Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described. A method may include measuring channel quality of a reference signal communicated via a control channel, determining a code rate for a control channel based on the measured reference signal, generating feedback data for the control channel based on the code rate, and transmitting the feedback data. Another method may include transmitting a reference signal in a control channel, receiving channel quality feedback data for the control channel in response to the reference signal, and transmitting a control channel transmission in the control channel using a modulation and coding scheme selected based on the feedback data.