Phrase Match KW not showing up

QS is 'Great' and bid is well above minimum

[francie brady]

Here is an example of something I can't figure out:

KW is "widgit to widgit" QS = 'Great', bid is well above minimum.
Campaign and Ad Group are active. When I search: widgit to blue widgit, my ad doesn't show. I have it advertised in USA and I am in USA - no other geo targeting in effect. Same for: widgit to red widget. For some reason I am not getting a proper response to the phrase match. I also have [widgit to widgit] and it shows the ad. Any ideas?

thanks

[vincevincevince]

Are you getting impressions logged? Also, how long have you left it?

[francie brady]

Thanks :-) yes it appears there are impressions - CTR shows 1.63% -- at this time today: 245 impressions, 5 clicks. Still can't see the ad - it should be position 8 -- I checked all ads on the two pages that the ads appear on. Checked: widgit to blue widgit, on this Adwords tool - still no ad: [adwords.google.com...]
Spyglass says its on.

[francie brady]

Three more things: I don't have blue or red as negative KW, I am typing all small cap - same as the KW, and if I search: widgit to widgit blue, the ad appears. What am I doing wrong?

[Rehan]

Looks like things are working as expected. As it says here [adwords.google.com]:

Phrase Match - If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in "tennis shoes," your ad would be eligible to appear when a user searches on the phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and possibly with other terms before or after the phrase. For example, your ad could appear for the query red tennis shoes but not for shoes for tennis, tennis shoe, or tennis sneakers. Phrase match is more targeted than broad match, but more flexible than exact match.

So if your phrase is "widgit to widgit", then a search for blue widgit to widgit should show the ad (and it does, you wrote)...but widgit to blue widget does not have a phrase in it that matches "widgit to widgit", so that's why you don't see your ad in that case.

[francie brady]

Thank you for helping :-)

[BDuns]

SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO BE AWARE OF -

I almost got myself in trouble with my reps over how idiotic this is, but I'll try to explain.

Let's say you drop the phrase "widget to widget" into your account. Because it is a new keyword, it will not have much of a quality score.

You will NOT show up for searches for "blue widget to widget" until the keyword's quality score increases. You will only show for searches for "widget to widget."

Basically, the whole phrase match thing doesn't work right-off-the-bat. You must first build up a "quality score" in order for the phrase "widget to widget" to start showing for searches like blue widget to widget and widget to widget instructions, etc. etc.

So, the tiff with my reps was "how the hell do I build "quality" when my ad isn't showing, thereby not getting clicks to build "quality."

They didn't have an answer and "forgot" the issue.