The overall score that determines an ad's position in an auction-based ad platform, typically calculated from a combination of bid amount, quality score, and other contextual signals.
Why it matters
Ad rank is what actually determines placement — a higher bid alone doesn't guarantee a better position if quality score and other signals are weak, which is why two advertisers with different bids can end up in a different order than the raw bid amounts alone would suggest.
In a sentence
"Even with a lower bid than our competitor, our ad rank was higher because of a stronger quality score, so we still won the better position."
Related terms
- Often confused with: Quality score (see above — quality score is one input into the ad rank calculation, not the full calculation itself).