My Client’s Google Adwords Refund for Automatic Matching

November 6th, 2009

by Laura Thieme

I received a response from Google Adwords regarding my request for refunding my client $2,000 for automatic matching to “design school” broad match keyword. My client spent $7600+ in the last three months for this one keyword, out of 20,000 keywords. So the client is spending a good amount on PPC, has two accounts both equal spend, and thus is worth making happy if you ask me. Google indicated they are happy to refund my client $350, out of my $2k request on a $160k/mo ad account. Hmmmmm.

What do you think? I responded and let them know that I’m not happy with $350, as Google decided to show my client for keywords unrelated to “design school” broad match. See below for examples in this post and previous post.

I figured I’d better go back and re-educate myself on keyword match types in Google’s Online Adwords Learning Center. In Google Adwords Learning Center “Keyword Matching Options” it references broad match keyword systems. It now shows you for “homes” in response to search query “houses”. I get that, even though that is NOT how it used to be. Previously, broad match required that I use the one of the words in my search query. So if I really wanted to show up for “houses” in addition to “homes”, I’d have to insert both terms into my broad match string of keyword possibilies. Broad match meant I could show for “new homes”, “homes for sale” and other related queries. So if my client wants “design school” broad match, I’d get keywords that could be in front of “design” or “school” as well as anything in between “design” and “school” and after the word “school”. It meant as long as either design or school was in the query, anything was fair game. That was the “OLD” broad match in Adwords.

Broad match is the default setting as one would read or watch in Google’s Learning Center, which is a huge issue for major campaigns, as well as search newbies. So many people don’t understand match types, nor do they have transparency between agency and business owners/managers to know what type of match types are in place for their PPC campaigns For example, Google states “car repair” will trigger “repair car”. Again, I agree with this. This was the old way of showing ‘broadly matched’ terms. But what about non-related terms as shown below?

Phrase match requires exact sequence “design school” would only allow my ad to show up for something before and after that exact sequence “design school”. Nothing could be inserted in between “design” and “school when using phrase match. But phrase match can be somewhat limiting, as I’ve seen with converting keywords in large PPC campaigns. I like the concept of broad match in addition to phrase match. Sometimes you just can’t guess all the ways someone will search for “design school”. They might put relevant terms in between “design school” and thus I might want to keep broad match.

Exact match requires the same order/sequence of design school, and excludes anything else before or after the sequence for [design school]. So, it turns out hardly anyone searches for just “design school” exact match or Google just doesn’t show us for that.

Negative Match would allow me to get rid of terms I don’t want unrelated to “design school” broad match or phrase match as mentioned in my previous blog post earlier this week. See below. Embedded match is a combination of negative match and exact match. I might have to learn more about that one.

In the Adwords Learning Center it broadly references “homes” might get “houses” searches under broad match, but this can be a really big problem for a client.

In our PPC Conversion Audit for this new client that shows up for “design school”, the following terms have to be closely monitored and determined if relevant under “broad match” settings:

1) “art institute” - Google delivered our ad with the keyword search query “art institute” - relevant or not? - Possibly
2) “make a adenovirus cell for school project” - relevant or not? NOT
3) school floor plans - relevant? NOT
4) football field house designs - relevant? NOT
5) school girl make up for customs - relevant? NOT
6) school skirt sewing pattern - relevant? NOT
7) school hat design - relevant? NOT
8) church design with school & gymnasium 70000 square feet - relevant? NOT
9) school letterhead designs - relevant? NOT
10) cool ties pattern - REALLY? Seriously? cost my client $12 ($11.95)
11) cheerleading uniform design - NOT
12) daycare decoration - NOT - cost my client $11.67
13) nursery decorating ideas - $13.71
14) baby nursery designs - $24.46
15) make an ecosystem - $7
16) zebra pattern school supplies - $12
17) cheap class rings - $11.32
18) brown & green bathrooms - $7.62
19) class of 2013 - $6.72
20) make friends in middle school - do people really search this way? 7.05
21) class of 2012 - $12.41
22) large storybook templates for classrooms - $14.58
23) church blue prints - $14.94
24) perporseful desing mathematics grade one teacher - I’m not sure design school is what they need - maybe first grade spelling would be good here - $13.21
25) school reunion supplies — good root keyword to negative match “supplies” and “reunion”
26) school brochures - $12.92 - good term for negative match - “brochures”
27) designing a sunday school resource room - perhaps a term to negative match - “room” and “sunday school”
28) license display cabinets - this is another one that pisses me off - where is “design school” related to license display cabinets - in any way? “display” related to “design? maybe? this cost $14.44
29) discount class rings - another one that just doesn’t match to “design school” despite class being relevant to school $9.29 for that one

So far, my client has been offered $350 refund out of $2k requested for this one term analysis. I’ll keep you tuned.

The moral of the story - if you broad match your terms, please audit your search terms monthly. Every month, you’ll come up with new negative matches.

Why did I keep “broad match” in Adwords for my client until the other day? Well, Google hasn’t shown their “phrase match” ad for ‘design school’ but four times out of 2,000 impressions. They keep showing the ‘broad match’ keyword phrase. Perhaps now, it will show more often. In addition, look at the terms that converted:

15 keywords out of 500+ keywords converted in the past three months. They were all highly relevant. Some were clear broad match queries but phrase match would help in this particular case. I have phrase match in this keyword case. But oddly enough, Google has only delivered clicks 4 times out of 2,000 impressions, so phrase match is either not showing correctly or not performing at all for us on this term.

Please do not think I’m saying phrase match is the only way you should manage your PPC campaigns. I’m not! Broad match can work, but I’m saying you need to do a PPC Conversion Audit and this is where you will uncover issues like I’ve revealed above. I can save, and you can too, a lot of money for clients by analyzing terms that don’t convert, as well as those that have a high cost of conversion.

Posted in Paid Search Tools, Search Analytics.

 

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3 Responses to “My Client’s Google Adwords Refund for Automatic Matching”

  1. Mark Kennedy Says:
    November 6th, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Hi Laura, good post.

    You’re right in the fact that for some campaigns you need to use broad match, but you have to be very careful with it. Bad search queries are like cockroaches and you have to keep stomping them like cockroaches. The search query reports are your best friends.

  2. Alan Mitchell Says:
    November 8th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    I agree broad match has become more expansive, due to the inclusion of ‘other’ keywords Google deem relevant. But isn’t everyone (other advertisers bidding on the same broad match keyword) in the same boat? Surely the amount you bid for a keyword are linked to that keyword’s return on investment, so if Google starts broad-matching you to irrelevant traffic which doesn’t convert, won’t that mean you (and other advertisers) would bid less, negating the additional cost of irrelevant clicks entirely?

  3. Rank High Google Says:
    January 3rd, 2010 at 2:31 am

    WowI hadn’t never thought the ultimately simple ways a search engine like Google thinks. The truth of the affair is that while Google indexes your page abundant times, it still takes a tonne of effort on your part in order to get your page to become “relevent” to Google. I guess this just adds to my knowledge of search engine optimization.

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