Google Adwords Campaigns are a great way to attract new visitors to your website and in turn increase sales or enquiries for your business. Usually this can be very cost effective, with customers being shown your paid advert, if it matches with their original search words. You then pay if your ad is clicked on, sending your visitor to your product or homepage.
However if your Google PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Campaigns are using broad matches, you may be paying for irrelevant leads and wasted clicks.
Google AdWords | PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Campaigns
We recently assisted with a PPC Campaign for Art Deco Print site, LoveThyWall.com and found that a proportion of their budget was being wasted on customers searching for product lines not relevant to the vintage print seller. Visitors looking for Art Deco furniture, clocks and lighting, were still being presented with LoveThyWall.com ‘s PPC ads, a percentage of which were then using up the ad budget by clicking on the link.
Broad Keyword match
The advantage of using a broad keyword match, is that it increases the number of people likely to see your advert, by showing it to people looking for things that Google deems to be similar. However, we found this is not always that accurate out of the box and needs to be monitored and adjusted over time.
PPC Negative Keywords
The easiest way to optimise your broad keyword matches, is to use negative keywords. If your ad campaign is already running you can view the past searches that people used and remove any that you deem irrelevant or void.
Common Negative Keywords for websites selling products online include; jobs, courses, university, free, tutorial.
Adding Negative Keywords
Make sure you are at Campaign level (if you would like to apply the change to all your ad groups), with All Time view selected in the dates range.
Select the Keywords tab and then the Details dropdown, selecting Search Terms > All
You’ll now see a list of keywords, that have caused your ad to appear. Select any that are irrelevant and click the Add as negative keyword button.
Set the word to be excluded at campaign level and it will now be removed from future campaigns.
Maintaining your Keyword List
When using broad terms, your keyword list will often be filled with very specific keyword searches, i.e. “art deco penguin”, “highland cow art“, “art deco print man with dark hair and a grey coat”, “luxury art deco homes Bournemouth“. If you don’t stock these specific products or lines, they can now be quickly excluded. Negative keywords aren’t without some use, as this information could help you to make new product decisions in the future.
If you’d like help with your Google Adwords campaign, get in touch and we can tailor a PPC campaign to suit you.
