As a Google AdWords Partner, we get some advantages over the typical do-it-yourselfer, – but that’s not to say you can’t do it yourself. When it comes to digital marketing, and AdWords time and knowledge are your friends, but when you don’t have time, hire an expert.
If you are doing AdWords on your own, make sure you have built out an appropriate list of negative keywords and monitor your keyword search terms every day. – This will help you continue to optimize your account and save you money on traffic that won’t convert.
I won’t get into the initial creation of negative keywords here but what I will tell you is how to optimize your campaign each day by checking out those non-converting clicks.
(If you are in the new dashboard)
- Access your campaigns.
- Click on keywords
- Now click “Search Terms” across the top
- Filter by an appropriate date range
Now, read through the keywords that triggered a search result and check the ones that make no sense and add them to your ad group or campaign.
“Select Add As Negative Keywords”
This part gets a little trickier., Sometimes you will want these at a campaign level, other times you may want them at an ad group level.
If you are just getting started the campaign level may be the place to be. Also, take note that by default these are surrounded by [ – ] brackets making them exact match terms. I like to switch them to ” – ” phrase match type and even broad match if appropriate. Make your changes and press save. Now when a person searches for something
Example
We are working with a Real Estate agent that does not want to target other agent names. Many of the agents target the same keyword phrases and with broad match and broad match modifier terms, there are times that your ad will get triggered along side a search term looking for a specific agent.e of our primary keyword phrases get combined from visitors resulting in their ads showing.
Our target keyword is a phrase match type… “Ajax Luxury Real Estate”
This add will show if a person types that phrase in, but it will also show if they search…. “Jane Smith Ajex Luxury Real Estate”
You would think coming up with a competitor name in it might be good. – and in some cases, it could be. But not in this one. In this case, the person is going to see the ad, – click it, call you and ask for Jane Smith. – Then the add won’t convert because, well… You are not Jane Smith. Wasted your time, your ad money, and the person making the phone call.
By adding the name “Jane Smith” to your negative keyword list you will stop bleeding money through a wasted click, and potentially lower spend per click by raising your CTR.
