AdWords offers several keyword matching options. These keyword matching options allow you greater control over what search queries result in your ads appearing. The article below explains keyword match types and what you as an advertiser can do to get the most out of your keywords, control your costs and maintain your AdWords account quality.
The Types of Keyword Matching Options are:
1. Broad – allows other keywords to be included or relevant keywords (as deemed by Google) to be substituted. Disneyland vacation = Disneyland park tickets
2. “Phrase” – allows the keyword to be shown in the phrase order i.e. “red shoes” with terms before or after the phrase. ”red shoes” can = “girls ‘red shoes’ size 3″
3. [Exact] – allows your ads to show only on the exact keyword specified. [banana nut bread recipe] = [banana nut bread recipe]
4. –Negative – will restrict your ads from appearing for the –negative keyword. i.e. “red shoes” with a negative –kids prevents the ads from appearing for “kids red shoes”. Negative Keywords can be included in Broad, Phrase and Exact Match Types.
As explained above, Broad Match keywords are extremely flexible. ”Phrase Match” will tighten down the keywords further by keeping your phrase in-tact and [Exact Match] is the most restrictive keyword match type because it will only allow your ads to be served if the search query exactly matches the search query. While exact match may sound ideal, many advertisers find it difficult to work specifically with exact match keywords because it is difficult to think of each and every search query that their potential customers will use. The possibility of missing out of potential traffic makes phrase and broad match keywords valuable. While broad and phrase allow the potential to appear for search queries that are not relevant to your products or service there is a way to combat that with the use of Negative Keywords.
How do I know when my ads are appearing for irrelevant search queries and who do I identify negative keywords to add?
Run and analyze the Search Query Report from your Reports Center. This report will provide you with the search queries that resulted in your ads being clicked. You can use this report to identify keywords that are irrelevant as well as use it to find new keywords to add to your account.
Here is an example:
Your Keyword: dance shoes
Search Query Report identifies a click for: ballroom dancing shoes
So, you have identified through your Search Query Report that you are appearing under the search query ‘ballroom dancing shoes’ but you do not sell ‘ballroom dancing’ shoes. In this case adding a negative keyword -ballroom will prevent your ads from appearing when the word ‘ballroom’ is included. Learn more about How Negative Keywords can have a Positive Impact and how to add negative keywords to your account.
I have identified irrelevant search queries, now what do I do to prevent my ads from appearing next time?
Add negative keywords or change your match option to a more restrictive match type. Changing your match type is not always an option because it can often lower your traffic too much. This is where negative keyword are so helpful. Negative keywords will prevent your ads from appearing for irrelevant searches.
If your keyword list contains broad or phrase match keywords then negative keywords are most often a must.Negative keywords prevent your ads from appearing and potentially receiving clicks from search queries that are not relevant to your product or service.Suppressing impressions (and clicks) from irrelevant search queries will improve your CTR and quality score and allow your keyword list to work harder to bring qualified prospects to your website.
AdWords Offers the Following Negative Match types:
Negative Broad Matched – To create a standard negative keyword, insert a minus sign before a keyword and add it to your ad group or campaign.
Example: -free download
Adding this negative keyword to your account would prevent your ads from showing on any search queries containing the terms free and download Your ads still have the potential to appear for variations of these terms. Your ads will also still show on search queries that only contain one of the terms.
For example, the search queries software download andfree software could trigger your ads, while free software downloadwill not.
Negative “Phrase” Matched - To create a negative phrase matched keyword surround the term with quotation marks.
Example: -”free download“
Adding this keyword the system wouldn’t let any search query containing the phrasefree downloadtrigger your ads. The search query free download accounting softwarewould not trigger your ads. However, your ads could possibly show on the search querydownload accounting software or free accounting software.
Negative [Exact] Matched – To create a negative exact matched keyword surround the term with brackets
Example: -[free download]
This negative keyword would only prevent your ads from showing on the search queryfree download. Search queries such asfree accounting software download andfree software could still trigger your ads.
