AdWords Displaying Ads Incorrectly

[Uctqnde]

Has anyone else had continuous trouble with AdWords displaying the wrong ads for PPC campaigns? I have several campaigns that display ads from other, unrelated campaigns in my AdWords account. I have checked all of the usual suspects, and there is no rhyme or reason other than a technical mistake on the part of Google. I have had no success in getting Google to admit that they are at fault, even when I know they are. I am tired of the run around from their Technical team and I am looking for any input from other PPC advertisers?

Please let me know!

Thank you.

[RhinoFish]

"I have several campaigns that display ads from other, unrelated campaigns in my AdWords account."

Where are you going to observe this happening?

[Uctqnde]

I frequently use the ad preview tool, and run searches from computers on other networks, cookies cleared, etc. I consistently notice them displaying ads from either other ad groups from the campaign, or other ads from other campaigns.

[RhinoFish]

without specifics, i don't know what to tell you really.

have you used the ads diagnostic tool within your account to see what is being triggered by these specific searches?

[Uctqnde]

For instance, let's say I have Keyword #1 in Adgroup #1 in Campaign #1. I type that keyword in to a search or the ad preview tool, and an ad from Adgroup #5 in Campaign #5 pops up. Sometimes they are related keywords, sometimes they are not.

What is the point of carefully optimizing your account if Google is going to go ahead and display the incorrect or irrelevant ad copy? It makes no sense that keywords from completely unrelated campaigns trigger ads from other completely unrelated campaigns.

Any ideas on how to fix this? It is impacting conversions.

[Uctqnde]

For instance, let's say I have Keyword #1 in Adgroup #1 in Campaign #1. I type that keyword in to a search or the ad preview tool, and an ad from Adgroup #5 in Campaign #5 pops up. Sometimes they are related keywords, sometimes they are not.

What is the point of carefully optimizing your account if Google is going to go ahead and display the incorrect or irrelevant ad copy? It makes no sense that keywords from completely unrelated campaigns trigger ads from other completely unrelated campaigns.

Any ideas on how to fix this? It is impacting conversions.

[netmeg]

If your campaigns are entirely unrelated, then add the wrong keywords as negative keywords, so as to funnel the traffic into the right campaigns.

[RhinoFish]

and for the regular keywords (not negative keywords per netmeg's suggestion, which is a good one) use more phrase and exact match where possible.

if you're using broad match and the words are related, they can both be eligible to trigger for certain searches, then it comes down to bid and quality - so look at this issues as well as they can cause overlap too.

[SEMblahblah]

Exactly...as netmeg and rhinofish mentioned...its the broad match keywords from other ad groups that are triggering the ads. To counter this, we also add ad group level negatives in the same campaign. Say for example I have one ad group targeting 'blue widgets' and the ad here talks specifically about 'blue widgets' and a second ad group targeting 'red widgets' with and ad talking about 'red widgets', I'd add 'blue' in broad as a negative to the 'red widget' ad group and vice versa.

Also, once this is done, use the ad diagonistic tool to check if your ads are showing from the correct ad group.

[Lorymer]

One month ago, I have wasted 2 hours on 3 different phone calls with my Google account manager. It was not possible to solve the issue! I have a blue widget ad group targeting blue widget keywords with a blue widget landing page and a red widget ad group targeting red widget keywords with a red widget landing page. What happens is that for any red widget searches instead of the red widget ad copy, the blue widget ad copy is displayed so the user gets on the WRONG blue widget landing page instead of the red widget landing page!?!
I was told that I have similar keywords!? Well, Duh! It’s all about ... widgets because they are part of the widget campaign. So it makes perfect sense for those keywords to be similar.
Anyway, the conclusion is that the system knows better than you do - so it displays blue widget ads for red widget searches!?

[netmeg]

Why didn't you use negative red widget keywords in the blue widget ad group, and negative blue widget keywords in the red widget ad group?

If you're talking about just "widget" keywords - well yea, then you're always going to be competing against yourself that way.

[Lorymer]

After talking to the Google manager I have only kept exact matches and it still didn’t work – so NO, I was NOT competing against myself.
Generally speaking (exact matches or not), you really mean that adding negative keywords is THE ONLY solution.
I don’t agree! The system shouldn’t behave the way it does. I had at least a dozen clients with similar campaign structures in the last years and this NEVER happened.
Just to be sure that I got this right: If YOU would have a widget campaign with 100 ad groups corresponding to 100 different types of widgets – blue, red, green, big, small, etc – you will add to each and every ad group 99 negative keywords?!
And just because the Adwords system is suddenly asking you to do so.
You consider this to be a legitimate request and there’s nothing wrong with it. Right?

[netmeg]

Yep, I consider that to be a legitimate request.

I have WAY more than 99 negative keywords in most accounts/campaigns/ad groups. 99 would be chicken feed. And it's very easy to do with AdWords Editor. And it makes everything more precise. So what's not to like?