Automatic matching 5/20: What does it really mean for advertisers?

[shorebreak]

I've heard of at least two people who in the last 24-36 hours have received emails from Google stating that Automatic Match will go 'Production' as of May 20th, and that the checkbox for it will be pre-checked; that most likely means it will be an opt-out feature, not the opt-in feature that one would have assumed would be the case.

I'll go out on a limb and say that this is one of the 3-4 most profound changes to AdWords and the entire paid search industry that have ever occurred, right up there with Quality Score, Broad Match and AdSense.

While those of us who live and breathe SEM will no doubt monitor this closely and make ROI-based decisions as to whether to use Automatic Match or not, IMO the majority of AdWords advertisers will start paying a massive surcharge as of next Tuesday.

Probably industry reactions:

Traditional agencies :p
Advertisers who depend on PPC for profitable growth :eek:
SEM firms :D
Google investors :D

[Mel66]

Yikes. This is unfortunate.

I work for an SEM agency, but my response is :eek:. We pride ourselves on getting good ROI for our clients, and this is not the way to do that.

[AussieWebmaster]

They have been beta testing this for a little while http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016339.html

[AdWordsRep]

I've heard of at least two people who in the last 24-36 hours have received emails from Google stating that Automatic Match will go 'Production' as of May 20th [...]

I often take a quick glance at this forum and a couple of others on which I post, at least once over the weekend - I can't seem to stop myself, actually. I almost never post on the weekends, however - with today being the exception that proves the rule.

I felt obligated to jump in briefly, to say that the headline of this thread and text of the post quoted above are simply not correct. Rumors that take on a life of their own trouble me, and I don't want to see that happen here.

What is happening: Automatic Matching has been in beta for some time, as Aussie has pointed out - and starting on May 20th the beta will be expanded somewhat. Even with the expansion of the beta, the number of advertisers who will see this beta option in their account is truly tiny.

Again, to be very clear Automatic Matching goes not go live 5/20.

I'll gather some more details when I get back to work on Monday, and post again.

AWR

[Marcia]

AWR, with regard to your comment about the thread title, I've taken the liberty of changing the title to more of a query.

Original title:

Automatic Matching goes live 5/20 - hold on to your walletYou are taking exception to the title, and we are eagerly looking forward to your clarification.

[Discovery]

Certainly more details are needed about how this actually works in theory and in reality.

My motto; Automate tasks that require no judgment.

To get as much traffic as possible often advertisers use a super inflated budget, but keep it in check with concise focused ads with demo targets, robust negatives and tight keyword lists. In other words, "Give me all you got within these constraints". If I read the Google summary of the offering correctly it's saying, "hey you didn't meet your budget under these constraints lets see if we can't loosen up the requirements a bit and try to get there".

It also looks like the same concept I was posting about with Yahoo! Will Google disable Negatives in order to turn on "standard" match in this scenario?

I wonder what all the possible matching combinations will be? How will we be able to effectively control when our ads will be triggered.

How does this differ from broad match?
Will we have reports on possible KW triggers?

This is obviously a type of "expanded match" and the traffic quality will reflect that, but will the CPC reflect it as well?

AWR be sure to let us know if the claims of being opted-in are true. We would like to test slowly. Auto opt in is a no no.

Thanks for jumping in on the weekend.

Discovery

[AdWordsRep]

I'll gather some more details when I get back to work on Monday, and post again.

OK, I was finally able to make my way to my desk. Meetings, gotta love 'em.

So, as I've already mentioned automatic matching is not going live on 5/20 as was reported in the original subject line and first post of this thread. Instead, the existing (and very limited) beta is being extended to include a number of additional advertisers.

Bottom line: same beta, more testers, still very limited.

Here are the basic details.

On May 20th, a very small percentage AdWords advertisers will receive an email letting them know that they have the option to beta test automatic matching.

For the purposes of this limited beta, the feature is enabled by default. Please note, however, that automatic matching won't start running in these new beta accounts until June 3rd.

Advertisers being offered the beta option may opt out as early as May 20th (and, of course, at any time thereafter) - and, again, they will not receive any traffic before June 3rd in any case.

Full instructions on how to opt out are provided in the email they will have received. Basically, though, advertisers who wish to opt out will want to uncheck a check box on the 'Edit Campaign Settings' page of each of their campaigns. They will want to do this before June 3rd if they want no automatic traffic at all - or at any point thereafter if they are not pleased with the actual results once they've seen them.

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about automatic matching:

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=13669

AWR

[AussieWebmaster]

Thanks AWR will keep alert for opinions on this one.

[B-Double-U]

We received ours yesterday, here is the verbiage:

What is the automatic matching beta?

Automatic matching is an optional feature that helps your ads reach targeted traffic missed by your keyword lists. It works by analyzing the ads, keywords, and landing pages in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.

When automatic matching is first enabled, it dedicates a short period of time to gather information about your campaign. During this period, you won't see any change to your traffic levels. Once automatic matching has evaluated your campaign, your ads will start to show on additional relevant search queries.

The system will continually monitor your performance on these queries and adjust its matches accordingly. Automatic matching aims to show your ads only on queries that yield a high clickthrough rate (CTR) and a cost-per-click (CPC) comparable to or better than your ad group's current average CPC. This way, your ads receive additional targeted traffic at a similar cost to your current traffic.

