Implementing “Match Type Silos”

Before I delve into new tips, I got a number of questions in response to last month’s suggestion to create “match type silos,” so I want to provide a bit more detail on how to implement this approach.

Creating match type “silos” by using a different AdGroup for each match type enables advertisers to force Google to trigger the correct keyword match type combination that triggered the user’s raw query.

Using this approach, if there is a keyword in the account matches the raw search term exactly the exact version (and related creative and landing page) will be triggered and, if a keyword in your account contains the phrase searched, the phrase version of that keyword will get the impression and finally, broader searches will trigger the broad keyword AdGroup.

While re-organizing AdGroups, and managing multiple instances of the same term might seem daunting, this approach isn’t very difficult to deploy. We suggest using copy-and-paste in Excel to build bulk sheet, or for larger scale campaigns, creating a quick Excel Macro to create the iterations for you.

Once you have created these lists in Excel, you can quickly create match-type gropus with a bulk upload.

The real challenge with this approach is maintaining this structure as you add and pause keywords by editing all three groups each time. In order to make the match type silo structure manageable after creation, I suggest using it solely for your highest volume ad groups.

Use Negatives To Shape Traffic & Avoid The Broad Match Trap

“Traffic shaping” is an advanced negative strategy used to ensure that the most relevant keyword is shown when groups represent different levels of detail or themes.

For example, consider a campaign that has two keywords in separate group. One keyword is ‘pet supplies’ and the other keyword is ‘San Jose pet supplies’.  The generic keyword ‘pet supplies’ is in a group with generic ad copy and directs traffic to a generic landing page.

The other keyword, ‘San Jose pet supplies’ is in a group with location specific ad copy and benefits from a geo-specific landing page with a unique local message to appeal to the residents of San Jose.

A typical search query might be ‘best pet supplies store in San Jose’. With this search, the advertisers risks Google serving the generic keyword with the generic ad, which doesn’t best match the user intent and could deliver poor results. However, if the query triggers the ad for ‘San Jose pet supplies’ chances are the user will be more likely to click and convert.

Broad and phrase match keywords can help Google match searches to the most relevant ad. For example, adding the negative keyword ‘San Jose’ to the generic group will ensure that the San Jose themed ads will appear over the generic ad when a search could have otherwise matched either group.

This strategy should be used when the following criteria are met:

1. There is a strong difference between landing pages
2. The ad copy is very targeted and extremely relevant to the keywords in a group.
3. Evidence of poor matching is seen in the Google Raw Query Reports.

Negative shaping is an advanced strategy and caution is recommended when implementing this because the wrong negative can significantly cut down volume.

Quick Tip: To help this process, Jellyfish Online Marketing suggests using case to differentiate between the types of negative keywords you are using. Because keywords are not case sensitive, this won’t affect the campaign, but gives you a quick way to differentiate the keywords.  For example, regular negatives i.e. those that stop unwanted traffic can be lower case and negatives that are designed to silo match types or shape traffic to the appropriate group can be marked with upper case letters as the example below shows.

Xbox 360 Phrase Adgroup – Google

Don’t Forget To Think About Plurals!

One common misconception is that Google’s negative broad match is similar to how Google’s regular keyword broad match behaves when matching traffic. For example, a broad match keyword ‘car’ will also broad match to queries that contain ‘cars.’

However, the negative match types work differently; if a boat rental company wanted to block queries for users looking for cars instead of boats the marketer will have to add the word ‘car’ as well as ‘cars’ as negatives. The problem is further exacerbated if you have lots of multi-token negative keywords because then even more variations are needed.

Continue Expanding Negatives As You Scale

Refining clicks driven by broad and phrase match terms are more than just an ancillary step, it is an important piece of maintaining profitability as you scale your search program. Each time you add new keywords, don’t forget to think about how they will affect your negative keyword list.

Are they going to lead to new, unrelated search queries that should be eliminated with negatives? Or, if you product offerings have expanded, should you remove some negatives that prevented your adds from showing before you offered this new product or service?

Proper negative management involves careful planning and a mindset of continuous improvement. Whether the goal is to increase conversion rates, grow revenue, or increase profits, negative keywords are a simple tool allowing marketers increase efficiency in the marketplace.

Contributors: Special thanks to Jellyfish Online Marketing, a pay for performance media for sharing their tips on negative keyword management.

Unfortunately, limiting campaigns to only exact match keywords sacrifices too much volume, so advertisers are forced to use phrase and broad match keywords  in coordination with the thoughtful use of negative keywords.

