Keyword Crash Course_ How To Analyze & Optimize Search Targeting

Regina: 00:00:11

Hi everyone, Regina here with Starter PPC.

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Today I want to go through some and

search term management strategies.

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We did a big search term and

keyword cleanup last week

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on one of our new clients.

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So I want to walk through first

the results of our changes and then

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show you what we changed and how we

thought about the changes and even

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technically how we did the changes.

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So let's get started.

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first of all, This is what

we're seeing from the results.

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So we made the changes on August.

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23rd.

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Right now I have the dates of August 23rd

to 28th, which is today pulled up and

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then I'm comparing it with the previous

period, the 17th through the 22nd.

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The return on ad spend went up by 22%,

even though the amount of conversions

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went down and the amount of conversions

went down just because the cost actually

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slowed, which is a whole separate thing.

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We slowed the cost on purpose, which slows

the conversions, but the return went up.

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And let's see the cost per

click actually went up by 5%.

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And I know that you're all

thinking, Oh no, that's a bad thing.

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Cost per click.

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Why would you want to spend more

when you're dealing with quality

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issues, which is really common, right?

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When you first launch a new account.

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You want to pay more per click, right?

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Because it's those cheap clicks

that are going to waste money.

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It's those cheap clicks in the

beginning where Google is going to go,

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how do I fix my chicken coop type of

keyword , that is super not competitive.

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And Google is going to think.

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I'll just fill this placement by

getting sponsored ad click here

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and making my commission, right?

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Whereas Google knows that no one's

actually looking for anything to buy.

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There's no reason to show an ad

on that keyword and it probably

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should just stick with organic

results, but Google doesn't care.

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Google wants to show sponsored

results, fill placements wherever

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it can and collect their money.

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spending a little bit more

on cost per click in the

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beginning is usually our goal.

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It's later once we have high

quality conversions that we're

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then trying to fine tune.

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And at that point, if we can find

little ways to cut costs in the

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cost per click, , that makes sense.

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Let's see, click through rate went down.

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It's actually a little bit strange to me.

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But, not all the numbers align every time.

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Because there's just too many

factors to have it all be perfect.

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Conversion rate went up, which

makes sense because we fixed the

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keywords and now we're going after,

high intent shoppers and bidding on

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keywords that are more relevant to us.

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So click through rate went up,

conversion rate went up 12% on the site.

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I'm gonna show you first in the

change history on this day, August

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23rd, we made 1,400 keyword changes.

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Not really.

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When you make a keyword change

and then you apply it to multiple

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campaigns or multiple ad groups, it

in the change history, it makes a log

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for each campaign or each ad group.

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It just looks like a ton.

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We didn't do that many.

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I could be wrong about 30 We didn't

really make 1, 400 keyword changes.

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In this account, is an e commerce

company, they sell plants delivered

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to you online, and they sell fruits.

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And they really specialize

in exotic fruits.

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So they're selling the fruits from exotic

plants and exotic fruit plants, right?

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So you'll see that in every campaign we

have the nursery side of the business

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and the fruit side of the business.

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We've got , a PMAX feed only

campaign for the fruits, Then

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we have standard shopping.

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And within here, we actually have

two ad groups nursery versus fruits,

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and we split those out in ad groups

because oftentimes we want to try

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manipulate the bids on each ad group.

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For example, let's say.

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Google is spending 80 percent

of the money on fruits and only

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20 percent on the nursery.

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And the client says, Hey,

actually we make a lot higher

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margin whenever we sell a plant.

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So can we try to just push a little

bit more budget into the plants plants

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ads, and that's the way that we do it.

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So we have two different ad groups in

there and we can say, okay, Google,

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let's say I see that you're spending an

average, this is only one day's worth

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of data, and it's before we made the

changes, so who knows if this is accurate.

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But just for example's sake, I see that

you're spending an average of 13 cents

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per click on the nursery, go ahead

and spend up to 15 cents if you want.

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And on the fruits, since we're trying to

restrict the budget, that you're spending

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an average of 10 cents, go ahead and

try to only spend eight cents per click.

