The Power of Negative Keywords

I jotted these notes down recently while listening to Glen Livingston’s Adwords webinar on negative keywords. Its totally amazing how much negative keywords can have an impact on your Adwords campaign.

Enjoy!

THE WHAT AND WHY OF NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

• Keywords added at the ad group or campaign level that prevent impressions
• For search queries containing negative keyword term.
• Phrase and broad matches need negatives (exact keywords don’t)
• Negative keywords add control to your campaign.
• Exact match keyword’s CTR factors more into Quality Score than broad and phrase.

MATCH TYPES FOR NEGATIVES

Negative Broad – Default negative match type, usually just called “Negative Keywords” or sometimes “standard Negative keywords.” All individual words in
the negative keyword must be present in the search query for the negative
keyword to be activated as a filter. Google says it won’t prevent ads from
showing on variations of these terms, however we find that negative broad match
DOES cover misspellings.

Negative Phrase Match – The rule of phrase match apply to the search query for
the negative keyword to be activated as a filter.

Negative Exact Match – The keyword needs to appear exactly in the search query for the negative keyword to be activated as a filter.

• Example: [barbeque]. If someone types in barbeque then your ad won’t show up however if your keyword was “barbeque equipment” then it would show up.
• Best Practice: Apply Negatives as Broadly as You Confidently Can

A SPECIAL USE FOR NEGATIVE EXACT MATCH

If your CTR is high enough for a broad match keyword, Google will drop individual words out of your query.

If this generalization doesn’t work in your favor, counter it with a negative exact match.

• Example: You make a lot of conversions on the keyword security guard uniforms and your successful ad has a high CTR. Google broad match will start showing you for the more general search terms such as “security guard” which no longer is relevant to your keywords and ad copy.

• Solution: Add security guard and security guards as a negative exact match keywords in your adgroup, i.e.,  -[security guard], -[security guards]

3 CATEGORIES OF NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

1. Filtering for Ambiguity – The keyword has more than one meaning & I don’t want traffic that isn’t applicable.

• Example: I sell Baseball caps and don’t want traffic from nutritional supplements because of the keyword caps. U would then put the following keywords into negative: capsule, liquidcap, prohormone, veterinary

• Example: I sell baseball caps and don’t want traffic from pop cap because of the keyword caps. U would then put the following keywords into negative: bejeweled, tutorial, game, flash

• Example: I sell Baseball caps and don’t want traffic from bottle cap because of the keyword caps. U would then put the following keywords into negative: recycle, collection, price guide, crown cap

• Bottom Line: Filtering for ambiguity stop unprofitable traffic.

• Where to find: Dictionary definitions, wiki entries, titles ofunrelated books, songs, movies, TV shows, words related to online gaming, and monitoring your existing traffic.

2. Filtering for Relevancy – It’s the right definition for the keyword, but the particular keyword though related to the general subject matter is not relevant to my business.

• Example: Caps. If I sell baseball caps, but I don’t sell Baltimore Orioles Caps. You would then negative the following keywords: oriole, orioles, Baltimore, os caps.

• If I sell baseball caps, but I don’t sell Collectible Caps. You would then negative the following keywords: signed, autographed, autograph, ichiro

• If I sell baseball caps, but I only sell active teams. You would then negative the following keywords: senators, pilots, expos, colt 45s

• Bottom Line: Filtering for relevancy stops unprofitable traffic.

While it’s possible someone looking to buy a Washington Senators cap (team no longer exists) also happens to want a baseball cap from an active team (after all, the searcher is interested in baseball), it’s extremely unlikely you can turn a profit on these words.

Why?

Because you can’t fill the need in the “inner conversation” of the searcher.

• Put into Practice: Find as many of these negatives as you can. Maintain a list of common ones, i.e., image, free, lyrics, mp3 and jpg.

• Where to Find: Mine the search query reports within Adwords, explore what people often Google related to your high traffic keywords, i.e.,  if you’re in retail, find related products that u don’t sell, as often those make good negatives.

• Competitor names are almost always negatives of this sort, too.

3. Filtering for Profit – It’s the right definition for the keyword and it’s relevant to what I sell, but I can’t be profitable with it.

Filtering for profit with negatives is a measure of last resort. Monitor and test!

Bid management, landing page adjustments, ad copy changes, Perry Marshall’s peel and stick, and adding negatives based on relevancy and ambiguity should be tried first.

Let traffic and potential revenue and proximity to profit determine when to try harder on a keyword or deploy this tactic instead.

• Example: Caps. If I sell baseball caps including Yankee caps, but there are so many competitors selling Yankee caps, I can’t get traffic at a profitable cost per accusation. You would then negative out: New York, Yankee, New York, Yankees

• Bottom Line: Now Enough of the traffic these negative keywords stop is profitable traffic. You wouldn’t turn away this business, but you’re better off not advertising for it.

• Put Into Practice: If you give up on a specific term because you can’t make that keyword profitable, consider making it a negative keyword. This works with words that represent specific products or services, not general keywords.

• Example: If the specific term flexi kit baseball cap rarely converted but costed money, turn it off and and see if you’re better off with it as a negative.

• Example: If the general term baseball dragged in lots of clicks but very low conversions, you wouldn’t make that a negative because it would eliminate lots of profitable traffic.

• Sometimes even general keywords make sense to use as negatives, e.g., Rob’s window repair example.

WHERE TO FIND NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

1. “That’s SO NOT what I meant”

Use these tools to filter for ambiguity BEFORE you launch campaigns.

• Wikipedia: Disambiguation
• Use amazon.com in the music category, books, etc
• iTunes store search
• Emusic
• Library of congress
• Megavideo
• YouTube
• idmb
• World of warcraft

2. “Own the language around your business”

Use these tools to know the keyword traffic around your advertising.

Google Web Search/Keyword Tools:

• Google adwords search query report
• Google.com, .uk, .ca, .au, etc.
• Google keyword tool (also use the url keyword search)
• Google search based keyword tool
• Google Insights for search
• Google  sponsored links

Beyond Google:

• Trellian
• AdIntelligence
• Reference.com
• Affiliate Elite
• Keycompete
• Ispionage
• Compete.com

Blogs and Tweets:

• Google blog searh
• Technorai
• Google Reader
• Search twitter
• Tweetgrid

Analytics Tracking Systems:

• Google Analytics
• Web trends
• Omniture
• Web analytics
• Propriety back end software

Hopefully you guys find my notes as useful as I did. Let me know what you guys think.

Tagged as: adwords, glen livingston, negative keywords, PPC