Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Multiple keyword match types - same ad group, or separate ad groups?
-
Hi guys,
Looking at an account that has historically used broad matching, and i'd now like to take some of the better performing keywords and duplicate as phrase and/or exact match to increase the quality of traffic to the landing pages.
I know I can add red shoes, "red shoes" and [red shoes] to the same ad group, however I've also read that people are creating separate groups for each match type.
Other than easy of management (same group), or more granular targeting of ads (separate groups), should I go with either approach, or a blend of the two?
My key objective in this restructure is to drop the currently high bounce rate on the landing pages by improving the relevance of the incoming traffic.
Cheers, Jez
-
Hey Guys,
I think this post is going to help me out a lot! I've been paying out the nose for my advertising on Google over the year with as you can well imagine a certain sense of frustration. I got the inkling this was what I needed to do as I can see now my structure has been way to careful on my campaigns.
Thanks,
Scott
-
That's correct. The more freedom you give the engines to match your keywords to "related" queries, the less relevant your average click will be, which will drive down conversion rate and thus revenue per click. So, in summary, the more broad the keyword the less you should be paying per click (99% of the time).
This reminds me of a funny blog post I read today that shows how ridiculous some of the matches can be when using broad match -- http://www.ppchero.com/wtq-do-the-creep/
-
Thanks fidelityim & KTaylor, I'll consider both approaches against the time the longer term owners of this Adwords account are willing to put in to managing it
So, the exact > phrase > broad approach is the most cost effective, even though we're putting forward our highest bid price first, based on the theory that higher qualified click through traffic is more valuable to the site owner - is that correct?
I want to confirm, as to a SEM aspirant it seems counter intuitive to pay more for exact matches, though as you mentioned fidelityim, i realise that the CPC does not necessarily equal the tiered bid prices.
Cheers, Jez
-
fidelityim makes a good suggestion. You should definitely bid according to performance of your keywords match types. In all but the most rare cases advertisers' performance will match the tiers fidelityim has mentioned exact > phrase > broad (not including the near exact, near phrase, and broad modified match types Google has added).
There is one point that fidelityim made that I don't agree with... I think it's worthwhile to create separate ad groups and even campaigns for different match types. The main reasons being that it allows you to:
1. View performance by match type at a glance in the absence of sophisticated tools like Kenshoo or Marin Software. This performance will vary by a huge margin so making it easy to see your winning buckets is very helpful given that everyone's time is limited.
2. You can budget your match types based on performance. By analyzing your search query reports, broad and phrase matched queries can be great feeders for your exact match campaigns, so you'll probably want to limit your spend on those terms until you are sure about the performance at a query level. This can only be achieved by separating these match types into their own campaigns.
Cheers,
KT
-
What I'd recommend is a 'tiered bidding' approach. Don't use different ad groups for different match types.
With tiered bidding you're setting different bid amounts for different match types - specifically, your exact match is the highest bid, followed by phrase and then broad. So it would be something like this:
[red shoes] - $1
"red shoes" - $0.75 (3/4 the price of the exact match)
red shoes - $0.50 (1/2 the price of the exact match)
This strategy helps ensure that you're paying a fair value for all different types of search queries that are bringing traffic to your site.
Assuming that in this example, you're an e-commerce site selling red shoes, we'll argue the term 'red shoes' is the most qualified search query available. As such, you're paying top dollar for that keyword - $1. (I know your actual CPC isn't your bid price, I'm just saying - for illustrative purposes). If a user searches for, say, 'shiny red shoes', your phrase match keyword will be triggered, and you'll pay $0.75. You're paying a little bit less because, let's say, your shoes aren't exactly shiny, but there's still a chance that user will convert. Lastly, if the user types in 'what are red shoes', your classic informational type of search query, your ads won't be triggered by the exact or phrase match version of the keyword, but they will be triggered by the broad match, and you'll pay $0.50. You pay the least amount for this search query because this doesn't represent a very qualified visitor for your red shoe, e-commerce website.
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Changing Domains - Will a 301 redirect be looked unfavourably for my Ads?
