Multiple keyword match types - same ad group, or separate ad groups?

[jez000]

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

[SkitterD]

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

[KTaylor]

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/

[jez000]

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

[KTaylor]

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

[stevefidelity]

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.