Ad Strength is not Ad Rank

Don't confuse Ad Strength with Ad Rank in Google Ads.

Let’s clear it up:

Ad Rank is what decides if you show up and how much you pay. It’s based on:
👉 Max CPC
👉 Quality Score (CTR, relevance, landing page)
👉 Auction-time signals

Ad Strength is just a pre-launch guideline: a diagnostic score for your ad copy and assets.
👉 It’s not used in the auction.
👉 It doesn’t affect your rank.
👉 It’s NOT Quality Score.
👉 An "Excellent" score doesn't even matter (see this article from Search Engine Land)

Obsessing over going from "Good" to "Excellent" in Ad Strength? Cool, but irrelevant unless it actually lifts performance.

Optimize for actual auction outcomes:
👉 better CTRs
👉 higher Quality Score
👉 more relevance

Not for a label Google gives your headline variety.

TL;DR: Ad Strength is a suggestion.
Ad Rank is the scoreboard.