For research purposes - I've been putting phrase, broad and exact match copies of every single key term into adwords account. Reasoning as follows for when a particular term registers under each type; exact - tells me the exact numbers of searches for term phrase - a hit here tells me that there might be more of a long tail to seek out broad - catches everything i miss with the above 2 (not so much for research) I was speaking with a google presenter this morning and she said that this was not an efficient approach - that it would be better to stick with broad and if things weren't efficient to then change to phrase and then again with exact. She was a little vague as to the reasoning why this was better, but she felt that the stats wouldn't necessarily get attributed to the most granular (ie. click may get assigned to broad even if there was an exact - meaning its useless as a research tool). (in my mind using broad matches lets words get brought in that weren't part of your list so its a little questionable from a research point of view) - I did agree with her saying its easier to manage. Does anyone have any opinions on best practise here - striking a balance between performance and research? maybe just using one or two broad match terms for catchment and phrase for research? Look forward to hearing your thoughts D
It sounds like she rather supports Google its income then your campain I would only go for broad matches if you know for certain that (allmost) all combinations would give you impressions to the people which are really seeking after what you have to offer. Example: In many situations you can use broad matches for brands. If you're selling GPS systems then you know for sure that every surfer searching a combination with TomTom will be a potential customer for yor TomTom GPS navigation systems. What do you think?
I think she may have gotten mixed up... i would definately stick with EXACT match to start with then broaden out once that was converting nicely... even then expanding slowly and TESTING. Cheers Stewart
So maybe if I use this as a general rule of thumb when starting any new campaign... - Use a few Exact phrases that I think most people would be using to find a product/service - Use a lot more Phrase matches that might be second tier expressions to test hunches and catch misses from the Exact match - Progressively add broad match terms later if the above don't generate many clicks (is there any point to removing the same term from phrase/exact matches when adding it as a broad??) Does that sound like a reasonable approach? D
I've just been looking at the reporting section of Adwords and there's a Search Query Performance tool looks like it would be pretty good to use alongside a "broad" match intitial strategy. IF you set the broadmatch and don't expect super efficiencies the first couple of weeks, you can the use the report to get a closer look at the terms people used to find and click on your ads - terms you might not have thought of originally and I suspect you wouldn't get to see them if you used phrase or exact matches - can anyone confirm if this is the case?
I use this strategy and see what results I get from the three. The google rep has google's interest at heart, not yours.
If I understand the presenter, she wasn't saying that you should bid on Broad instead of Exact (as some people are suggesting); rather she said that if you are bidding on Broad, there's no point in bidding on Exact AS WELL, since an impression for the exact term won't necessarily be attributed to the exact match version, and there's no benefit in terms of the Quality Score. Whilst I understand her perspective, I tend to look at things slightly differently. It's true that bidding on a term on Broad Match will give the same QS results as a search on Exact Match if the searcher searches for that precise term. However, my approach is to take every search term that Broad Match returns with significant traffic volumes, and either include it as Exact Match or Negative Match. This way, in time, you'll be able to turn off the Broad Match, confident that you have all of the relevant terms. Bidding only on Exact Match initially doesn't give you this reassurance - there's a very good chance that you've missed something - so I use this approach if I'm not totally confident that I know the full range of search terms that may generate relevant traffic. I agree that if you are confident that you know which keywords you should be bidding on, then Broad Match makes little sense.