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So we'll manipulate the budget that way by

restricting, giving it more or less rope.

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Okay.

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Then we have an inbound search

campaign just a search campaign.

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And then we have some video campaigns,

both outbound and remarketing.

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So with inbound search, you have

the ability to add keywords and

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you can add negative keywords,

but on the shopping ads, you can

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only add negative keywords, right?

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There's no such thing as adding keywords

on shopping ads, whether it's standard

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shopping or PMAX Google's going to

choose what it's targeting for you.

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And the way.

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The way it chooses is it looks

at your product feed and it

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looks at the product titles.

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It looks at the product descriptions and

it makes a decision on what the keywords

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are based on mostly those two things.

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It also looks a little bit

at the product landing page.

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So if you have like reviews on

that page or other miscellaneous

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information about the product, it

might use that as targeting ideas.

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Okay, so start by going into the search

campaign because that is the one that

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we have the most control over, right?

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Because not only did we have to choose

the keywords, we now need to make

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sure if our keywords are working, and

then, update negative keywords in here.

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First thing I want to

show you guys is this.

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Google is suggesting, hopefully, Why

don't you add broad match keywords,

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get more conversions at a similar

or better ROI by adding broad match

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versions of your existing keywords.

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And you actually get an 8 percent

overall optimization score increase.

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optimization score is a math equation.

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It's basically them gamifying.

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Ways where they can make more money, not

all of their suggestions are focused on

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them making money, but like most of them.

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So we tend to just dismiss these

recommendations or just ignore

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them because adding broad match

keywords is a terrible suggestion.

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We're already getting.

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irrelevant clicks.

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Why would we go more broad?

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Again, Google loves money.

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It loves filling placements.

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It loves more competition

in more auctions, right?

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So the more eligibility it can

convince you and your business to

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have on different keywords out there,

especially the irrelevant ones.

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The higher the competition is, the

higher the keywords get driven up.

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And the more commission

Google makes on each click.

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I'm sorting by cost here.

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August 14th to the 23rd.

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These are the right.

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dates.

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So I'm going to start by cost because

I want to see what are the ones that

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are wasting money the most, right?

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And I'm over in the search terms area.

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You guys search keywords are

the ones that you've written.

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Search terms is what Google's

actually bidding on, right?

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So I heart fruit box.

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First of all, that's just a competitor.

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So of course we're going to

add that into the negatives.

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For this one, I would

say broad match negative.

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Now think about it this way.

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If it's one word, like I

heart fruit box is one word.

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There's no spaces in it.

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And you're adding it to the

negatives as broad match.

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That means that Google cannot bid

on anything with that word in it.

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So that's what broad match means.

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I want to caution you guys against

adding two word keywords as broad match

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negative, because you're now excluding

each of the words in your search term.

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As separate words that can't

be used in any future searches.

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So broad match negative is a very powerful

way of excluding future irrelevant

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searches, but you can also overdo it.

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So my rule of thumb is if you're adding.

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A negative keyword as broad match,

just make sure it's a single word and

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you never want to show up for that

word, no matter what, like in any sort

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of long tail, short tail, whatever.

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So this is a competitor keyword.

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We don't want to bid

on competitor keywords.

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Why?

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Because most of the people that are

looking for the competitor's name,

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they're not going to convert, right?

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The conversion rate is

going to be really low.

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What are the chances that we're

going to convince them to go with

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us instead of the competitor?

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Maybe.

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Maybe, but when you're a small business,

you have better fish to fry, right?

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You have more low hanging

fruit you can go after.

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I would say if you get up to the

point where you're spending 60,

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000 a month in ad spend, a hundred

thousand dollars a month in ad spend,

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you might want to reconsider the

competitor thing, maybe make a separate

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competitor campaign and really restrict

the bids and the budgets on that.

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We can make that a video for

a different day, but for small

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businesses, competitor keywords.

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Okay.

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Fruit tree nursery.

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So this is the nursery ad group.

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I would say this is not a great keyword.

