Ad Strength in Google Ads: What it truly entails, what it isn't, and how to enhance your performance

By Elena Rodriguez

Performance Marketing Specialists Reviewed by Senior Media Buyers

Published July 17, 2026

Published 7 May 2026, 8 min read Strategy

Ad Strength Ad Strength serves as Google's diagnostic tool for responsive search ads. It assigns a rating to every RSA across five levels: Incomplete, Poor, Average, Good, or Excellent. Google explicitly states that Ad Strength is a recommendation, not a ranking factor. However, accounts that improve from an Average to Excellent rating commonly see a 5 to 10% uplift in conversions. Here's how to get all your RSAs to 'Excellent'.

What Ad Strength Really Measures

Ad Strength assesses your responsive search ad across four key dimensions. The overall rating is then determined by whichever component scores the lowest.

• Number of headlines There's a significant difference between using all 15 headlines compared to just three.
• Headline uniqueness Headlines that are merely obvious paraphrases will be penalised. Every headline should instead offer a distinct perspective.
• Keyword inclusion This refers to whether your headlines and descriptions incorporate the targeted keyword or its central concept.
• Number and uniqueness of descriptions For example, four distinct descriptions compared to two very similar ones.

How to Consistently Achieve an Excellent Rating

1. Use all 15 headlines Never launch an RSA with anything less.
2. Aim to incorporate four distinct perspectives throughout your headlines: Focus on benefit-led, feature-led, social proof, and a clear call to action (CTA). Each of these should feature in at least three headlines.
3. Pin with strategy, but keep it minimal. Only pin headlines when it's legally or factually essential. Every pinned headline restricts Google's capacity to test different combinations effectively.
4. Use all 4 descriptions Keep each description to roughly 85 characters, ensuring a unique angle for every one.
5. Ensure your primary keyword features in two or three headlines and a single description. Steer clear of cramming it into every headline; that just invites a redundancy penalty.
6. Bolster your ads with asset-level extensions. Sitelinks (complete with descriptions), callouts, structured snippets, image assets, lead forms, and price extensions all work together to seriously amp up your ad strength at the campaign level.

When to Set Ad Strength Aside

• Should your campaign face strict pinning for legal or regulatory reasons (think financial services or healthcare claims, for example), your Ad Strength score may well dip, but ultimately, it's the performance that truly matters.
• Brand campaigns, particularly those with a tightly controlled message, often register an 'Average' score yet convert at 50% or more. That's absolutely fine.
• Where keyword sets are low-volume and you've only got one viable call to action, an 'Average' rating is perfectly sound.
• Should your conversions be robust and your CPC steady, there's no need to chase an 'Excellent' rating if it means sacrificing control over your message.

Frequent Ad Strength Blunders

• Opting for just 3-5 headlines because knocking out 15 feels like a chore. (You're effectively tossing away 10-15% of your potential performance.)
• Copying the same offer into every single headline, which Google will promptly flag as redundant.
• Pinning over three headlines, which completely stifles Google's capacity to test various combinations.
• Overlooking the description field; these are every bit as important as headlines if you're aiming for an 'Excellent' rating.
• Permitting ad strength to sit at 'Poor' for months on end simply because no one bothered to make it an audit metric.

Ad Strength is essentially a one-off setup. Dedicate 20 minutes to bring every active RSA up to 'Excellent', then make it a monthly audit. That performance boost quietly builds across thousands of impressions.