The main factors for Quality Score haven’t changed in a few years. The application of those factors have changed over time with the two most notable changes being:

• Landing pages changes in October 2011
• User interface refresh in April 2012

Google recently updated the Quality Score algo to take into account the ad’s performance on a device:

• Desktops/laptops
• Tablets
• Mobile phones

So, if you have a campaign targeted to all devices, you’re not really seeing your Quality Score as it relates to each device.

I’m a huge fan of segmenting campaigns by devices, assuming you’re not making so many campaigns that you thin your budget too much and spend more time in budget management than in AdWords optimization.

If you can’t split out your campaigns by device; then you can at least segment CTRs by devices by using the segment feature.

Once you segment by device, you can quickly see at a campaign or ad group level if you have large differences in CTR (and for optimization, conversion rates and CPAs) by device:

If you start to see differences; then you can even segment the ads themselves by device type:

In many ways, this change should only force you to make better decisions with your ads and landing pages by device type. User behavior is different on a phone versus a desktop; and the landing pages need to be different as well (unless you have a very nice responsive web design) based upon that behavior.

What’s really being obfuscated here is that you might have an ‘average’ landing page; but its really above average on a laptop and below average on a phone; but you just see the combined results.

If are advertising on multiple device types and you haven’t segmented your campaigns by device yet; then it might be time to put that change on the agenda.

Note for Premium Members: The Quality Score videos are already being refreshed and this new data will be in the video updates very soon.