It is suggested to add relevant variations of your negative keywords, including both the singular and plural forms.Learnto add effective negative keywords to your ad group or campaign.
Now that we have some familiarity with negative keyword match types the next question is how do we identify negatives to add to the account?AdWords offers two tools to identify negative keywords.
The search query report is a very helpful report to identifying negative keywords.This report will show advertisers what the actual query was that resulted in their ads being served.You can use this report to identify negative keyword to add to your account.
The keyword tool can be used to identify negative keywords.
Watch this Video
Adding Negative keywords is easy.They can be added at the campaign level to cover all adgroups or at the ad group level if the negative keywords are specific to one category.
Research your Search Query Reports regularly to identify negative keywords.Negative keywords will improve your CTR and preserve your budget by showing your ads to only the best prospects for business.
Before you start an AdWords account it would be wise to make sure that AdWords will work with your business model. AdWords has strict policies regarding promotion of pharmacies, drugs, alcohol, firearms, adult content, tobacco, data collection, get rich schemes, arbitrage, affiliate marketing sites, etc., etc, etc. Read the AdWords Terms & Conditions for your location as well as the many various AdWords Advertising policies before you get started.
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Are There any Types of Sites that are Difficult to market with AdWords?
There are some sites that Google feels merit a low landing page quality score. Low landing page quality score can often affect Affiliate websites. Affiliate marketers would benefit from reading the Affiliate Policyand the Link Policy documents as well as this great article by fellow AWHE Writer Bela Lakatos on “Display URL for Affiliates“ before they get started with AdWords.
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Do I need to do anything to my website first?
Most often. Your website should be organized, honest, transparent, functional, contain contact info, be ecstatically pleasing and most importantly provide a good user experience. Be clear on what you do with personal information, if you do request personal info include a privacy policy that is linked to the request form. Have a clear call to action, install Google Analytics and AdWords Conversion Tracking. Read Google’s AdWords Full Landing Page Quality Guidelines.
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Where will my ads appear?
Google offers three networks.
Google Network– Keyword Advertising shown only on the Google.com domain.
AdWords Ads on Google.com
Search Partner Network- Keyword Advertising that covers the Google Search Partners such as AOL, ASK, Business.com, howstuffworks.com and many more.
AdWords Ads on the Search Partner Network
Content Network – Contextual advertising. Your page content is matched to content network sites. Keywords are not necessary with the content network but can be used to help Google match your pages to content network sites. If through your keywords Google finds your ads and website relevant to the Content Network website your ads become eligible to appear on that content network site.
AdWords Ads on the Content Network
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Can I have my ads show in my local area only?
Yes, you can use the location targeting feature under SETTINGS to target a specific location in just about any corner of the world.
Selection the Location that you want your ads to appear.
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What should know before I start my first Campaign?
Before you build your first campaign create an outline of the services or products you plan to advertise. Create lists of related keywords for each product or service and then break that list down farther into lists of keywords by theme. Say you sell BBQ accessories, create an ad group around BBQ accessories with related keywords, BBQ brushes with related keywords, BBQ Flavored Wood Chips with related keywords, BBQ sauce with related keywords, BBQ Grills with related keywords. The idea is to create ad groups that have high relevance. By breaking down the ad groups by keyword theme you can present visitors with ad text that is related to the theme. This setup also makes segmenting and reading data easy.
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How do I select keywords?
Make a list of specific keywords that are very relevant to your products or services and expand to new keywords ideas. Be specific with your keywords. Most advertisers cannot afford to market non specific keywords. AdWords has a Keyword tool to provide keyword suggestions and there are several great keyword research tools available online through other sources.
1. Broad – allows other keywords to be included or relevant (as deemed by Google) keywords to be substituted.
2. “phrase” – allows the keyword to be shown in the phrase order i.e. “red shoes” with terms before or after the phrase.
3. [exact] – allows your ads to show only on the exact keyword specified.
