This bit definitely isn't true. Quality score is one secondary factor in the PPC auction. The primary factor is your bid amount. Even if we positively impacted the quality score (which we won't) their ads might gain one position. They don't automatically jump to position 1 because a few people clicked on them.
Google also monitors things like bounce-back - people who click on an ad and then bounce straight back to the search results, which tells Google the ad isn't relevant. That's essentially what we're doing.
If we inadvertently
I don't want to get into an argument about this. But... Quality Score and Ad Quality are not just secondary factors in the auction. They are a key component of Ad Rank and Actual Cost Per Click.
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6297?hl=en-GB
If an ad starts to get consistently higher CTR, then it will be deemed higher quality and more relevant. This could result in a position boost and reduction in CPC premium. I never suggested it would rocket them into position 1 on the page, but I would argue any increase, no matter how small, is counter to the motivation for doing this in the first place.
Also Bounce Rate is not a factor in Ad Quality. Google took a stance on this as its a misleading metric. If someone goes to a website and immediately finds what they are looking for and leaves, that's a bounce - and its not an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevance. Some (non-Google) people suggest that it factors into Landing Page Experience, but there is no evidence to suggest this is true, and no documentation from Google Ads suggesting it to be the case. CTR is however a major factor in calculating Quality Score and Ad Quality, as stated in some of the Google Ads articles I shared earlier.
I wholeheartedly and genuinely think this will be a futile exercise.
Anyway, Paid Search debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe we start another thread in Chat or PM me?
So let's say the avg. cost per click for SD is £0.50 and by improving their ad quality (which won't happen) we take their avg. cost per click down to £0.40.
We're still going to be costing Sd 40p every time we click on the ads and the idea is to use up their daily budget so the ads won't show, so it makes no difference anyway.
I work with pay per click on a daily basis and believe me, ad quality and quality don't have that big an impact on ad position. Google is a business, they want money so your bid amount is by far the biggest factor they look at
OK. Last thing from me.
If we use your example and flesh it out a bit more.
Let's hypothetically say we're talking about the keyword "rugby ball".
Let's say in a typical week 2000 people click on the SD ad for "rugby ball". And it originally costs £0.50. That's a weekly cost of 2000*0.50 = £1000 on that keyword.
Let's now say we manage to artificially inflate those 2000 clicks to say 2100 people clicking fraudulently, increasing CTR and reducing CPC down to £0.40. Then their weekly cost becomes 2100*0.40 = £840. So even though those 100 additional clicks don't lead to any additional sales, you've made their activity more efficient.
That's a hypothetical situation, I understand that. But it's totally plausible in the Google Ads set up, and its something I've seen a lot (but with legitimate reasons for increased clicks). Google are indeed a business, but they want Advertiser's money - and they will only continue to get that as long as Google Ads provides value for them, they are not interested in inflating costs for short term gains.
I too work on Paid Search for a living. Maybe PM me and we can have a chat about it. I might even be able to save you some money! Ha!
If none of us here have been clicking on their ads and now we are, we are costing them £1000 that (if your calculations are correct) could drop to £840, but firstly that's probably money they weren't spending before and secondly by using up the budget with no intention to buy anything we are stopping them from generating revenue through their paid ads for the whole day (assuming we can use up their daily budget). That's the only equation you need to know. You're massively overcomplicating something that is very simple.
You think we'd be the only people clicking the ads? There's plenty of people clicking them who are actually interested in buying from them. Their CPC will also be lower is the point he's making.
That said without knowing the numbers it's all guesswork.
