I'll admit it, I'm a newbie when it comes to Google AdWords. I've got a problem that is really bugging me since I can't seem to find what the "best practice" is. We all know the match types: broad, phrase and exact. Overall, broad gets the most impressions and costs less per click, phrase less impressions but costs more, and so on. So is it the best practice to add all three match types for a keyword? Or is it best practice to have a separate Ad Group for each match type? Or is it best to use broad KWs for farming new KWs and phrase / exact for converting? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! -John
There is no best or worse practice. It won't matter one way or another although you will find some who say you should keep them separate. I never separate them. Only advantage I see is seeing and easier comparison of the different match types if they are all in the same group.
So you A) use every keyword three times, and B) put them all in the same Ad Group? Wouldn't someone who is searching for an exact match be easier to target than someone using a broad match?
I would certainly split the match types up. Even better if they are in different campaigns as it helps you budget better too. Even Adwords themselves hint that match types should be split up. This has been discussed time and time again. Check this thread out: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1213758 Look out for the post by robertpriolo as he knows what he's talking about.
muchach, thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. I know it has been discussed over and over; I was hoping some of the gurus would be reaching a consensus, or some fresh news had come out of AdWords. Why not have the following: widgets "blue widgets" "red widgets" "green widgets" [buy blue widgets] [buy red widgets] [buy green widgets] [compare blue widgets] [compare red widgets] [compare green widgets] See, as the searcher gets more specific I get more focused as well. This cuts down on my keyword count (especially on broad keywords) and makes management easier. Thoughts?
The above structure looks a mess I only have more than 1 keyword in the same Adgroup, if the keywords aren't generating many impressions compared to the rest of the Campaign. You see I tend to '1-to-1' my 30% most popular keywords and cluster the rest into a few Adgroups. So let's say you have 100 keywords. I put all the Exact Match into a campaign such as 'Widgets - Exact' and then the 30 most popular search terms will go into their own Adgroup. Each of these Adgroups has 1 keyword + 2 ads (Ad A vs Ad B, split testing). The remaining 70 will be 'clustered'. I.e, put into their own Adgroups as tightly themed as I can get them. Otherwise, with the Split Testing you'd be waiting an eternity, if you put one of these keywords into their own Adgroup as they arent generating enough clicks. This way you get more Ad A and Ad B data quicker. 30% is a rough figure, it can vary slightly, but you get the drift. I sometimes put Phrase & Broad into the same Campaign, but that reason is simple. Broad (and often Phrase) only serve one purpose for me and that's to find out more Exact terms. By using something such as Statcounter or using the Search Query Report. But Exact always go into their own Campaign, for me. Exact matches is what should be getting most of your business and where you spend most of your budget. The Broad words especially, are just there to enable you to find out what people are actually searching for out there. Does this make sense?
I understand utilizing broad keywords (and can see phrase as well) for "farming" more precise keywords. I like your approach of less keywords. I'd suspect it would free up more time for optimization. However, in your experience, do you think you might be missing out by not having more broad keywords? The company I work for has *plenty* of keywords. I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around it all!
I do have a lot of Broad keywords - which go in their own campaign. This number goes down in time, because I'm adding more Exacts. So if my broad matched keyword: blue widgets got a hell of a lot of impresssions/clicks because people were searching for blue and green widgets then I either add blue and green widgets as Exact match (and I'd probably do Phrase match too) or do something like adding -green as a negative. This in turn then makes that Broad matched keyword receive less impressions and clicks because now the Exact version will be triggered. As time goes on, your broad matched impressions should decrease, providing you aren't adding more keywords into your Broad campaign.
I would never use a single-word as a keyword, in any match type. So widgets is out. In fact, I limit my use of broad-matched keywords. Your exact matches above have no corresponding phrase match. How many would search on "buy blue widgets"? You'd miss out on all the "where can I buy blue widgets" types of searches. I'd split the above into groups based on color. Much like Muchacho, I try to get more impressions on exact and phrase matches. The more searches done for exact matches, the better. The broads like he says are just to find out exactly how they are searching. You want them to go down over time.
Broad match is a mistake. You'll get untargetd traffic so always use exact match and phrase match. Happy with that moderators?
There is 1 benefit of using broad - It'll send traffic to you with keywords that you may have never researched or any tool never handed them to you on a silver platter. So depending on some of my campaigns, I do do broad with multiple words (2 or more) then within a weeks time I run search query report and track the words that made me sales. I take these golden kw and make them phrase or exact.
That makes sense - I was wondering what the point was otherwise, since broad matches are sending you stuff like "GIVE ME FREE widgets", "I WOULD NEVER BUY A WIDGET" etc. (well, you get the point). Sure, you can specify negative keywords like "free" etc. but you still can't get them all. As a way of researching what people are actually searching for though, cool, like it. Just be careful this "market research" isn't costing you the earth!
I think that depends on the market you're in and the theme you are targeting. If you're selling televisions you wouldn't target television as that could mean people looking for television repairs for example. But company (competitors) names for instance can be great, especially for Exact match. It can be a little expensive on Broad match as for single keywords all that has to happen is for that keyword to appear in the searcher's query, but for Exact I don't see a problem with it. With respect, I wouldn't agree with universally never bidding on single keywords, you just have to be careful what these keywords are.
You want more impressions? Easy, just use broad match and add thousands of keywords, preferrably single word ones, and hey presto, thousands of impressions! If you mean "impressions that convert to clicks that convert to sales", well, that might not be so simple...
If a broad match ever converts to a sale, that should be the last time that happens. Because you'd hopefully have put the keyword/phrase into Exact Match pretty much straight away.
After 6 years of pay per click experience I've found broad match of limited use. Firstly, the semantic connections can be unreal. Secondly, the conversion rate/cost tends to be poor. Thirdly, broad match terms only seem to work with an extensive list of negative keywords.