4. –negative – will restrict your ads from appearing for the –negative keyword. i.e. “red shoes” with a negative –kids prevents the ads from appearing for “kids red shoes”. Negative Keywords can be included in Broad, Phrase and Exact Match Types – Learn morehttp://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=67991.
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How do I Identify and add Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords can be identified by running a search query report or by using the keyword tool. Learn more about identifying negative keywords. Negative keywords can be added at the Campaign level to cover all ad groups under the campaign or at the ad group level to cover only specific ad groups. Read here to learn how to add negative keywords to your adwords account.
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Are there any tips for writing ad text?
Be honest, transparent and clear. Convey your message and convince a potential customer to click your ad by offering specials or discounts if they are available on the website. Avoid the use of hype in your ad text and allow your potential customers to identify with you by closely relating your ad text to the keywords in that ad group.
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How Can I see my Ad Live?
Google has a preview tool located at http://www.google.com/adpreview. This tool will allow you to view your ads live at any time without causing impressions on your account.
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What is Ad ‘Rank’?
Ad rank is a score that your keyword receives when the quality score is multiplied by the max CPC – Quality Score X Max CPC = Rank.
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What is the difference between ad rank and ad position?
Position is the actual position of your ads on the results pages. Rank is the score a keyword receives based on it’s quality score and Max CPC and this Rank is what determines your position and what you pay per click.
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How is ad rank used to determine my ad position and cost per click?
Quality Score X Max Cost Per Click = Rank
Advertiser A. Max CPC of .55 with a Quality score of 1.7 = assigned rank is .93 = position 1
Advertiser B. Max CPC of .65 with a QS score of 1 = assigned rank of 65 = position 2
Advertiser C. Max CPC of .30 with a QS score of 1.5 = assigned rank of .45 = position 3
Take B’s rank of .65 and divide it by A’s QS of 1.7 – .65 / 1.7 = .38 cents.
- .38 is what Advertiser A has to pay + 1 penny added to place it above B’s position for a total of .39 cents.
Take C’s rank of .45 and divide it by B’s QS – .45 / 1 = .45 cents.
- .45 is what Advertiser B has to pay + 1 penny to place it above C’s position for a total of .46 cents
This process repeats until the end of the auction where the last bidder pays the minimum bid required to be active in the action.
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How do I raise my ad rank?
Because rank is determined by Quality Score X Max CPC you have to raise one or the other. Raising quality score is done through raising CTR, this can take time to achieve so if you need to see immediate improvement in your rank you will need to raise your bids.
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What does ‘below first page bid estimate’ mean?
Below first page bid estimate indicates that you need to increase your bid to be placed on the first page of search results. First identify if the reason is due to underbidding or if you have a low quality score. If you see a low quality score try to identify if there is room to improve the quality score. If the quality score not low then you may be in a competitive market and need to raise your bids to be ranked higher.
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What does ‘Rarely shown due to quality score’ mean?
This messaging indicates that you have a problem with either your Keyword Quality or Landing Page Quality Score, possibly both. Your quality score needs to be addressed immediately. See the next steps to evaluate your low quality score.
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How can I see my Quality Score?
Watch this Video or see written instruction below.
To view your quality score go to the keywords section. Visit the button labeled Filters & Views. Go to Customize Columns. Enable Quality Score to show and then grab and drag the quality score button to the place you would like it to appear in the user interface. Your quality score will be shown on a 1 – 10 scale. 1 is the lowest and indicates a major problem and 10 us the highest and indicates a great performing account.
Step 1.
How to See your Quality Score in AdWords
Step 2.
How to See Quality Score in AdWords
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What should I do if I have a low Quality Score?
First identify if the low quality score is due to a problem with your keywords or the landing page (website page) that your visitors land on. A quick way to see quality score details is to go to your KEYWORDS section and place your mouse pointer over the little bubble next to the keywords status. A popup will appear indicating your quality score level for the keyword, landing page relevance and landing page performance.
