ie. widget stores in ny, widget dealers in ny, widget stores near ny
Shouldnt broad match widget ny cover all of that?
Why does Google broad match not work as intended?
It's actually a pretty common misconception that one's ad will show for any and all variations of a broad matched keyword. This is not intended to be the case, however.
Excerpting from the Help center, with bolding added by me:
Broad Match - This is the default option. If you include general keyword or keyword phrases-such as tennis shoes-in your keyword list, your ads may appear when users search for tennis and shoes, in any order, and possibly along with other terms...
More info may be found here:
What should I do if I can no longer see my ad for some broad match variations of my keywords?
[adwords.google.com...]
Here's an excerpt from that page:
At Google, we continually strive to enhance the user experience by improving the quality and relevance of advertising on Google, and we make ongoing improvements to ensure that your ads perform as best they can. We do this by showing your ads only when they're relevant to user searches, which may mean more clicks for some ads and fewer clicks for others.For example, an advertiser specializing in Mediterranean cruises may have selected cruises (broad-matched) for their campaign. Previously, this keyword may have been marked inactive for search due to poor performance on more popular queries such as Caribbean cruises. Instead of inactivating all broad-match variations of cruises, we will now show this ad for specific query variations that are more relevant to the ad, such as Mediterranean cruises...
Bottom line, here's my best advice: if there are particular queries for which you know you'd like your ads to show, then it's best to enter them as keywords in their own right, rather than relying on broad match to include them.
AWA
Doesnt seem to make much sense from the advertiser point of view.
that was a comprehensive reply and I thank you for that. Unfortunately the way it works doesnt seem to make much sense. Instead of having a campaign with lets say 50 words which are easily manageable i need to build the campaign out to 1000+ terms to accomodate all variations of a widget store in NY, near NY, around NY, in the NY area?Doesnt seem to make much sense from the advertiser point of view.
I see what you mean, but can't really agree. I would argue that advertising in a very targeted way 1) does in fact take more work, and 2) absolutely makes sense from an advertiser perspective - and is well worth the time and effort that it requires.
To my mind there is an important difference between simply having a lot of traffic (such as one might get by using "all variations of a widget store in NY, near NY, around NY, in the NY area") and a smaller amount of traffic that also likely to convert better (such as one might get by using only the 'right' variations which are highly related to what your ad actually offers.)
Every advertiser has a different way of looking at it, but for me a smaller amount of traffic to your site from users who are looking for exactly what you offer (because they have searched on a query that describes exactly what you have to offer) is worth more than a much larger amount of traffic from users who are looking for something you don't have (because they searched on a query that broad matched to a general keyword that you've used - but which does not describe something you actually offer.)
Looked at in this way, it seems to be a better experience for both users (who will develop trust that AdWords ads are actually targeted), and advertisers (who get a more qualified and motivated potential customer coming to their site.) And this is why broad matching works the way it does.
AWA
IE, if I bid on the keyword "blue" as a broad match, I am not going to show up for every single search that includes the word blue.
However if you bid on "blue shoes" and someone searched for "blue tennis shoes" you would show up.
Imagine if you could just bid on the word "the" and show up in any search that had the word "the" in it. Some spammers would love it.
As for what you might need to do, I suggest that you just need to broaden your phrases a bit. "Widget store NY" would cover a lot of different phrases that you might not catch, as would "widget dealer NY".
"widget store ny"
This phrase would show your ad for 'widget store ny', 'widget store in ny', 'large widget store ny' etc.
I don't use broad match myself. You have a lot more control with phrase and exact matches.
I would switch to phrase match:"widget store ny"
thats a helpful suggestion but are you sure it works like that? if you phrase matched "widget store ny" and someone searched for "widget store in the ny area" im pretty sure your keyword wont show. I though phrase match was used for an exact match of the keywords with words either before or after the phrase match keywords.
IE. My impression is that if you put in "widget store ny" and someone searches blue widget store NY, the ad would show but if they add words between the phrase match like widget store in ny area it would not show.
Can anyone clear this up?
Sem4U - i think this means your solution wouldnt work.
if you phrase matched "widget store ny" and someone searched for "widget store in the ny area" im pretty sure your keyword wont show. I though phrase match was used for an exact match of the keywords with words either before or after the phrase match keywords.
Ah, I think you are right there. I have just tried a few searches and it matches what you have said above.
Ah, I think you are right there. I have just tried a few searches and it matches what you have said above.
Thanks for responding. Thats where my frustration comes in. For local search there is really no solution other then adding thousands of keywords which get almost no traffic in the fear of missing the boat on broad match.
(I'm not saying that your advice is wrong... just that the comment on the AdWords page seems quite misleading.)
[edited by: Rehan at 6:22 pm (utc) on Mar. 14, 2007]
That's why search engine marketing (SEM) firms exist - large, thorough keyword portfolios are a necessary fact of SEM life, and yet the management of those large lists is more than the typical marketer can handle.
Hence the existence of SEMs that apply scalable management infrastructure to capture impression, click, cost, revenue and margin data for large keyword sets and then use that data to optimize the keywords individually and the keyword portfolio collectively.
-Shorebreak
