Target High Precision Keywords

we recently ran some tests dissecting some campaigns and creating 8 Google AdWords campaigns from one. We wanted to see whether traffic would be decreased or increased.  Our test confirm breaking down campaigns and getting as granular as you can definitely pays off. It’s better to organize multiple keywords under various campaign groups.

Use the [Exact Match] if possible

Google AdWords lets you set the following phrase-matching options when you are entering the keywords you want to bid on:

• Broad match: This is the default option, and I’d say, the most inefficient way of selecting the search options. Here, if you enter content management software it will show your ad for all possible combinations of the three words, plus, if they are used in conjunction with some other word. So whether it is management software or content software or buy content or something else, your ad will appear for all of them, attracting tons of unwanted clicks and hence, expense.
• Phrase match: In this phrase match option your ad appears for the phrase match plus for any other word appearing with the phrase. So if you use “content management software” (with double quotes) it will not only show your ad for content management software but also for free content management software, download content management software, download content management software, content management software in php, etc.
• Exact match: This is the best way of entering your keywords and it can get you the highest conversion rate (although fewer links). For exact match you enclose your keywords within [ and ]. Hence, if you enter [buy content management software] your ad will only show up for this search term and nothing else. This drastically reduces the clicks you get but since people come to your website through the exact search term the conversion rate is quite high.
• Negative match: Suppose you don’t want to appear for the word free If you use -free content management software your ad won’t appear for the search terms containing the string free. Use this option to mark for all the keywords and phrases you don’t want to appear for.

We analyzed and checked the numbers for the same keywords in generic (r7168) and specific (r9100) ad groups. Below is what we have found. Specific ad groups actually get a bit more impressions.

Month	Keyword		Data	r7168	r9100
January	“diapers coupon”		Sum of Impressions	133	5
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	“diapers coupons”		Sum of Impressions	508	335
			Sum of Clicks	3	2
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	[diapers coupon]		Sum of Impressions	85	5
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	[diapers coupons]		Sum of Impressions	21	159
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	diapers coupon		Sum of Impressions	134	100
			Sum of Clicks	1	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	diapers coupons		Sum of Impressions	10	318
			Sum of Clicks	0	2
			Sum of Conversions	0	1
January Sum of Impressions				891	922
January Sum of Clicks				4	4
January Sum of Conversions				0	1
December	“diapers coupon”		Sum of Impressions	42	7
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	“diapers coupons”		Sum of Impressions	171	893
			Sum of Clicks	2	7
			Sum of Conversions	1	0
	[diapers coupon]		Sum of Impressions	18	3
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	[diapers coupons]		Sum of Impressions	16	65
			Sum of Clicks	0	1
			Sum of Conversions	0	1
	diapers coupon		Sum of Impressions	85	180
			Sum of Clicks	0	0
			Sum of Conversions	0	0
	diapers coupons		Sum of Impressions	20	198
			Sum of Clicks	1	3
			Sum of Conversions	1	0
December Sum of Impressions				352	1346
December Sum of Clicks				3	11
December Sum of Conversions				2	1

Tags: google adwords, PPC, SEM