How to Identify the reason for your Low Qualtiy Score
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Why do I have a low Keyword Quality Score?
Low quality keywords can be due to the following:
past performance: If Google finds that a keyword has provided poor results for advertisers in the past it may receive a diminished quality score from the start. Either avoid the keyword or work on increasing its quality score by increasing the Click Through Rate (CTR).
Relevance: If the keyword is not truly relevant to your product or service it may cause a poor relevancy score. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the product or service. Example of poor keyword for ‘ballet shoes’ would be ‘ footwear’ – Example of Good Keyword: ballet shoes, ballet slippers. While footwear is relevant to ballet shoes it is not relevant enough to effectively use with AdWords.
Low Click Through Rate (CTR): A low click through rate is an indication that visitors do not find their search query relevant to your ad text. Google judges relevance through user behavior so a low CTR in an indication of a problem. A continually low CTR (less than 1% on the search network) will degrade quality score. – See How do I evaluate and Improve CTR? below.
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Why Do I have a poor Landing Page Quality Score?
AdWords Adsbot
Google visits your landing pages with their AdsBot-Google bot to evaluate your landing page for relevance to your account and especially user experience. This bot will crawl your pages looking for signs of a poor quality landing page. Poorly scored landing pages will require high minimum bids, when not paid, will prevent your ads from appearing. Google uses landing page quality score to insure a good user experience for people using Google to search the web. Below is a list of common reasons for low landing page quality score – in no particular order.
Framing – multiple pages with different URL’s that are the same as the parent site
Data Collection websites that offer free items or info in order to collect private information Avoid asking for personal information if it is not absolutely necessary – If necessary present a privacy policy and link it to the form that request personal info.
Affiliate sites that’s purpose is to send traffic to another site with a different domain. These sites can often be bridge pages or sites that contain non original content.
“Get-rich quick” sites.
Poor comparison shopping sites whose purpose is to send visitors to other websites.
Users should be able to easily find what your ad promises. If you offer a special make it available with in 1 – 2 clicks of the landing page.
Feature unique content that can’t be found on another site. This guideline is particularly applicable to resellers whose site is identical or highly similar to another reseller’s or the parent company’s site, and to affiliates sites. These pages are often known as:Bridge pages: Pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company. Mirror pages: Pages that replicate the look and feel of a parent site; your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company’s or any other advertiser’s site.
To ensure the best possible user experience, AdWords won’t show multiple ads leading to identical or similar landing pages at the same time. This is true even if the pages have different domains - check your content here http://www.copyscape.com/. It’s especially important to feature original content because AdWords won’t show multiple ads directing to identical or similar landing pages at the same time.
Provide substantial information. If your ad does link to a page consisting mostly of ads or general search results (such as a directory or catalog page), provide additional, unique content.
Site validation issues. – check validation with http://validator.w3.org/. Some validation issues can indicate a communication issue with Googles adsbot.
If you were able to identify with anything in the above list work on making changes if you can. The adsbot will visit your landing pages again within a few weeks.
A great tool to track the adsbot was developed by AdWords Top Contributor, Richard Ball at Apogee Web Consulting, get tracking the Adsbot-Google here. This will allow you to identify when the adsbot has visited you again.
Below are three links with further explanations of landing page quality guidelines as well as an important page on link policies that effect landing page quality score.
Click Through Rate, otherwise known as (CTR), is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions (ad views), the higher the CTR the better. Google uses CTR data to gauge the relevance of your keywords to ad text. When an advertisers includes a new keyword in their account it is assigned a quality score based on the keyword performance within the Adwords system for other advertisers, as well as its relevance within your account. The quality score assigned can then be raised or lowered from that point based on the Click Through Rate (CTR) score that the keyword accrues within your account. CTR has a large impact on quality score so raising CTR, and in-turn Quality Score, will result in you being able to improve your bottom line by either seeing an increase in your current ad rank, or if you choose to stay at the same rank you can instead reduce your bids.