Automatic matching won't allow your spend to exceed your budget, and it also won't affect the traffic you're currently receiving. For example, say your campaign's daily budget is $10, and on average you accrue $8 in traffic in a day. The automatic matching system may add $1 of relevant traffic per day, meaning it will not prevent your ads from accruing the traffic it normally does. Note also that automatic matching will not affect your campaigns if they already capture the majority of relevant traffic.

Here are a few more details about the feature:

* Opting in and out: Automatic matching is applied at the campaign level. You can opt your campaign in and out of automatic matching on your Campaign Settings page.

* Google Network: Automatic matching does not affect your ad delivery on the content network. It does affect your ad delivery on Google and the search network.

* Quality Score: The traffic accrued by automatic matching won't affect your keywords' Quality Scores or minimum bids.

* Ad position: When ranking your ads on search queries acquired through automatic matching, the cost-per-click (CPC) bid will approximate the current average CPC of your ad group. Learn more about ad rank for automatic matching.

* Performance statistics: Aggregated performance statistics for automatic matching will appear in each ad group's Keywords tab, in a line item labeled Automatic Matching Total.

* Search Query Performance report: You can see the search queries that triggered your ads due to automatic matching by running a Search Query Performance report. The queries will be labeled Automatic in the Search Query Match Type column.

I am personally going to *not* use this feature.

If I wanted broad match or content match, I would implement it... on my own...where I felt it was relevant....and profitable...with my knowledge of the offerings.

[searchengineman]

Automatic Matching vr Expanded Broad Match

We are dealing with an Expanded Broad Match problem which is exactly the same problem this new feature is going to bring on. I'm still not sure what the CTR effect of Expanded Broad Matching will be the same as Automatic Matching. (No effect Quality Score, or CTR)

Does anyone know this for sure?

We got this letter from Google resolving our particular problem.
Expanded Broad Matching sounds very similar to Automatic Matching.

Searchengineman

------------------LETTER SNIP-----------------------------------
This is a follow-up to our phone conversation earlier today in which we confirmed that your ads from your 'China' ad group were showing on the term 'India *PRODUCT*', even though you had paused the 'India' ad group.

Our technical specialists have taken a look at this issue, and determined that your 'China' ad is showing on the term 'India *PRODUCT*' due to our expanded matching feature. I will explain a bit about this feature below, and then give you two options to prevent your ads from showing on keywords that you'd like to remain dormant

WHAT IS EXPANDED MATCHING?

Expanded match and broad match are two algorithms seeking to accomplish the same goal: to show your ads on queries that are semantically similar to your keywords.

What had begun as broad match was an algorithm that only allowed search queries that contained at least part of your actual keywords to trigger your ads. For instance, the search query 'auto shop' could trigger your ad on the broad-matched keyword 'auto repair.' The expanded match algorithm improved this by allowing certain synonyms, plural/singular variations, and other relevant variants - such as 'car mechanic' - to trigger your ads as well.

Some expanded matches might be less relevant than certain broad matches as defined by the old algorithm. Mostly, however, they are highly relevant and have been selected after careful analysis and using refined algorithms.

We have therefore decided to combine the two and offer it as one feature that allows you to target semantically similar variations of your keywords. The new offering is just called 'broad match' and does not make a distinction between the old and the new algorithms.

HOW CAN YOU KEEP ADS OFF OF YOUR PAUSED KEYWORDS?

There are two ways to prevent your China ads from showing on India keywords (or Europe / Global ads on France keywords, etc.):

1) Change your keywords to phrase match (i.e. add quotes around each keyword). This will tell our system that you only want your keywords to show for the phrase that you've entered, and not expand to similar terms.

2) Add other countries / regions as negative terms to each ad group. For example, in your India ad groups you may want to add the terms 'China' and 'Chinese' as negative keywords, to prevent expanded matching from taking place. For more instructions on how to do this, please visit
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6635 (http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6635)


I hope that you've found these suggestions helpful, let me know if I can be of any more assistance!

Sincerely
Ryan D.
The Google AdWords Team

[B-Double-U]

Do you think you could go into a bit more detail?

I have had some similar issues and I am curious, what the keywords were that caused the ads to show. Were they related to the name of the adgroup as well as the actual keywords in the adgroup and how similar or broad were the words that caused them to show.

An example:

Adgroup: "India"
Keyword: "india phone service"

Keyword that launched the ad "Service"?

Thanks!

[searchengineman]

Do you think you could go into a bit more detail?

I have had some similar issues and I am curious, what the keywords were that caused the ads to show. Were they related to the name of the adgroup as well as the actual keywords in the adgroup and how similar or broad were the words that caused them to show.

An example:

Adgroup: "India"
Keyword: "india phone service"

Keyword that launched the ad "Service"?

Thanks!

Nope it was a straight forward BROAD problem, There was no relationship between the ADGROUP names and the keywords which were serving the wrong ADS.

The problem has been rectified (At least for the words with the wrong countries) I guess a temporary solution if you are going to target a Country or State using broad, is to include plenty of negatives.
Which is a pain.

Frankly, I wish there was an option to opt out of Broad Expanded Match.
Or Google offers an on/off solution similar to Advanced Match in Yahoo's Platform.

Searchengineman