A few months ago we delivered a killer Negative Keyword Webinar, but neglected to post the slides. One of my coaching students made me aware of this, and some people are having trouble watching the video (just clear your cache if you are, this fixes it 90% of the time).
In any event, you can download the negative keyword slides here in PDF format.
The majority of AdWords accounts we’ve seen have been incredibly under-optimized for negative keywords. Most people know what they are, and have a few dozen, or perhaps a few hundred. But an optimized account making good use of broad match will often have THOUSANDS of negatives which can DRAMATICALLY increase your click through rate and reduce your cost per acquisition.
And when you combine the power of Rocket Clicks negative keyword strategy with the power of the hyper-responsive adwords bulls eye process, you wind up with an extraordinary Adwords campaign, both optimized and easy to manage. (The bulls eye process relies heavily on identifying the 6 most important keywords in your market, then leveraging Google’s broad match algorithms to expand your traffic around this theme)
Seriously, if your Adwords spend is even $100/mo, the time you spend watching this FREE webinar and studying the slides is a total “no brainer”. It’s one of the very few times I’m comfortable saying it’s entirely possible you’ll make money TONIGHT with this information.
All my best,
Dr. G 
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Dr. Livingston,
What you write and present is the real foundation for all of us who are trying to be successful online. I thank you for your insight and knowledge.
Thanks a bunch on was on the call and I enjoyed and learned a lot.
Brad Geddes wrote a post today that contradicts the exact kw only idea…
http://www.bgtheory.com/blog/quality-score-is-based-on-precise-match-not-exact-match/
If his explanation is true… than CTR of broad kws with many negatives, therefore increasing CTR and at the same time causing the search query to more closely resemble the broad kw…
this would then allow negatives to increase Quality Score, correct?
Thanks for the resources!
I have had some success offering higher-priced items using PPC so I could justify my ad costs vs. revenue. Using negative keywords, in my opinion, helped. This will help me even more. Thanks, again.
Curious… what is your opinion if I use PPC to drive visitors to my main shopping page (the portal to the products I offer)- as oppused to driving people to specific offers?
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Thanks for your time.
Best,
-Kevin
Dan, I asked Rob Sieracki, our Director of PPC to address this for you. Here’s his reply, with which I fully agree:
“Geddes explanation is sound, but that doesn’t support the scenario posed by Dan. Even for broad match keywords where there is no corresponding exact or phrase keyword used in the account, Google still maintains a CTR based upon the user’s search query precisely matching the keyword, without regard to the match type being broad. That “as if it were exact match” CTR isn’t reported anywhere in the interface, and adding negative keywords wouldn’t influence that CTR so they wouldn’t then in turn increase Quality Score.”
Dear Glenn/Rob,
Thanks for the negative webinar slides, especially the info on the QS was revealing. I have a very practical question: I find it very time-consuming to add negatives to adgroups through the real keyword filter in the new interface. The match is exact by default and when there is a keyword which should also be added to the campaign level it is not easily doable.
IS there a quicker and efficient way to add negatives…
Thanks Jaap
Jaap
I suggest you use the Adwords Editor interface instead. It is much easier.
Jayne
Glenn and Rob,
Thanks for your reply. I’ve reread your response and Brad’s article again.
Increasing quality score on broad match is possible by increasing the probability (CTR) that the search query will exactly match the broad keyword.
Ok, now that we understand that confusing issue… why wouldn’t we just add the exact keyword to the adroup?
One reason NOT to include the exact match version… the ad auction on the exact match version would be much more competitive than the broad match version with all our negatives in place, leading to a higher cost/click, yes?
That being said, does this make a strong case, NEVER to bid on broad match, and if so, then adding hundreds of negative kws would be an invaluable exercise in winning the keyword auction?
oops, mean to say, “NEVER to bid on exact or phrase match,…
Responding to Dan, there are several reasons you want to bid on the exact match keywords that convert for you.
The conversation behind the keyword roofing broad match and [roofing] exact match are drastically different, for instance, and respond better to different ads. In those cases the differences in the CTR of the exact match version alone would improve your keyword level QS, and put you at a competitive advantage.
Often you want to bid on exact and broad match differently because they hold different values to you, because the clicks yield different conversion rates.
We’ve found that impression share goes up for exact match versus phrase or broad because you’re considered speaking more directly to the precise search query, i.e. you’re considered more relevant. When you’re making money on a term, you want to be in that ad auction as often as possible.
Also, Google reports QS on the keyword level, but keeps it on many levels, including a QS for ad/keyword pairings. Often that level of QS is different for broad versus exact versions of a keyword because broad traffic performs so differently. If you had different ads winning for exact and broad match, this again would be affected.
All of these issues involve greater control (of bids, of ads, of message, of impression share, of ad position) and greater potential relevance which is the key to making money in the AdWords auction.
Hi Rob,
Thanks for your reply.
When I made the post, suggesting to only bid on broad match kws… I did this partly as a devil’s advocate; exercise, but I do admit to having seriously thought of implementing this strategy.
What I have implemented though is a the strategy of separating keywords into tier 1 versus tier2; adgroups, tier1 being those that have shown a positive ROI from the alltime keyword value report. I find this a very helpful aid in guiding max cpa bidding while using conversion otpimizer.
Brad Geddes’ article actually throws up an interesting question regarding negative keywords:
Say you’re selling widgets and you have the keyword “widgets” in broad or phrase match in order to pick up the many variations of things that people can type in (including misspellings). But, you also know that the exact search term [widgets] isn’t cost effective, so you make that an exact negative (-[widgets]).
How does Google then calculate quality score for that broad or phrase match keyword, if that precise term is never searched on? Does Google just ignore CTR as a factor in QS for that keyword? Does Google use the average CTR for that keyword across other advertisers? Anyone have any ideas?
James, I’m gonna ask Rob and the PPC team at Rocket Clicks to answer this, but it reminds me of a dialog I had with my 7 year old nephew:
Ben: “Uncow Glop (what he calls me) … what’s the square root of negative infinity?”
Glenn: “I don’t know Ben, what IS the square root of negative infinity?”
Ben: “Slaps his head with his hand and says ‘it makes my brain hurt!’”
From Nicole Nerad (PPC manager at Rocket Clicks):
Mr Burke and I had a meeting of minds – Unless Rob/Laureen object, this level of granularity hasn’t been disclosed to us. Google focuses on ECTR, but they do not specify whether this comes from the exact match term in each keyword, or the variations.
Reason being – It is unclear that if the actual variations from these keywords are held accountable for the exact match version of CTR in determining quality score. So, if variations had exact match CTRs this would still increase overall QS without the exact match of that term being bid upon or included.
However, in the example of 1 campaigns, 1 ad groups and 1 keyword being widgets (broad), and there is a negative exact match [widgets] there still has to be quality score assigned. In this case we can assume that the variations are accountable for being a part of the overall QS.
It makes our brains hurt… J
Any thoughts on how Google comes up with a quality score if you have a broad match keyword but negative the exact match?
To answer this:
“Curious… what is your opinion if I use PPC to drive visitors to my main shopping page (the portal to the products I offer)- as oppused to driving people to specific offers?”
I would say this is of course situational, but I would expect lower conversion rates and possibly quality score also. However if you really want to look at Adwords traffic to your main shopping page, looking at content network may be an idea…
Hi guys! Thanks for starting this great discussion on this topic!
It looks like the link for the negative KW video is down, though.
Keep up the good work!
Peter.
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