Hey All, So over the next few weeks we are switching over a clients domain to a new one. Each of the old pages on the old domain will have a 301 redirect to it's new contextual page (with the same content). My question is this, we currently have multiple PPC campaigns running for this client and the ads are pointed towards the old domain so the ads will redirect over to the new domain. My question is this, will Adwords look at this redirection unfavourably? If so, then I will have to duplicate each ad (100's of ads) with a new destination URL (since if I edit the current ads they will lose all past performance history). Obviously for branding I'm going to have to probably change the display URL eventually but for now I'm looking at the BIG issues that could occur. I would normally call Google and ask this question but I don't want them to flag anything in my account just in case this is looked unfavourably. Thanks! Jon
Paid Search Marketing | | EvansHunt0 -
Adwords negative keywords / keyword lists conflicting?
Does any of you had any experience on large 5k+ shared negative keyword lists impacting normal campaign negative keywords in Adwords even if they are not selected on these campaigns? And a second question; does anyone know how selected negative keyword lists can be removed from a campaign? I seem to be able to add them but not to remove them... Cheers!
Paid Search Marketing | | hellemans0 -
Using multiple domains in one Adwords account
Hi, I am currently setting up an Adwords account and wanted to know if you can run multiple websites through one account. We have 2 domains each promoting a different one of our brands and i was wondering the best way to run the account. Regards Ben
Paid Search Marketing | | benjmoz0 -
Best practice to separate paid from organic conversions in Google Analytics
I have a PPC campaign for a client with standalone landing pages with a form, not reachable from the website (although in the same domain). I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
Paid Search Marketing | | DoMiSoL
Google Analytics whose counter is increased every time the thank you page is reached. This way I can track conversions with both AdWords and Analytics. Is that correct? Should I import back in AdWords the goals from Analytics, as suggested in the AdWords account? I have another landing page with a form in the website, where I send users coming from
organic search, so I set up a second goal in Analytics for the thank you page of this form. Is this the reason why I am supposed to import in AdWords the analytics' goals, so that I could see both kind of conversions in both accounts? But the most important question is: If I send both PPC/organic visitors to the same landing page is there still a way to separate PPC from Organic conversions? Thank you very much for your advice. DoMiSoL Rossini0 -
Google Analytics CPC and PPC not Matching
Hi Why do our CPC in Google Analytic not match our PPC in Adword, surely they should be identical? We have Auto-tagging switched on and data in our history is wrong so it is not a timing issue. Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | Studio330 -
Negative Keywords
This will end up being a two part question: We have been running a search marketing campaign for about 45 days. It seems no matter how many negative keywords we add (over 300 right now), we still are receiving borderline relevant traffic to the broad match ad group. We are in the printing industry and I think this in itself presents a challenge since there are thousands of competitors in our market, national & local. People also search for a variety of items, most of which end up having nothing to do with our business (i.e. animal prints, zebra prints etc.) We are running several different ad groups: one exact match, one broad and one phrase match. Does anyone have a resource or links they are willing to share that has general negative terms they use before creating any new campaign? I have ones I have found, but wondering if there is a very good master resource out there. How many key phrases do you typically add to an 'Exact Match' ad group? Thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | SEOSponge0 -
Keyword Domains for PPC
I have a client who wants to buy a lot of long domains with keywords in them, for example, thesandiegopetstore.com (this is fictional) and then set up a PPC landing page for each. They think that when someone types in "san diego pet store" that their domain will be listed high and then they will get a lot of traffic. My concern is that they will own a lot of domains for their company and I thought Google is getting pretty adamant about companies not having a lot of domains, and I thought that keyword domains are not as effective as they used to be -- that branding is more important now. Also, I think the domains they've picked target very competitive keywords and that perhaps they will get a lot unqualified traffic and will still have to pay for the clicks. What do you think? What is the best way to set up PPC landing pages?
Paid Search Marketing | | klkirby0 -
Does anyone know of an excel template for creating keyword combinations?
I am looking for an Excel template with Macros that would allow me to drop a column of keywords next to a column of modifiers and it would build out thousands of keywords with a Macro. Can anyone drop their best SEO/SEM Excel template spreadsheet links in the comments?
Paid Search Marketing | | eli-hgm0