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
-
Adwords Duplicate Keywords with Different Match Types - Good or Bad?
If you have the following keywords in an Ad Group advertising for a product, let's for example call it "target" product [target product] "target product" +target +product I've found that the exact match keyword has the highest conversion rate in almost all circumstances. So it would make sense to have a higher max bid on the exact match then phrase or broad batch. Even with lots of negative search terms to maximize conversion on the broader matches, if the bid is the same as exact match, the cost per conversion will be much higher (too high.) However in chatting with an Adwords Support Rep (on a different matter) they stated after looking through my account at the end of the chat: " duplicate keywords will impact on quality score. your all keywords will compete with each other" However many of the ad groups in question these duplicate keywords have quality score of 9 and 10. So obviously if there is an effect it seems it may be minimal. I thought it was pretty common for people to bid higher on more exact match and lower on more broad match. What's the real story here? Was this support rep not seeing the big picture?
Paid Search Marketing | | JCCMoz1 -
Is it better to place PPC when competition is high or low?
When managing a clients PPC campaign is there any advice on throttling up and down the accounts depending on the search popularity. Let's take "wedding cake" there are obvious trends here https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=wedding cake but would you advise to spend more on Ads during the quite months as competition is low and you can get more click for less cost, or do you load up on clicks when it is more competitive/expencive . Please don't get bogged down in the "weeding cake" keyword, I'm looking more for views on when would be best to load an account in terms of return on investment. For example would you get better quality clicks when low search volumes as opposed to high. Lets also assume that our product costs us the same all year round. I have seen different side to the story. What are your views
Paid Search Marketing | | smartcow0 -
PPC sessions being counted as organic in GA
I am coming across a very frustrating phenomenon in one of my PPC campaign reporting. In short: I believe that GA is counting some of my PPC sessions as organic (not provided). Has anybody come across this before? I believe they are being counted as organic because of the following: the website is brand new and does not rank for anything but their branded terms the few keywords showing up in GA are the terms we target our PPC towards the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions) PPC clicks and sessions don't even match up in the AdWords part of GA GWT shows 0% CTR for any non branded terms Tell me I am crazy, but I really don't think I am. I just don't have the hard evidence to back it up. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Paid Search Marketing | | Rebecca.Holloway0 -
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 -
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 -
PPC question for the experts
I know this is paid search but since Moz had a section for it, I thought it would be ok to ask. 🙂 According to: http://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en Broad match modifier +tennis +shoes Ads may show on searches for tennis shoes
Paid Search Marketing | | MattAntonino
buy tennis shoes
best shoes for tennis Ads won't show on searches for running shoes
tennis sneakers I'm using (for a client) +wedding +photographer. It should show on wedding photographer hire a wedding photographer best wedding photographer in dallas It should not show on photographer in Dallas become a photographer dallas pictures But it is. Why would this happen? Isn't that exactly what it says it won't show up on? Also, Google writes: Don't leave space between the plus sign (+) prefix and the word you're modifying! •Correct: +leather +shoes
•Incorrect: + leather + shoes
•Incorrect: +leather+shoes Yet the client was told by Google the opposite. "I spoke with Google and they confirmed that the space after the plus and before wedding (“+ wedding”) would notrequire “wedding” to show up." How on Earth does this reconcile or make ANY sense? ETA: This is fairly clear to me: Be sure there are no spaces between the + and modified words, but do leave spaces between words. The right way to do it: +formal +shoes. The wrong way to do it: +formal+shoes. http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/bmm.html0 -
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 -
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