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Because Someone who's looking

for a nursery is probably

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wanting to walk into a nursery.

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Now it doesn't mean that for sure

they're not going to be convinced to

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buy fruit trees on the internet but the

intent really isn't high there, right?

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I would guess that 90 percent of

people who are searching the internet

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for a nursery is going to click

over to the maps and they're going

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to look for nurseries there then.

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So this is tough, you guys.

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Fruit tree nursery.

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I would be hesitant to exclude

because you don't want to tell

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Google, for example, my first

thought is, oh, we could add it as a.

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Phrase match negative a phrase match

negative with the quotations around

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it means hey Google I don't want

you to bid on keywords with the

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intent that you see here the intent

being Someone looking for a nursery.

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Google's gonna be like, oh what if someone

is searching for fruit tree nursery

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online or nursery for delivery, right?

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Those are super relevant to us.

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So I would be hesitant against even adding

it as a broad, as a phrase match negative.

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For this, I would go back

into the keywords and try to

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figure out what is causing it.

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Now I can see here that we

actually have a broad match keyword

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called exotic fruit tree nursery.

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I don't think this is the best keyword.

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And I'm pretty sure that on this day,

back on the 23rd, when we made all

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these changes, we already So we probably

either paused it or we changed it.

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You don't want to bid on

keywords for nurseries.

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If what you're selling is

fruit tree delivery, right?

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We're not really a walk in brick and

mortar nursery, which is a, like a store.

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We're actually an online nursery

that delivers fruit trees to you.

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So the intent is just different.

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And I would.

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Re examine this keyword altogether,

either pause it or change it.

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Like I said so we've gone

through a couple of examples.

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Oh papaya, even though this is in the

fruits and we do sell papaya, even if

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you're struggling with quality and you're

seeing people searching for papaya,

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when what you sell is like papaya.

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Delivery or exotic fruit boxes, right?

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There are more higher intent keywords

than papaya Maybe someone just wants to

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see a picture of papaya Maybe someone

wants to see nutrition facts for papaya

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or recipes for papaya 99 of the people

searching for papaya are not searching

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To have papaya delivered to them from

the internet in a box to their homestead.

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So just higher intent keywords.

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And again, what keyword is this

is causing this one fruits online?

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Okay, so google is taking our

fruits online, which I think is a

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good keyword and making very wide

reaching assumptions about that.

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So what do we do?

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You can Hi there.

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Quick interruption.

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ad agencies because most ad agencies

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that they're willing to work with.

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So what happens is the business

owners end up learning.

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Google ads themselves.

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And the problem with that is

that most of the advice online is

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geared towards larger accounts.

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And the advice doesn't have any of those

strategies or tricks that can kickstart

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the algorithm into giving a small

account a leg up over larger competitors.

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So it often just doesn't work.

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And the business just ends up

losing money month over month.

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Okay.

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Back to the video.

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First of all, if you don't

sell papaya, add papaya as a

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broad match negative, right?

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You never want the word papaya

to ever be bid on again.

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And you can actually do that account

wide by going to tools and settings and

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creating a negative keyword list that's

campaign, account wide over there.

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Or you can do it on a campaign by

campaign basis, or you can do it

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on an ad group by ad group basis.

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It doesn't really matter right now.

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I'm inside of a campaign.

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I didn't actually click into an ad group.

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So if I add a negative keyword

here on this level, it's going

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to apply to the campaign.

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If you do sell papaya, but you're

frustrated that Google is bidding on

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the word papaya, I would do two things.

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First of all, add papaya

as an exact match.

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Negative exact match.

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Negative says, Hey, Google, if

someone's searching for the word

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papaya, Just papaya, nothing else

attached to the end of that keyword.

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I don't want to bid for that, right?

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So if it's happening again

and again, whereas in this

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case it only happened once.

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So who knows if it'll ever

happen again, but you could add

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it as an exact match negative.

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Also, I would do another thing.

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First of all, I would change the keyword

from broad match to phrase match because

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right now fruits online, Google's

going to take, like I said, very.

