Google Ads Switcheroo: Why High-Quality Search Ads May Cost You More

Recent trends in Google Ads are raising concerns here at Ad House Advertising regarding cost increases for well-written and high-ranking ads. Historically, advertisers were rewarded for high-quality ads with better ad placements at lower costs due to Google’s emphasis on ad relevance, user experience, and quality scores. One of Google’s core philosophies has always been to develop a better “user experience” for people searching for products and services— and advertisers would be rewarded with lower costs for following the rules.

Previous Google Criteria

Here are some of Google’s (previous) core concepts:

Relevance: Providing search results that are closely aligned with what users are looking for.

Quality Content: Ensuring that the content shown in search results is high quality and trustworthy.

User-Friendly Interfaces: Designing search tools and interfaces that are intuitive and easy to use.

But now, the landscape appears to be evolving even further away from those guiding principles, and here’s how:

Google Ads uses a highly subjective Quality Score system to determine the relevance and quality of our ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher Quality Scores historically resulted in lower costs per click (CPC) and better ad positions, and we were rewarded for those actions. That was our goal—lower costs and increased conversion activity.

What’s Changed in Search

Now, the increasing reliance on AI-driven bidding strategies, such as Target CPA (cost per acquisition) and Target ROAS (return on ad spend), is designed to optimize bids for better performance, but can have the opposite effect.

Google’s algorithms are meant to maximize conversions and/or conversion value—based on the bidding method we choose. However, those methods can sometimes result in higher bids for ads that are more likely to convert. This shift means that well-crafted, high-ranking ads can actually see higher costs as the system optimizes for conversion performance or conversion volume​—so be careful.

The solution to the problem is that effective budget management and continuous monitoring are crucial to navigating these changes. Ad House Advertising strongly urges other agencies and businesses owners who run their own Google Ads to monitor their accounts daily. Algorithm changes happen often now and typically without notice. Those changes almost always negatively affect accounts.

While Google Ads continues to invoke AI, the cost for high-quality ads is also shifting. Advertisers need to stay vigilant and adapt their strategies to ensure they continue to achieve their advertising goals efficiently. If you’re tired of fighting the changes in your Google Ads campaign and would rather focus on your business operations, give us a call. We can document how our management fee is more than covered by the changes we make in saving your ad dollars and making them produce more for your business. Whether you’re in beautiful New Mexico and one of our neighbors or located across the country, we can help.