Google AdWords Workshop:

How Consistent Evaluation& Consolidated KeywordsYield Greater Exposurewith Your Prospects

Presented by KeywordFirst& hosted by The Social Media Monthly

…and now Google CloseVariant Matching, too

“Close only countsin horseshoes andhand grenades.”

– Frank Robinson,Time magazine (July 31, 1973)

Have You Adjusted Your AdWords Lately?

Why Adjustments Matter•In late 2014, Google AdWords changed the way keywords set to Phrase & Exact Match trigger ads

•Keywords with Phrase & Exact Match types now also trigger for “Close Variants”:

• Abbreviations

• Acronyms

• Misspellings

• Singular/Plural forms

• Stemmings (e.g., dog, dogged, dogwood)

•Close Variants aren’t new, but now there’s no opting out

Where’s the Impact?

Who feels the change?•Every AdWords user

•Even if you opted out of Close Variants in the past, you’re back in now

Where will they feel the change?•Your cost of AdWords may rise – if unmanaged

•Less control over your keywords – if unmanaged

•Less control over the conversion process – if unmanaged

What’s More...

• “True” Exact or Phrase Match – no longer technically possible

• Exact & Phrase impressions & clicks will rise, as your keywords match against more variant keywords (a reason your costs could rise, too)

• Close Variant Matching generates on average 7% more Exact & Phrase Match clicks

EXACT MATCH

PHRASE MATCH

BROAD MATCH

Moving Up...

Google Traffic Share by Keyword Match Type

Exact & Phrase Match traffic share have edged higher since mandatory Close Variant Matching

was instituted last September

The Most Interesting Keyword in the World

Close Variants in Action

Hard Drive Hardly Driven

Baby Cloths Baby Clothes

How to Manage Close Variant Matching

How to Evaluate your Data

•Run a Search Query Report (SQR)

•Export your data into Excel and use a pivot table to sort your data by match type

How to Manage Close Variant Matching – Cont’d

How to Evaluate your Data

•Look at your KPI’s by match type and focus on the Close Variants

•In the above example, you’ll see the exact Close Variant typehas a much less effective cost per order than straight exact

•The phrase Close Variant is much closer to straight phrase

•CPC’s varied by type: exact was 5% higher with phraseslightly lower

Gaining Greater Control – Step 1

Steps to Take Back Some Control

The best thing you can do is to re-check your negative keyword list and run your SQR’s more often

•If you run SQR’s monthly, do them weekly for the next few months•Expand your negatives where appropriate

Gaining Greater Control – Step 2

Steps to Take Back Some Control

Evaluate your Campaign Structure

•If you use singular and plural exact match keywords, for example, you might want to consolidate them

•Keep in mind you want to maximize Quality Score so you won’t want to split click history amongst your keywords

What About the Other Guys?

•Bing has also eliminated the ability for advertisers to opt out of Close Variant Matching

Summing Up

1.Close Variants have been around for a couple of years, so this shouldn’t drastically impact performance of your account

2.Every account is structured differently, so the only real way to know how this has impacted your account is to analyze your data

3.You can gain some control back by running frequent SQR’s and analyzing your account structure to maximize Quality Score

4. Potential benefits to this change are:• Reduced account complexity (fewer keywords)• Ability to expand your keyword reach to capture more long

tail keywords

Thank You!

Resources:

Horseshoes article on The Social Media Monthlyhttp://bit.ly/1EoPh7k

Raise Quality Score article on The Social Media Monthly http://bit.ly/1Pwm5PE

See March posts on our FirstWord bloghttp://keywordfirst.com/blog/

Contact:

Kurt Anagnostopoulos http://keywordfirst.com/about-us/our-team/

Co-Founder, KeywordFirstKurt@KeywordFirst.com