I currently run broad, phrase and exact matches for all my key phrases but I'm not sure if this is the best idea so any advice would be much appreciated. I have one particular 3-word phrase using all three types which produced the following stats for last month: broad - 14.72% ctr / 14p cpc / 1.1 pos "phrase" - 4.58% ctr / 24p cpc / 1.9 pos [exact] - 4.70% ctr / 21p cpc / 1.5 pos Common sense would suggest pausing the phrase and exact and just running with the broad phrase due to highest ctr/lowest cpc, however at the moment the exact match has 6 times the impressions as broad and I want to be sure that if I pause exact and phrase, the traffic will 'bounce' onto the broad phrase - is that correct? Many thanks.
yes it will and then your high CTR will drop and normalize... its best to keep them separate just as you have them now. I think you are falling under the misconception of CTR = QS fallacy. look at the QS of the keyword. If QS = GREAT on all 3 then they are fine and there are no problems. Your not going to magically get a 14% CTR on those other impressions just because you pause the exact and phrase.
The broad is getting you a lot of keywords that you wouldn't otherwise appear on. Run a report and see if those keywords are converting and then add more exact and phrase keywords to bring up the CTR. Good luck. -Patz
Thanks guys. Conversion stats as follows: broad = 4.55% conv / £4.61 per conv "phrase" = 7.14% conv / £3.33 per conv [exact] = 9.38% conv / £1.48 per conv I guess these are as expected as the more accurate you are, the more likely you are to convert? However what confuses me is that I would have expected the [exact] match to also click through better than broad as you are seemingly matching exactly what the visitor is searching for? Robert - broad/exact QS is Great, phrase QS is 'OK'. Does the theory that pausing poorer performing keyword types will eventually bring down your top performer also apply to single/plural phrases? I have phrases for both single and plural version of a word/phrae and have started pausing the version that is clicking or converting the least so traffic will bounce onto better performer, however I guess this will just bring down the performance of the better phrase? Thanks again for your advice.
A conversion is a visitor who reaches the last stage prior to entering c/c details - i.e. gets a quote but then doesn't book. Our e-commerce conversion is around 1.2%.