What % of your campaign is "Other search terms" - 75% for me

[pavlovapete]

Just started a campaign 3 days ago - nothing huge.

But 75% of my budget has been consumed by "Other search terms" - in other words I can't see where 75% of my spend has gone.

Does this seem normal to you?

Thanks

[briggidere]

Not anymore for me.

It used to be very common, but AdWords seems to be getting a lot better with these ones now.

75% seems very high though. Have you got a lot of broad match terms running?

[pavlovapete]

I do have all broad match running. I am trying to get an idea of the terms used in the market. Plan is to write new landing pages.

Volume is so low that it is very hard to determine what are the standout search terms. Which is why I am so keen to see what terms are eating my budget.

Maybe this is a newbie move without any class?

Thanks

[briggidere]

Maybe switch them to phrase match. The SQ report will still give you the data you're after, but it won't be quite as random with the keywords it is using with your budget.

If there is any personal data in the users query Google will always put these into the other search terms due to privacy.

By using broad you are not likely to get the correct figures you are after anyway. Here is an interesting thing that can happen using broad match.

Lets say you have 20 keywords in one adgroup, ranging in quality score from 4-10, but you have grouped them very well so they are all highly relevant.

Even though the user may search on one of your lower quality score keyword, AdWords can use it's broad match theory and use the higher quality score keyword to trigger your ad. So, it could be a cheaper click for you as AdWords has chosen what it thinks is the best fit for the query.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks for your advice briggidere.

I'll give phrase a try for a while.

Thanks for the tip about privacy - very interesting.

I also did not know about the triggering in the adgroup as you described - something else to keep in mind.

I was trying to go the easy route and let the market tell me what keywords I should be aiming for. I guess the alternative is to make generating new phrases part of the ongoing testing process.

Thanks

[netmeg]

There are some Analytics filters out there that will also give you exact keywords. You might get more out of those.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks netmeg. I was also considering the server logs.