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How I evaluate and Improve CTR?
A low CTR indicates room for improvement. Perhaps potential customers found your ads in error due to poor keyword selections, perhaps your broad match types are expanding to irrelevant searches, maybe your ad text is boring, and perhaps your rank is just too low to make your ads truly visible. Below is more detail on evaluating CTR at the keyword, ad text and rank levels.
Evaluating Keywords
Are your keywords too generic? These days’ internet users are search savvy and use specific search queries to be presented with the most relevant search results possible. If you are a personal trainer you may be tempted to select a keyword like ‘fitness’ but think of all the other applications that the word ‘fitness’ can apply to; fitness diet, fitness equipment, fitness supplements, fitness clothing, to name a few. If your ads appear for your personal training program when a person searches for fitness supplements then you are not going to appear relevant, will not receive the click, and your CTR will suffer.
Are your keywords in the proper match type? There are different keywords Match Types and selecting the right match type for your account is important.
- Broad – allows for your keyword to expand to relevant keywords. Example: broad match keyword ‘computer repair’ could expand to ‘computer repair jobs’, ‘computer monitor repair’, or ‘computer repair classes’.
- “Phrase” match- will keep a phrase in-tact but can allow for words to be added before or after the phrase. Example: “computer repair” can expand to ‘free computer repair ’.
- [Exact] match- will only show the ads when the exact keyword is used [computer repair]. This option does not require negative match keywords.
–negative match – will restrict your ads from appearing for the –negative keyword. i.e. Broad match keyword “computer repair” expands to ‘computer repair jobs’ add a negative -jobs and it prevents the ads from appearing for people looking for a job. Use your imagination a little and add negatives for -job, -employment, -career, -careers, -hire, etc. Negative Keywords can be included in Broad, Phrase and Exact Match Types – Learn more http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=67991
For most advertisers to effectively use broad match and phrase match keywords it will be essential to use negative keywords to maintain a good CTR and not waste money on irrelevant clicks.
Identifying and adding Negative Match Keywords
Negative keywords can be identified by running a search query report or by using the keyword tool . Learn more about identifying negative keywords. Negative keywords can be added at the Campaign level to cover all ad groups under the campaign or at the ad group level to cover only specific ad groups. Read here to learn how to add negative keywords to your adwords account.
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Evaluating Ad Text
Is your ad text well written? Ad text needs to be honest, compelling and contain a call to action. If you offer specials let people know. Your ads appear amongst many other advertisers, ad text that stands out and grabs a potential customer’s attention is important. Create professional, prominent ads that are free of gimmicky language and make sure your offers are available with 1 – 2 clicks of the landing page.
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Evaluating Ad Position
Does your ad position need to be evaluated? Ads that are below the page fold (requiring users to scroll down) will receive impressions because they are on the first page but will not actually be viewed as often as ads above the fold. If you find you have a low CTR check your ad position. If you find it is low on the first page you may want to consider raising your position by adjusting bids. A great way to identify position issues is to run both a Keyword Performance Report and Impression Share Report. These reports will help you identify if your ad position needs to be addressed.
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Can I track my sales, leads, registrations, etc?
Yes, with Conversion Tracking. It is a simple snippet of code that needs to be installed into your website. The code works behind the scenes of your website to collect data when a specified ‘action’ has taken place, such as a sale, registration, lead or contact form is filled out. This code can even be customized to capture and pass important variables from shopping carts such as the price of a sale pre shipping and tax to make it very easy to analyze data.
Watch this Video or see written instruction below.
To create a conversion tracking action visit the Reporting Tab and the Conversions link.
Tracking Conversions
Next Step is step 1 in creating your conversion tracking code.
Step 1 – Create Conversion Tracking Action Code
Step 2 & 3 – Name your conversion and select the purpose of the conversion.
Steps 2 & 3 – Name Conversion and Select Purpose
Steps 4 & 5 – customize your conversion tracking code and install it on your website.
