Keywords nearing unmanageable size - AdWords alert

[isg]

AdWords has issued the vague alert below. Does anyone know the keyword limit Google would prefer I decrease to?

The keywords in your account are nearing an unmanageable size. We recommend that you reduce the number of keywords within your account. This will ensure that your account includes the most targeted and relevant keywords possible. Use our Find and Edit Keywords Tool to identify poor performing keywords within your account (such as keywords with few or zero impressions) and delete them.

[rustybrick]

Contact your Google Rep, they have the power to give you more keyword space.

[abbottsys]

I've been using AdWords since day one and have never seen this message. Don't use a high volume of keywords on one ad. Split your keyword set across multiple ads, and write each ad to be more focused. What you need is a large number of ads, each one highly focused on a small number of keywords. It's more work, but you'll get much better ad performance.

[isg]

I have multiple ads running with each ad group, and my maximum number of keywords per ad group is 350 with the average running more like 150 keywords. Is this unsually large? I've contacted my AdWords rep to request more space, though.

[AussieWebmaster]

Not high at all.... have you looked to see what keywords are getting no clicks but some impressions... you may have a bunch of words in those groups that would help your CTR by removing to a new AdGroup for special work... we do this at both ends... grab the high CTR and make them into a smaller group so you can tweak at them to see if they can go higher4... and the low garbage to strengthen the CTR of the old group and give you a chance to try ads you may not for the other group... no clicks etc. means nothing to lose....

[DownOver]

I manage over 200k keywords in google across hundreds of adgroups and 10s of campaigns and I have never recieved that message.
I would take Barry's advice here and contact your rep. Their original adgroup keyword limit is 2,000 and I don't believe you're reaching that from what you're saying. If you are hitting that cap, contact your rep and they will raise it to 5,000 for you.
Hope this helps.

[Discovery]

We received the same message for the first time recently.

We break our campaigns down into very targeted campaigns. So although our list of keywords may be small for each adgroup there are many many adgroups.

We also had a number of campaigns on pause that we decided to delete altogether. This cleared up some space for us.

How many keywords are too many? I think that is truly different for every product and service. If like us you need to use many thousands of keywords to properly target your audience then I'm sure a quick conversation with your account rep will get you the clearance you need.

Discovery

[DownOver]

One thing to remember: Google does not purge deleted campaigns/adgroups/keywords. If you go into your management center within the Google UI and click on "view all campaigns/adgroups" instead of "view active", you can see the example.

I've tried repeatedly to get my reps to remove all old data (dating back to 2002) to remove the clutter, but they have no control over it. Also, I believe that there is a 250 cap set on total amount of campaigns per account.

My advice is to re-evaluate your use of campaigns and adgroups and restructure if needed. Unless you're using geo-targeting, there is no reason to have an overwhelming number of campaigns.

Hope this helps.