(No advice on phrase or exact matching please...)
What I'm looking to do in part is to target around phrases along the lines of:
widgets in Europe
widgets in Latvia
widgets in France
widgets in Slovenia
Within my broad matched key words I have used the words:
widgets Europe
widgets Latvia
widgets France
widgets Slovenia
As can be seen I've left out the word 'in' as it is "a very common word and is not included in your search". However, if I search for widgets in Latvia, my ad doesn't show. Search again for widgets Latvia, and up pops the ad.
This, perhaps whilst petty, seems somewhat anachronistic to me. I would have thought that the sensible thing to do would be to exclude the 'in' from your key words - particularly in a broad matched option.
I'm obviously just not thinking straight on this so would be grateful if someone could gently explain it to me... please!
Syzygy
Widgets Europe which is a broad match should cover widgets in europe but with some unknown reasons it's not. It like an exact match initially for a new term or a new campaign.
It's a better just to wait or add more terms with "in", "for", etc ...
I think this is the thread in question. I've seen off and on problems using 'stop words' or 'common words' in broadmatched ads.
Some 18 hours on and the situation with the broad matches seems to is becoming even more confused.
Some of the broad matches are now showing when you add 'in' to the search term. The remainder do not - this is wholly inconsistent. Of those that are showing alongside 'in', some have had clickthrough's overnight, and others have not; more inconsistency!
Phrase and exact matches overcome this problem, but that is not the point - I want the broad matches included, because I am specifically seeking broader matches...
So, is 'in' in, or is 'in' out - or should I just shake it all about? :-)
You put your ad words in
you take your ad words out
in, out, in, out, you shake 'em all about
you do the Google ad words and turn 'em around
that's what it's all about - Hey!
Sorry, couldn't resist!
Any further advice welcome & appreciated.
Syzygy
Based on 'system wide performance' the algo has determined that 'widgets in slovenia' won't get a good CTR. Sorry to be vague, but that is as 'specific' as the G folks will get.
(pure speculation) near as we can tell from our own experience it works like this: The algo looks at your 2 word phrase, then looks at system wide CTR for all searches including those 2 words and then for those 2 PLUS one word (any word) if some threshold for your 2 words + 1 (any word) is not met (from system wide experience) you will not be Broadmatching on your 2+1 you *might* still be on 2 words + 2, but the same formula will apply.
It is all because of (the cursed, IMO) 'Expanded" Broadmatching. Because the system is now adding words of its own to your broadmatched terms, there has to be some 'filter' used to PRE-determine if those added words will perform. Thats fine. I just wish they DID NOT apply the 'crystal ball' to MY Broadmatched terms but used *real* performance instead. After all, maybe my ads are better and will get a better CTR than 'system wide' performance.
In fact, when this change was made we lost some *very* important high CTR high ROI broadmatches.
we USED to rely on broadmatching but since the change we do not. The only way around this is to flesh out as many complete phrases as possible. Our account has since gone from 300 words to nearly 3500! (and counting).
Really 'bites' doesn't it? IMO they destroyed the whole beauty of broadmatching, but, well, here we are.
The fact that this is not clearly disclosed and the reports do not indicate which of your words are *really* broadmatching or not is unfortunate...
It is so obviously useful to know which terms are BM'ing or not, I can only conclude they don't provide that info because it gives too much away about the algo.
Yes, ever since Adwords tinkered with the broad matching algo it's been a real pain to get properly broad distribution. Like nyet, I've resorted to what I call "key phrase carpet bombing" to ensure broad distribution -- taking every half-likely permutation and plugging it into the ad groups.
And it's impractical to add hundreds or thousands of "broad matches" just to cover everything, so you'd be better off just using phrase match instead.
<dreaming>Wish they'd go back to the "old" broad matching system</dreaming>
I am guessing that the hypercompetitive travel/real estate ads helped to create this situation.
e.g. Location hotels versus hotels in Location.
In my earlier example, I had a complex term (blue widgets) in (Location something something), which wasn't possible to query in reverse order. Collateral damage.