Steps 4 & 5 – Customize and Install your Conversion Tracking Code
Once you install the code into your website and upload it live online the code should show as verified
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What reports should I run often?
There are many helpful reports located in the AdWords Help Center. Mentioned below are a few to get your account off to a good start. Getting familiar with all the reports center has to offer is going to be important for you when reviewing data and optimizing the account. Spend time getting familiar with all the report center offers.
Here are some of my favorites:
Search Query Performance Report – if you are running keywords in Broad or “Phrase” match it is important to run Search Query Performance Reports regularly. This will help you to identify negative keywords as well as new keywords to add to your account.
Impression Share Report – This report will allow you to identify if you are losing Impression Share to rank or budget as well as how much impression share is exactly matched to your keywords.
Keyword Performance Report – Easily identify keywords that need to be evaluated.
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Are there any tools or tips to help me get the most out of my budget?
Yes. AdWords has features such as ad scheduling, position preference, ad delivery. There are are tools available to some account such as the bid stimulator. Best practice for small budgets is to make sure you are going for quality clicks by using very specific keywords and using keyword matching options to control when your ads show. I think that advertisers on a tight budget should do their best to pre-qualify their prospective visitors.
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Do you Have a Question?
If you have a question that you would like answered feel free to post it in the comments below and the AdWords Help Experts team will do our best to answer. It will also help us develop this AdWords FAQ further to help other advertisers.
Today in the AdWords Help Forum AdWords Pro Stephen shared a great tip for advertisers who see the wrong ad groups ad text appearing for search queries.
Stephen explained that Google uses what he referred to an an “advanced form of expanded matching“, Googles documentation refers to it as an “enhancement of broad match”. Stephen explained this feature as an ad being triggered based on a related previous search query.
Stephen explained the feature… “[snip]…in this instance, the advertiser had a single AdWords Campaign with two different Ad Groups. Let’s say that one ad used the keyword ’spacely sprockets’ and the other ad used the keyword ‘cogswell cogs.’ When the advertiser searched on the term ‘cogs,’ the ad for ’spacely sprockets’ showed rather than the ‘cogswell cogs’ ad that they expected to see.
We knew that it wasn’t an issue of targeting or Daily Budget because both Ad Groups were in a single campaign and shared the same settings and budget. Likewise, the Ads Diagnostic tool indicated that the keyword ‘cogswell cogs’ was showing, as did the Ads Preview page. Finally, we ran a Search Query report and found that searches for ‘cogs’ were triggering the keyword ’spacely sprockets’ based on previous queries.
The AdWords system had determined that ‘cogs’ was a valid expanded match for ’spacely sprockets’, and because the keyword ’spacely sprockets’ had a higher Ad Rank than ‘cogswell cogs,’ it was eligible to show.
This seems a little backward, but its really no different than any other expanded match. Had the ‘cogswell cogs’ Ad Group contained the keyword ‘cogs,’ it would have matched the query more closely and that ad would have triggered, but from the system’s point of view an expansion is an expansion, and neither ‘cogswell cogs’ nor ’spacely sprockets’ matched the query exactly.”
What does this mean for advertisers? it means that advertisers should closely watch their search query reports. Set your reports to show the ad variation that appears with the query.
Show Ad Variation with Search Query
Advertisers may find that the wrong ads are appearing for search queries.
Search Query Performance Report - Check queries against ad text shown
Can advertisers do anything to prevent this?
Stephen recommends:
“[snip]… Because the advertiser had specific landing pages for each Ad Group, it was important to them that the query “cogs” trigger the “cogswell cogs” Ad Group, so I recommended that they add the specific term ‘cogs’ as a keyword. Another option would have been to add it as a negative keyword in the ’spacely sprockets’ Ad Group, but it’s not guaranteed that the keyword ‘cogswell cogs’ would have expanded to match the query ‘cogs.’ Of course, changing the matching option of the existing keyword to exact match would have kept the ad from showing for the previous query, but it would also have prevented it from showing in other circumstances.”