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wide reaching assumptions about our

keyword and been on things like papaya

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because Google is going to go, Oh,

that's a fruit and people are online.

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So that's the bad thing.

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So fruits online is a

little bit too broad.

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So you can try a phrase

match for frouche online.

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So go over to the keywords area

and add quotation marks around it.

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That tells Google, I want

the intent for fruits online.

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I don't know if that's going

to do it in this case though.

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I just think like an algorithm

after seeing it think for so long.

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And I know that it's gonna just still

take wild assumptions based on that.

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So another thing you could do is

instead of fruits online, right?

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Google is going to be

like, Oh, they're online.

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You could say fruits delivery, right?

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Fruit boxes for delivery.

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Make it a little bit more specific,

more long tail if you have to.

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If you guys are looking through

your keywords and you're like,

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Oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed.

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There's like thousands

and thousands of keywords.

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Here's a good trick.

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First of all, pull up the

columns that you want.

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In this case, I want cost

and I want the keyword.

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And I'm going to click

download it as a spreadsheet.

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like Google sheets, so I'm

going to click on that.

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And what you can do is you can open

this spreadsheet and sort by keyword.

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That way you can see, the 10 times

that this keyword was used and what

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search terms matched up with it.

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And you can start to glean insights about

which keywords are the most problematic.

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So you get the idea.

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You would sort by keyword and it's going

to bunch all the search terms related to

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that keyword and you can be like, Oh, I

see how the algorithm is thinking now.

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And then now you can see rare

tropical fruit trees for sale

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phrase match was bid on twice.

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Rare tropical fruit trees in Fructoville.

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It's bidding on FructoVille.

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I would do a quick Google search

for FructoVille and decide if

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FructoVille needs to be added

as a broad match negative.

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I know this seems overwhelming, you

guys, but once you do this a couple

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of times in the first few weeks

it becomes a lot easier to manage.

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Because, especially if you know the

broad match negative trick you will

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start to quickly see that things improve.

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And you'll get the types of results

that I showed you in the beginning.

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Each time you're deciding on adding

a negative again, you're just going

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to want to decide, does this apply to

just the ad group, the whole campaign,

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or does it apply to the whole account?

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And then you're going to decide which

level are you on when you add it,

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you can even open a new spreadsheet

and make some categories for all

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the negatives that you're going

to add, put phrases around them.

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If it's, if you want to add as a phrase

match, exact match gets brackets, and

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then you can just copy and paste

them when you're applying negatives.

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When it comes to shopping campaigns, you

have a little bit of more restrictions.

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You can't edit the keywords,

but it's actually okay.

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And I'll show you why that is.

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If you go over to the search terms

area, you'll see that the algorithm is

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bidding on things like dragon fruit.

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Okay.

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So dragon fruit in an inbound

campaign is not very relevant.

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Like I said, maybe someone's just

searching for pictures of dragon fruit.

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Maybe somebody is wanting to find

recipes of dragon fruit, but here in

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a shopping campaign, first of all,

I don't have a great way of getting

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the algorithm not to bid on it.

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You can try to add dragon fruit

as a negative keyword, but since

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we sell dragon fruit, it really

wouldn't make sense to do that.

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I would say it's okay.

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: 00:16:50

It's okay.

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That the algorithm is choosing to do

this these are shopping ads, right?

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So they can see that it's a product.

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They can see an image of the product.

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They can see it's a shopping

ad in the shopping ad area,

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and the intent is higher.

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So if somebody's clicking on dragon

fruit probably an 80 percent chance

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that they understand that this is

a product on the internet and it's

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going to be delivered to them.

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In the form of dragon fruit in a box to

their door if they click on it, right?

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So it's not going to really waste

the money because people are just

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going to skip right over those

shopping ads if they're not looking

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to buy dragon fruit on the internet.

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All right.

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This has been a crash course

in how to manage keywords.

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I hope it's been helpful.

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: 00:17:24

If you like this video, don't forget

to click subscribe and like below.

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And thanks for watching.