How do they do it? Pattern match ad generation.

How do eBay/PriceGrabber/NexTag create thousands of unique ads?

[brycen]

I see lots of ads where the search term is repeated in the ad body. For example a search for "beanie" returns:

Find Anything at Ebay
Ebay has Beanie
It's quick & easy to buy. -aff
www.Ebay.com

How do they do it? It seems you'd have to create one ad group per keyword, which is way too many clicks. Is there any way to submit a text file containing both keywords and ads, something like:

keyword**0.25**http://www.yoururl.com/xyz**Discount keyword supplies**The best site for keyword**we know keyword cold**

[shaka1978]

brycen - they just use dynamic keyword insertion.

For your example:

Find Anything at Ebay
Ebay has {Keyword:stuff}
It's quick & easy to buy. -aff
www.Ebay.com

If the keyword searched for is within the character limit it replaces 'stuff' with the keyword. Do a qucik search for dynamic keyword insertion on this forum and you'll find loads of useful info.

Cheers,
Neil

[brycen]

Wow! Great answer, thanks! I would never have figured that out without this fourm. Does Google try to keep this feature a secret? I can't find any official documentation for it on Google's website.

Anyway, the tip is great, but I can't use it. The {keyword:default} mechanism is clearly designed for short single keywords (like "beanie" or "pots"). I bid on very specific multi-word phrases:

"green zilplaes with gnarlywils"
"fixed route transit scheduling software"

I really need to customize each ad to each set of keywords. A pattern match is not good enough.

-Bryce

PS: You can see how badly keyword matching works for others. Try searching for "pots", then "pot", then "large cooking pot" and finally, "large green cooking pot". You get weird results like:

Buy POT for $4
No account or Investment minimums
No Inactivity Fee
www.xyzz.com

Pot
Save on pot.
Low prices. Wide selection. aff
buy.xyzz2.com

Large Pot For Sale
Low Priced Large Pot
Huge Selection! (aff)
www.xyzz2.com

[edited by: skibum at 4:17 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2004]
[edit reason] removed URLs from ads [/edit]

[skibum]

Typically, when the keyword phrase is more than 25 chars, if ya can fit it in the first line of the description, it draws a pretty good CTR.

It's definitely worth taking the time to make ads as specific as possible.