So, there is a ‘fix’ for this but I still see a potential problem for many advertisers who can barely keep up with the basic features of adwords. This feature makes the search query report more important than ever to make sure advertisers are getting the best possible performance for their accounts.
I’m noticing quite a few questions in Google’s AdWords Help forum where advertisers are confused that their keyword clicks don’t add up to the total clicks. The confusion is a result of not knowing their ad campaigns are opted into the content network (by default). Those content network clicks don’t correlate to keywords in an ad group.
Researching this problem made me realize the new AdWords interface has a poor design regarding the campaign default settings for network distribution:
Default Network Distribution Settings
Recommended for new advertisers?! No, this is NOT recommended for new advertisers. Most new advertisers aren’t aware that AdWords includes contextual advertising as well as search advertising. They’re better off getting their feet wet with search advertising only. A better recommended setting is to choose to opt out of the content network:
Better Network Distribution Choice: +Search -Content
Later, after developing a solid foundation of search advertising experience, an advertiser could come back and build a new campaign designed for the content advertising audience. Even people at Google recommend separating search and content campaigns:
Google Employee Recommends Separating Search & Content Ads
A member in the AdWords Help Forum brought to my attention today that the in-line bidding keyword bidding a.k.a. Max CPC column is missing from the keywords section on Adwords. I went straight into several client accounts and sure enough, it’s gone.
Where is the MAX CPC Column?
After some looking around I found that if you visit the Filter and Views button the option to have the MAX CPC show is located there.
Customizing Columns with Filters & Views
Now I am able to see and most importantly EDIT the Max CPC for individual keywords.
I am pondering why Google would do this. Seems like a great way to cause some confusion.
Additionally, while looking into this issue I noticed another new item, at least new to me. In investigating the issue I selected several keywords and then went to the edit button and Table Edit.
There I found must be a fairly new feature, but it is not active in my accounts.
New Feature to Prefill all Bids to First Page Bid Estimates?
Is this to alleviate the dreaded “below first page bid estimate” issue?
Update: Google’s AdWordsPro Stephen posted in the forum with the following statement: “[...] there was a technical issue with the AdWords UI this morning. We introduced a change that accidentally pushed some of the stats columns out of the right place and caused another issue with column customization. We reverted that change for now, so it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
The ultimate metric on which to to base decisions regarding the redistribution of your advertising budget is Return-On-Ad-Spend, or ROAS, which necessitates the activation of conversion tracking and the input of conversion values. However, a recent survey by a leading PPC agency found that approximately 50% of SMB advertisers were not tracking their conversions. What’s even more striking, the lion’s share of account holders who did activate conversion tracking set their conversion value to $1 which is the default setting in Google AdWords. Such wrong entries result in the wrong ROAS values which in turn may lead to the wrong decisions and harm your bottom line.
Below, we would like to illustrate by means of a simple numerical example, the importance of setting the right conversion values versus failing to specify them or posting the wrong ones. Our PPC hero is a plumber who created 2 accounts to market his services. His Google account is geo-targeted at a suburban residential area while his Yahoo account is aimed at a newly built housing estate. A conversion, or order, through the Google account brings him $250 in profits while through Yahoo only $80. These numbers represent his corresponding conversion values. His advertising budget is approximately $100 per week.
The rows in the below table are colored in red, blue or green. The colors symbolize 3 basic scenarios: he initially set the wrong data (red), set no data (blue), or set the right data (green), relative to his corresponding conversion values.
