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.
PPC: how to get rid of an ad appearing on a keyword we don't want?
-
Hi,
Our ad on Google Ads is appearing for a search we don't want. it isn't in our search keywords and when i try and ad it to our negative ones, we get the error " You cannot exclude keywords that are targeted " which i assume means that google thinks we are bidding on it?
We have a selection of broad phrase matches so i can only think that this is where it's coming from?
Do you have any tips on tracking down which keyword is generating this ad and how we can turn it off?
(we don't want to pay for clicks on this search if possible!)
Btw - i have turned off each keyword in turn to test it = nothing. have then paused the whole campaign = gets rid of the ad (but this is our most successful campaign so i can't just turn it off).
Any advice super super welcome. thank you!
-
Hi Fubra,
First thing that I can recommend that you do is to go into your AdWords account, then into the campaigns, then into the tab titled 'Keywords'. Once there, click into the tab titled 'Search Terms'.
Once in the 'Search Terms' tab, you should see all the keywords that triggered your ad to show. In this tab, look for the specific keyword that is unwanted. Select this keyword by clicking on the selection box on the left and you should see a bar pop up that allows you to select what you want to do with this keyword. Select the option 'Add as Negative Keyword' and that should stop the ad from triggering each time someone searches for the unwanted keywords.
Pro-tip: As part of your PPC optimization process, you should also be looking in the 'Search Terms' section of your campaigns/ad groups on a regular basis to see exactly what search terms are triggering your ads to show. There's bound to be search terms that are non-converters and also irrelevant search terms. By continually adding those to your list of negative keywords, you make your PPC campaigns more cost-effective.
Good luck!
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
-
Special Characters in Negative Keywords in Ads
Howdy, fellow mozzers, I came across this weird suggestion in my Bing account (screenshot link: https://dmitrii-regexseo.tinytake.com/tt/NDY3OTc5NF8xNDgyMzY4OA) It almost that the dollar sign in the negative keyword is acting like a wildcard character, or being disregarded completely. I did some tests, it seems that in Google Ads that is not happening. Does anyone have an idea if this is normal behavior? I have never seen this before.
Paid Search Marketing | | DmitriiK0 -
Are there free tools that would tell me the cpc for my keywords?
If not what tools do you recommend to use to get an accurate cpc $ for estimating budget?
Paid Search Marketing | | lina_digital0 -
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 -
Is there any reason to add the word "buy" to our Adwords keywords?
Was having a discussion with someone so I am going to write this up as neutral as possible and let you guys decide. We have a large keyword list and they are all setup as phrase. Should we go back and add the word buy in front of all those keywords? Even though they are setup as phrase already. Example: "Widget" (as a phrase) Should we go back and add "Buy Widget" as a keyword?
Paid Search Marketing | | EcommerceSite0 -
Cost per click on PPC
What is the best way to get a good cpc estimate other than actually running the campaign? I have had several people asking for budgets and wasn't sure how to answer. Any suggestions?
Paid Search Marketing | | ClickIt0 -
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
Paid Search Marketing | | jez0000 -
What are the best sources for finding competitor PPC spending by category?
Can anyone provide sources for gathering paid search advertising spend for competitors, preferably by category? Thank you.
Paid Search Marketing | | JoeAmadon0 -
SEO for PPC landing pages
After completing several months of on-page SEO for my site (one keyphrase per URL) and getting an "A" from SEOmoz on each page, now I'm venturing into PPC AdWords for the first time. From what I've read you pretty much want one landing page per keyword/ad. So if I want to target 100 PPC keywords I need 100 landing pages. And each landing page needs to be SEO'd as if you were doing it for organic search purposes so that your ad has a chance at a high Quality Score (8 to 10). I realize that an ad's QS is 2/3rds driven by its CTR but in the beginning when the ad is new the initial QS assigned seems to be driven more by landing page relevancy and some historical attributes of the AdWords account in which the ad or Campaign is located. My question is: What, if anything, do you do different on a page designed to be a PPC landing page as compared to a regular page you would SEO for organic search benefits? Also, should you do any of the off-page things (external links with relevant anchor text) for PPC landing pages? I'm envisioning landing pages that only exist to receive PPC ad clicks and that will not be linked to from my site directly. Each landing page talks a bit about the keyword the user was searching on and then directs them to the most relevant page(s) within my site. Maybe that's flawed? Thanks for any tips...
Paid Search Marketing | | scanlin0