This is not the PPC advert you’re looking for… move along!
by Andrew Craig
I’ll admit it to you all… I love Star Wars. And I’d love to have the powers of a Jedi. If I did, I’d use my Jedi mind-trick powers to stop unwanted ad clicks. Or better, I’d use my mind-tricks on an imperial storm trooper and get him to tell people to move along.
Ah well a man can dream… a man can dream.
Google does have a few tools, however, that we can use to help us direct our PPC ads at the people we want to see them and hopefully by-pass the ‘looky loo’s’, saving us money and improving our return on investment.
The first tool in our arsenal is the good old match type. There are three basic match types we can use to get our ads to trigger for any given search, such as broad, phrase and exact. Let’s examine each one a little.
Broad matching
A broad match will trigger a PPC ad when some or all of the keywords in any order are searched for. This gives us the least control over who will see your PPC ad but will get your advert out to the widest audience available. Great for targeting people who are at the start of a buying process, this gets your product in mind whilst they are still deciding what they want. These ads would link to your homepage or a product group page.
Phrase matching
Phrase matching is a little more targeted, a phrase match will only trigger an advert if the keywords are searched for in the correct order. The searcher can use other keywords in the search but our phrase must be intact for the advert to show. We now have a little more control over who will see our advert. This is ideal for people who are a little further along the buying process they know what they want but are not too sure on say a model or colour. Ads would ideally link to a product group page or if you were trying to push a particular product you could land them a little deeper into the site.
Exact match
Exact match is our most targeted match. This match will only trigger the advert if it is searched for as is, no spelling mistakes, plurals or extra words. This is the match that should give you your best return on investment and is ideal for the customer who has done all of their research, knows exactly what they want and are ready to buy. Ads would land on a specific product page that gave the searcher exactly what they wanted.
All three of these are useful and will drive your campaign depending on the goal, but sometimes the search volumes are just too small to support phrase and exact match.
The broad match modifier
Let me introduce you to my new friend, the broad match modifier. What the hell is that I hear you cry. The broad match modifier sits between phrase and broad matching. With it you can specify that the search phrase MUST contain certain keywords but unlike phrase matching they can be in any order.
This gives you more control over when your broad match keywords will trigger the advert. Let me try and explain this to you with a little Star Wars influenced example.
Let’s say you have a ‘fully functional death star’ (slightly used) to sell, you don’t want your advert to show for generic ‘death star’ or ‘semi functional death star’, as they would with broad match searches. You simply tell Google that your search MUST contain the words fully & functional and words similar to death star. Your advert would show for searches like ‘fully functional death star’, ‘fully functional battle station’ and ‘functional death star with fully stocked tie-fighters’ but not for ‘second hand death star’ or ‘the Emperor’s new death star around Endor’ or even ‘death star with fully stocked tie-fighters’.
With the Broad match modifier you are looking to keep your ad impressions high but generate a higher return on investment than you might with just a broad match.
The negative keyword
Another very powerful tool we have is the negative keyword. This works well when used with broad match as we are now telling Google not to show our pay per click advert if the search contains certain words or phrases. We don’t sell spare parts or second hand items so adding these to the negative keyword list would stop our death star advert showing if Darth is looking for ‘death star spare parts’. A word of caution though, be careful when using negatives as the wrong one could stop your advert showing to your target audience.
Solid ad text
Finally we have good solid ad text, this won’t always stop people clicking on your advert but it will put some off. Using expensive sounding keywords like luxury and designer might put off people looking for cheap deals or discounts. This technique could also adversely affect your ‘click through rate’ as your ad will still show for searches you may not necessarily want.
The best thing to do is mix it up!
A good campaign will have fixed goals and use a solid combination of all of the above methods to attract your target audience and get them to complete your intended goal, be it data capture or product purchase.
So small tightly themed advert groups containing the right keywords with good relevant ads will help increase your ‘click through rate’ and hopefully your conversions. Oh, and if you know anyone who wants to buy a slightly used but fully armed and operational Death Star, it is up on eBay. The Empire takes PayPal and cold hard cash on delivery.
Tags: Broad Match Modifier, Broad Matching, Direct Marketing Agency, Exact Matching, Jedi Mind-Trick, Manchester Advertising Agency, Manchester Marketing Agency, Marketing Agency, Negative Keyword, Online Advertising Agency, Phrase Matching, PPC Ads, PPC Advertising, PPC Advertising Agency, PPC Agency, Search Engine Marketing Agency, SEO Company, Sold Ad Text, Star Wars