Account
Clicks
Avg CPC
Conv
Value
Total
ROAS
Google
140
0.5
10
1
10
0.14
Yahoo
74
0.4
5
1
5
0.17
Google
140
0.5
10
Yahoo
74
0.4
5
Google
140
0.5
10
250
2500
35.71
Yahoo
74
0.4
5
80
400
13.51
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Yahoo
250
0.4
17
80
1360
13.60
G + Y
214
0.46
15
193
2900
29.46
Google
200
0.5
14
250
3500
35.00
Legend: the wrong entries, missing entries, the right entries
In the above table, performance numbers are in normal font while input data is in bold and calculated values in italics. The columns are as follows: Account, Clicks, Average CPC, Number of Conversions, Conversion Value, Total Value of Conversions (Number of Conversions * Conversion Value), and ROAS.
Above the partition line (xxx…) are the “past” week’s data and beneath it the “next” week’s values. The partition line itself symbolizes the process of decision making.
Below the partition line, we entered the right conversion values for each color, so that the profitability of the decision could be measured. “Next” week’s data are calculated based on the reasonable working assumption that CTR as well as Conversion Rate remain unchanged and the weekly budget can be depleted.
RED SCENARIO: The lowest red row is the result of the decision that the advertiser redistributed all its funds to Yahoo since after the first week the red Yahoo ROAS seemed to be the higher one. (0.17)
BLUE SCENARIO: The upper 2 blue rows are incomplete because this is the scenario in which the advertiser did not post his conversion values, as a result of which the Total and ROAS columns could not be calculated. Accordingly, no decision was made after the first week. Hence advertising went on as in the first week, just that we collapsed the 2 accounts into one G+Y row.
GREEN SCENARIO: The lowest green row is a result of the decision that the advertiser redistributed all his funds to Google since after the first week the green Google ROAS was the higher one (35.71).
FINDING: If the neutral “blue” scenario (G+Y) is taken as the basis for comparison, you may conclude that the wrong “red” decision resulted in a very huge 54% drop in ROAS while the right “green” one in a 19% increase.
CONCLUSION: All in all, if you fail to specify your conversion value you will probably miss out on improvements, while entering unrealistic data may lead to conclusions causing huge losses. Well, have you ever thought of setting your conversion value?
Just noticed that Google has added two new sets of reporting features to the reports section. This data is for video and image ads.
Video Columns
Interaction Columns
New Data Included in AdWords Reports
What great information! To know how much of your video was played, to know if visitors almost clicked your video or image ad. Google is helping us to be a fly on the wall in our potential customers homes and offices.
Due to the increase in unemployment I have seen an increasing trend in customers accounts. Although many of my clients are not hiring they are receiving traffic from people desperately looking for employment. It seems that this desperation had taken people from searching employment sites such as Monster, Career Builder, etc. to pounding the internet pavement going ”door to door” or “website to website” so to speak. If you are not hiring then it is necessary to add negative keywords to your ad groups to prevent your ads from appearing when people are looking for employment.
Say you are a plumber using broad or phrase match keywords. Your broad match keyword ’plumber’ can allow your ads to appear for ‘plumber jobs’. Your phrase match “Las Vegas plumber” can allow your ads to appear for “Las Vegas plumber jobs”.
To avoid appearing to people looking for jobs add keywords such as -job, -jobs, -employment, -career, -careers. Simply adding a – before a keyword makes it negative. Why pay for people to visit your website looking for employment?
Refer to the following sources for info to identify negative keywords to add to your account.
While the negative keywords will help combat the queries that include ‘jobs’, ‘career’, etc you may still receive traffic from people looking for ‘plumber companies’ without including the keyword job, career, etc. If you still are receiving inquiries for employment then I suggest adding some text to your ads to let people know you are not hiring such as: not hiring, no employment opportunities, no jobs available, etc.
This screenshot shows the part of the screen with the link to click to change an advert. Click on where it says “edit” to change the advert. Note that this does two things:
It *DELETES* the current advert and *CREATES* a new advert
It adds the advert to the queue of adverts for Editorial Review – so it may not show for several days.
It is good practice to always run at least two adverts in each AdGroup, so you can progressively increase performance, without ever having a period of no advertising, caused by Editorial Review Delays.
AdWords - Where To Click To Change Advertisements.
