tonerman
07-08-2006, 04:51 PM
Hi everybody. I know there are a lot of threads on this forum about broad match including a few I started earlier. I made this a separate post because I ran into a very disturbing broad match click in my logs today.
The search term the user entered was "HP toner cartridge" and the ad that displayed was a PPC ad for the HP 3100 toner cartridge. What was bothersome was that there was no model number or part number or anything else in the search term.
In the past Broad Match would show an ad for a "Model 1100 Widget" when the search term was "Model 1200 widget". You could stop this by making "1200" a negative keyword in the hypothetical "Model 1100 Widget" campaign or ad group. But how do you stop an ad from appearing when all your keywords and ads have model numbers like "Sony 12345 Television" and someone searches on just "Sony Television"? Obviously you have to enter "Sony Television" as an exact match negative keyword in your Sony television ad campaigns.
Now if your site sells 200 different brands of widely manufactured items made under a lot of brands like "soap" or "car parts" or "radios" you have a big potential to lose a lot of click money. You will have to create a whole lot of exact match negative key words for each brand you sell like "Sony television", "Samsung Television", "Sharp Television", etc. Then there are all the other potential generic search terms that might pop up your specific product ads like "Sony High Definition Television".
So why did I post this thread? Because in all my prior observations about Broad Match it hijacked an ad for model "x" when the search term was for model "y". It didn't grab an ad from your campaign to display simply because the only match was the brand name and some generic search term.
I know what some people will say to this post: "Build only exact and phrase match campaigns and you will do better". I don't think so. I use broad match, phrase and exact match terms all three. I've spent 100's of thousands on Google so I'm no complete rookie. The more search terms you have the more difficult it is to manage your keyword ROI's - even with Google Analytics or some other form of automation to help you. If a campaign has 2000 exact search terms and 100 of them have only one click each, how can you determine which ones to get rid of, or spend more on? Beats me.
Anyway, wanted to let other forum members know that Broad Match is now grabbing ads to display if you just sell that brand and type of product. It probably stays in the same product field, so it is at least loosely related, but forget stopping ads with just negative model or parts numbers, etc. You will probably have to start creating negative exact match key words for broad generic search terms in your product field also.
Personally, I'm now rooting now for Bill Gate's Evil Empire and Yahoo versus Google. Google has just become to liberal at throwing my hard earned money away without my permission to suit me. Am I bailing out of Google? Of course not, but I'm sure no longer the great believer I used to be either!
I read a business book several years ago called "The 22 Immutable Law's of Marketing." Fabulous book. It listed these 22 simple marketing rules to follow and why. It also explained what can happen when you fail to observe them. One of the laws was "Success leads to arrogance and arrogance leads to failure." Maybe Google should do a little homework on this law! :)
The search term the user entered was "HP toner cartridge" and the ad that displayed was a PPC ad for the HP 3100 toner cartridge. What was bothersome was that there was no model number or part number or anything else in the search term.
In the past Broad Match would show an ad for a "Model 1100 Widget" when the search term was "Model 1200 widget". You could stop this by making "1200" a negative keyword in the hypothetical "Model 1100 Widget" campaign or ad group. But how do you stop an ad from appearing when all your keywords and ads have model numbers like "Sony 12345 Television" and someone searches on just "Sony Television"? Obviously you have to enter "Sony Television" as an exact match negative keyword in your Sony television ad campaigns.
Now if your site sells 200 different brands of widely manufactured items made under a lot of brands like "soap" or "car parts" or "radios" you have a big potential to lose a lot of click money. You will have to create a whole lot of exact match negative key words for each brand you sell like "Sony television", "Samsung Television", "Sharp Television", etc. Then there are all the other potential generic search terms that might pop up your specific product ads like "Sony High Definition Television".
So why did I post this thread? Because in all my prior observations about Broad Match it hijacked an ad for model "x" when the search term was for model "y". It didn't grab an ad from your campaign to display simply because the only match was the brand name and some generic search term.
I know what some people will say to this post: "Build only exact and phrase match campaigns and you will do better". I don't think so. I use broad match, phrase and exact match terms all three. I've spent 100's of thousands on Google so I'm no complete rookie. The more search terms you have the more difficult it is to manage your keyword ROI's - even with Google Analytics or some other form of automation to help you. If a campaign has 2000 exact search terms and 100 of them have only one click each, how can you determine which ones to get rid of, or spend more on? Beats me.
Anyway, wanted to let other forum members know that Broad Match is now grabbing ads to display if you just sell that brand and type of product. It probably stays in the same product field, so it is at least loosely related, but forget stopping ads with just negative model or parts numbers, etc. You will probably have to start creating negative exact match key words for broad generic search terms in your product field also.
Personally, I'm now rooting now for Bill Gate's Evil Empire and Yahoo versus Google. Google has just become to liberal at throwing my hard earned money away without my permission to suit me. Am I bailing out of Google? Of course not, but I'm sure no longer the great believer I used to be either!
I read a business book several years ago called "The 22 Immutable Law's of Marketing." Fabulous book. It listed these 22 simple marketing rules to follow and why. It also explained what can happen when you fail to observe them. One of the laws was "Success leads to arrogance and arrogance leads to failure." Maybe Google should do a little homework on this law! :)