I would suggest using the Ad Preview Tool to get more insight into the problems you’re having with your ads.

Although with the highly-granular ad group structure it looks like you’re adopting, it sounds like there may be multiple keywords which could trigger certain search queries. If this is the case, Google, will trigger the keyword/ad combinationm they believe is the best match for the given search query.

With broad match, it can be difficult to control which of keywords/ads are triggered for each search query. For example, two very different broad match keywords ‘cheap flights to hong kong’ and ‘low cost hong kong flights’ could potentially be triggered for the search ‘discount flight deals to hong kong’.

Modified broad match is one solution to increase control over which keywords/ads are shown, while using strategic negative keywords at the ad group level will also help to funnel the right searches to the right ads.

Splitting keywords with different match types into their own ad groups, as you suggest, is of course another stragegy you could try, although I’ve found it to only be beneficial for high-volume and more generic keywords. Having a seperate ad group for each match type could uneccessarily bloat your account for little benefit.

However whenever I split up well similar keywords, and try to be EVEN MORE relevant, I get an ad conflicting error. The same goes for when I split them up to different match type groups, which I have heard is another good technique.

Any ideas?

Thank you
Arnold

Glad you found the article useful.

Long tails are definitely a great way to achieve relevancy from paid search and provide searchers with highly-targeted and controlled ads. I did some research on long-tail keywords and found they can be up to 50% cheaper and convert up to 200% better than short-tail, generic keywords. Definately worth using them throughout the bulk of your campaigns.

Good luck developing your niche. Remember to keep an eye out for which of your search queries are being matched to which of your ads to ensure you continually provide the best ads and user journey possible.

Cheers,
Alan

It’s basic, I know, but the negative keywords will really help. Also I think ranking for and bidding on long tail phrases coupled with their higher conversion rate is totally worth the extra effort.

One of most well written posts on the subject I have read. I recently wrote a series of AdWords articles on a Blog I write for.

Also, you guys are correct about how it all changes over time. I had a very good campaign going for about two years. It worked so well, I never revisited it or modified it.

Recently, it started rolling over on me, so I went back in and reconfigured it, added 400+ KWs, reorganized, etc., etc., and it’s back up and running again, even better than before.

You can ignore it for a while but eventually it starts to change.

If more people are searching like this: ‘hotels sydney cheap’, and less like this: ‘cheap hotels in sydney’, not only will tomorrow’s search marketers have to place more emphasis on different word orderings, but they will also have to reassess the importance of conjunctions such as ‘a’, ‘in’ and ‘and’.

Constantly keeping up with changing searcher habits is by no means easy – as you rightly pointed out. But for advertisers who take the time out to really understand their customers’ changing needs, and adjust their PPC strategy accordingly, the rewards are great.

On topic:

I believe that there’s something about PPC that even most experienced AdWords users tend to ignore: the changing habits of searchers.

Most of the people will fine tune the campaign until they’re satisfied with conversions and simply ignore all the research after that. The truth is, searchers’ habits change over time. Some campaigns that use to be almost perfectly optimized a year ago might not do the so good today.

Kudos for a great SEO article – Trackback from SEOKudos…