Aggressive negative strategies reduce the volatility of broad and phrase match keywords because they eliminate traffic from less relevant queries making performance more consistent. The more refined the traffic, the better we can predict the revenue each keyword will deliver which in turn makes bidding decisions easier.

The resulting improvement in visitor quality typically increases the value of each click because using exact and negative match terms helps refine traffic to the visitors that are most likely to convert.

Below the first set of tips for using negatives to significantly improve paid search performance on large scale campaigns.

Product Negatives

One quick and easy step to a successful negative keyword implementation is defining a list of terms that are not a good fit for your product offering.

Look back at your catalog or offering and brainstorm related keywords that consumers might be search that won’t match your website offers. These keywords may be useful if the conversion event or your catalog ever expands in scope, but right now, these are raw queries that simply cannot be monetized.

For example, a leading online pet supply retailer that sells supplies for only house pets might consider negative matching terms such as horse and pig, as these search terms are not representative of the type of pet supplies that they provide. Until the retailer expands to offer farm animal supplies, these terms should be used as negatives to refine the pet supply retailer’s paid search traffic.

Most keywords in these product categories are fine as negatives set to negative broad match, but don’t forget to add the plural form of these keywords too!

Completely Irrelevant Negatives

The second step for negatives is to aggressively block irrelevant keywords: keywords that are not a close match for you business, typically the result of Google’s expanded broad match. For example, possible queries and negatives could be “dog collar necklaces” and “puppy videos.”

You can get a quick list of negatives by using Google’s Keyword Expansion Tool for your high volume keywords. In AdWords, click on “only show ideas closely related to my search terms” for a list of keywords that match your terms that you should review. Checking this box often shows many more irrelevant keywords than relevant terms. When the box is not checked, the terms tend to be too broad and less likely to result in death by a thousand irrelevant clicks!

Below is an example of Google’s Keyword Expansion suggestions for the phrase “birdcage.”

For a large scale advertiser offering supplies for pets, search terms like “decorative”, “veil” and “Victorian”  are totally unrelated to their offering. It is important to add these keywords as negatives across campaigns to again refine traffic and ensure you aren’t paying for non-converting clicks.

Take Advantage Of Mismatched Traffic

You will never be able to maintain a complete list of all the negatives necessary to refine traffic when using broad and phrase match keywords, but it might make sense to try and monetize visitors who are not perfect matches for your offering. Consider ways in which you can take advantage of this otherwise, low-quality traffic, once they arrive at your site.

For example, a lead generator might want to present a visitor with AdSense ads if that visitor becomes unqualified as they complete a form. Clicks on these ads could help you reclaim a fraction of the cost spent driving these visitors to your site. Another way to limit the damage from queries outside the scope your offering, is to partner with another provider who might find the visitor more valuable.

Using the lead generation example again, if it is clear that a visitor isn’t going to convert, consider serving an advertisement or link directly to a partner that might be more relevant. Hopefully, the revenue you receive by sending traffic to that partner covers the cost of the paid search click that originally drove this visitor to your site.

Create Match Type Silos

As mentioned above, in an ideal world all keywords would be trafficked on exact match so that you have the best possible understanding of the consumer’s intention. Since we are forced to run phrase and broad match keywords in order to maintain volume, creating match type “silos” allows you to keep match types from competing with each other, and prevents exact match queries from triggering a ‘broad’ keyword ad.

A simple way to do this is to create three groups for each set of keywords, broken apart by match type. Then, add all of the keywords in the broad group as negative phrase match, and add all the keywords in the phrase group as negative exact match keywords.

Below is an example of what this would look like for a single keyword, “green sneakers”:

This method is easy to deploy and it allows you to quickly adjust bids to account for variance in performance by match type. Then, depending on performance and conversion goals, lower performing match types can shut off to focus on the best converting traffic.

Quick Check List

Hopefully, these tips have encouraged you to take a step back and evaluate the negative strategies that you have employed across your campaigns. Here is a quick recap of this month’s tips:

• Add negatives across campaigns for products or services that don’t match your offering
• Use Google’s keyword tool to identify completely irrelevant negatives and add across campaigns
• Consider using ads or affiliates to take advantage of miss-matched traffic that ends up on your site
• Structure AdGroups by match type, using exact match terms as negatives in the broad and phrase groups

Next month, in Part 2 of my Advanced Negatives series, I will review some nuances of each engines negatives rules, provide more suggestions for negative expansion, and additional strategies for shaping traffic with your campaign structure.