Have you Optimized Your Paid Search Campaign Lately? - Optimize Your Keywords
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Although you may have done your keyword research or been running your ads for months, you are never truly finished with your “final” keyword list. Make sure you take the time to evaluate what keywords are bringing in the most qualified visitors in terms of leads and sales, and get rid of the dead weight. Terms that drive a campaign budget through the roof, but don’t seem to increase sales, should be removed or knocked down to a lower position. Terms that bring in lots of traffic that converts to leads or visits (I call these your “money” terms) should be carefully pruned to perfection so that you’re getting the most traffic (and thus sales) for the least amount of money per click possible.
You should continually ad new terms to your campaign and remove “dead weight” terms while monitoring and realigning campaign variables as necessary. Campaign variables include setting appropriate “match types” on both Google and Overture and making sure negative terms are added to prevent your ad from coming up for inappropriate searches and the introduction of new terms in the list.
Match types regulate when your ad shows up for a particular search. Google Match types are defined by Google as follows:
“Broad match. This is the default option. When you include keyword phrases – such as tennis shoes – in your keyword list, your ads will appear when users search for tennis and shoes, in any order – and possibly along with other terms.
"Your ads may also automatically show for expanded matches, including synonyms and plurals. This means that Google will analyze your keyword list, ad text, and millions of daily Google search queries, and show your ads for relevant terms and variations (such as tennis sneakers), even if you didn't include these terms in your keyword list."
You might find that broad matches are too general for your purposes; they are certainly less targeted than Google's other options. If you still want to run an ad featuring broad-matched keywords, you should plan to create keyword phrases containing at least two descriptive words.
The next narrower option is "phrase match," which Google explains as follows:
Phrase Match - If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in "tennis shoes", your ad will appear when a user searches on the phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and possibly with other terms in the query."
Phrase match is strongly influenced by the order of the words, because it is the exact phrase that brings up the ad. So any search that contains your exact phrase -- such as "red tennis shoes," in this particular example -- will bring up your ad. But it won't come up for someone searching on the phrase "shoes for tennis."
More specific still is the "exact match." Google differentiates it from a phrase match in this way:
"Exact match. The search query must exactly match your keyword. This means "tennis shoes" will only match a user request for "tennis shoes" and not for "red tennis shoes," even though the second query contains your keyword."
Finally, there is the negative keyword, which can help you target your audience more exactly and not bring up your ad for visitors who are looking for something completely different. Google defines negative keywords in this way:
“Negative keyword. Negative keywords allow you to eliminate searches that you know are not related to your message. If you add the negative keyword "–table" to your keyword "tennis shoes," your ad will not appear when a user searches on "table tennis shoes." Negative keywords should be used with caution, as they can eliminate a large portion of a desired audience if applied incorrectly.”
Overture offers standard and advanced match types which are defined by Overture as follows.
“The Standard match type displays your listings for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for:
- singular/plural variations of your keywords
- common misspellings of your keywords
- topics that are highly relevant to your keywords
- topics that are highly relevant to your titles and descriptions
The Advanced match type drives additional targeted leads to your business from Overture's high-quality partner network of sites. It helps you grow your business while saving you time and effort by displaying your listings for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions and/or web content.”
Applying the appropriate match types on Google and Overture will filter out the “tire kickers,” and keep your CTR high. It will also increase sales because your traffic will be more qualified.
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