Google’s anti-pinning advice.
Test:
- Fully pinned ads
- Partially pinned ads
- Fully flexible ads
Then compare:
- ROAS
- CPA
- Conversion rate
- Lead quality
Final Thoughts
Ad Strength is not completely useless, but it is also not the powerful performance indicator Google sometimes suggests it is.
The real-world data shows:
- Excellent Ad Strength does not guarantee better ROAS
- Conversion rates remain largely unchanged
- CTR may improve slightly
- Pinning can still perform extremely well despite lowering Ad Strength
Ultimately, you understand your business, audience, and offers better than Google’s automated scoring system ever will.
Use Ad Strength as a helpful reference point — not as the ultimate goal.
Your focus should always remain on:
- Conversion performance
- Profitability
- Lead quality
- Commercial results
Because at the end of the day, an “Excellent” Ad Strength score means very little if the campaign itself isn’t generating profitable outcomes.
