chef in alabama

negative adwords question

[chewy]

let's say I'm targeting chefs (as a business to business type offer) and I get a better conversion rate when we use a geographic identifier to narrow down the field.

I know full well there is a consumer searcher looking for chefs as well, and of course they like to use geo identifiers as well, so knowing this I try to block out the consumer search by using negative keywords.

I see here in my logs a search for "find me a chef in Alabama to cook in my home" and I know full well we use "home" as a negative (broad match) term.

We have "chef in Alabama" as a broad match term.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding something here...

How is it that a negative key word is supposed to work if it doesn't block this particular type of search?

Thanks,

-C

[cyberandroid]

could be organic
are you sure it isnt organic?
organic being a non paid search

[chewy]

we have no organic pages targeting this particular market at this time.

[cyberandroid]

so your using a robot.txt
to insure the page isnt spidered at all

[chewy]

yes that is correct.

[cyberandroid]

well as long as your robots.txt is correctly setup
im at a loss

was this just one click?

[chewy]

yes one click.

It caused me to confirm that both the negative word is in the account, and the multiple word phrase used by the searcher which contains the negative word does indeed cause the advertisement to display.

So it seems that in this case, the negative does not block the advertisement.

Further analysis seems to indicate that a long phrase (like a sentence) that contains both the negative word and the targeted words is more likely to cause the advertisement to display than a short list of those same words.

It is almost as if the negative fails to work if it is the fourth or fifth word in a string.

Has anyone else observed anything like this?

[cyberandroid]

do you have expanded match on?

[chewy]

expanded match = broad match right?

Is there something new that gives us more control over this?

[cyberandroid]

no expanded match = expanded broad match not broad match

its google's ill shove your ad wherever the #*$! i want because i can option, and you will like it because you asked for it option

[netmeg]

Look in your Campaign Settings for the Expanded Broad Match setting.

It still shouldn't override a negative keyword, though. I'm thinking that maybe your tail was just a little too long, which shouldn't be the case, given how many people search with full sentences - but maybe you ran up against a limit we never figured on before.

[chewy]

I have never found an option for Expanded Broad Matching to be turned off or on in any of my accounts.

Google says it is "automatic".

[adwords.google.com...]

is it possible that I have an account that just doesn't allow it to be turned off?

[netmeg]

Chewy - take a look at this screen shot and then look at your Campaign Settings page and see if you have an option like this there:

Automatic Match [netmeg.com]

[chewy]

thanks - automatic match is different than expanded match - didn't this come out in a thread a while ago?

one has to do with using up your budget, the other is about synonyms and broadening the broad match in an automatic (and non optional) way.

correct me if I am wrong here.

[cyberandroid]

before the feature went live to all advertisers it was known as expanded match

[PPC Consultant]

Does this keep happening or is it a one time case?

[GroovyDave]

Yes you are correct in your understanding of how negative keywords work. However I think adwords will sometimes ignore words at the end of very long queries, so that could explain what's going on in this particular case.