How Exact Match Keywords Can Kill Your Quality Score

istock_000006106056xsmall-warning-sign2 Using a combination of keyword match types in PPC advertising is crucial to getting the best results. Broad matched keywords allow you to cast a wider net while phrase and exact matched keywords help you refine and filter out unwanted traffic.

But simply including all keyword match types in your campaigns for each and every keyword will not always make sense to do. You might actually find that broad or phrase matched keywords outperform exact match keywords and bring in better quality traffic on the same keywords. How so? Let’s take a couple of examples using AdWords:

EXAMPLE 1

Let’s say you sell blue suede shoes and bid on all keyword match types of blue suede shoes as follows: blue suede shoes, “blue suede shoes”, [blue suede shoes]. By looking at your Search Query Report or web analytics software, you might discover that you are getting traffic for people looking for the song “Blue Suede Shoes” made popular by Elvis. So you add in negative keywords like “elvis”, “song”, “lyrics”, “cd”, etc. to filter out people searching for the song and not actually the shoes you sell.

But these negative keywords won’t help you eliminate this traffic if you’re using the exact match keyword [blue suede shoes] since negative keywords don’t impact exact matched keywords and you’ll be getting impressions and even traffic for both people looking for the shoes you sell as well as the famous song. So you might be better off not using the exact match variation of this keyword as targeted as it might seem to your product.

EXAMPLE 2

Let’s say you repair Toshiba photocopiers and run a campaign with keywords like “repair toshiba”. You might find that your click through (CTR) and conversion rates are doing well on the broad repair Toshiba and phrase “repair toshiba” keywords but not on the exact matched [repair toshiba]. Especially if you have in place a good list of negative keywords to filter out people searching for repair services for Toshiba products you don’t offer like “toshiba laptop repairs”, “toshiba DVD repairs”, “toshiba TV repairs”, toshiba projector repairs”, etc.

In this case, including the exact matched [toshiba repair] is almost the same as using the broad matched version of the same keyword without having any negative keywords in place. Said differently, someone typing in “toshiba repair” exactly will not always be looking for the service you offer – Toshiba photocopier repairs.

So including the exact match [repair toshiba] as a default strategy will cause you to inadvertently get traffic for people searching for Toshiba repairs, who are not looking for Toshiba photocopier repair services as described above. And since you’re using an exact matched keyword, you have no way to filter out unwanted traffic from it short of simply not using it.

Why is this important? Two words: Quality Score

Even if you’re not wasting money from people clicking on your ads that are not looking for your service, your click through rate (CTR) will likely be very low and over time you might notice that your quality score is dropping on these keywords. This will create a spill-over effect where your minimum bid prices will rise as your quality score decreases. Google is sending you a message that you are not relevant enough and will now have to pay more to have your ads displayed on your exact matched keyword – a keyword that just by match type you might have thought was targeted!

So be sure to go over your existing exact matched keywords to make sure you aren’t targeting people who aren’t interested in your services. You’ll be able to spot some of these by a lower than average CTR especially where there is a high number of impressions.

Posted on Dec 15, 2008 in Tips & Strategies

http://www.lukeeales.com Luke

“..if you’re using the exact match keyword [blue suede shoes] since negative keywords don’t impact exact matched keywords and you’ll be getting impressions and even traffic for both people looking for the shoes you sell as well as the famous song.”

So you’re saying if I have [blue suede shoes], with -lyrics, and somebody searches for:

blue suede shoes lyrics,

my ad will still show?

This is simply untrue. By the nature of ‘exact’ match, if ANYTHING in addition to the exact match key phrase specified in the keyword is searched for, then the keyword won’t trigger.

For that search query to trigger my ad, I’d need to have keywords in my account like:

Phrase: “blue suede shoes”,
Broad: blue suede,
Exact: blue suede shoes lyrics

Am I right, or have I missed something vitally obvious about your post?

Cheers
http://www.makeitbloom.com Xurxo Vidal

@Luke You are exactly right in the example you gave that if someone searches “blue suede shoes lyrics” and you only have [blue suede shoes] as a keyword then your ad will not show.

The point I’m making is that some people who search [blue suede shoes] may not necessarily be looking for shoes but rather may be looking for the song lyrics. And since you have an exact match of “blue suede shoes” you have no way of filtering out this traffic short of not including the exact match of this keyword.

As I pointed out at the end of the post, you can spot problems with exact match keywords of this nature where you have an abnormally low CTR on a high number of impressions. This should indicate that the traffic might not be targeted and therefore action needs to be taken on such a keyword.

I think the confusion lies in the fact that not all exact matched keywords are targeted – especially when they are more generic in nature and are trying to capture people at the beginning stage of the buying cycle – the research stage.

This is usually when people start with a generic search query like “blue suede shoes” and then refine their query to be more specific to what they’re looking for after they realize the results are too generic.

Ex. Search query 1 = “blue suede shoes”
Search query 2 = “blue suede shoes song lyrics”
http://www.lukeeales.com Luke

Thanks for the reply!

I think the way you were speaking about ‘exact match’ made things a little confusing: “negative keywords don’t impact exact matched keywords”.

From what I can see, you’re saying that negative keywords have no effect if the user doesn’t search for these keywords – which is true :)

I would describe it by saying: If you have some means to differentiate between different possible user intentions, then you can cut out more unqualified impressions. So if a user appends, in the form of additional keyword(s), some indication that they’re looking for music rather than shoes, i.e. “lyrics”, you can add this as a negative keyword and make your ads more relevant.

Of course, this isn’t always possible (as per your example). In these cases, we need to be vigilant, and have done plenty of background research on our account to unearth as many of these ambiguous keywords as possible. Keeping an eye on unusually low CTR may also raise the alarm bell. I can think of at least two examples on accounts I manage where the product name can mean something entirely different. Where the meaning of the keyword for your client pales in significance when compared to the more widely accepted meaning (), it can be wise to drop the generic keyword and stick to using lots of modifiers.

Thanks again for the follow up :)
http://talkischeep.com/dolphin/Dolphin-v.6.1.4-Free/ TalkisCheep

I agree and disagree with some points within this article I have only been in the search engine marketing field for 2 years but I have learned a lot within these few years. You are absolutely right that broad or phrase matched keywords may outperform exact match keywords and bring in better quality traffic, but the whole point of using the exact match is to receive targeted traffic to decrease cost per click and to increase conversions. Most likely if someone is searching for a specific product name or brand name they will convert more on those terms in exact match than with the broad or phrase matches. I must admit you have picked some unique examples where I do agree that the exact match term can apply to many things but the thing of the matter is that if i am looking for shoes and I type in blue suede shoes I wouldn’t click on an ad that is advertising the song I will be clicking the ad that is advertising about shoes.

Overall I think it was a great article but keywords and adcopy go hand and hand in regards to CTR and if you don’t have targeted adcopy to go with your keywords your CTR will suffer.

Looking forward to reading more articles from you.

TalkisCheep
http://talkischeep.com/dolphin/Dolphin-v.6.1.4-Free/
http://www.makeitbloom.com Xurxo Vidal

@Luke Thanks for the comments and discussion – glad that any confusion was cleared up and that we’re on the same page with this.
http://www.makeitbloom.com Xurxo Vidal

@TalkisCheep You are right when you say that the point of using exact match is “to receive targeted traffic to decrease cost per click and to increase conversions” which is why it’s easy to overlook user intent on certain words.

Exact match is not always a surefire strategy that will bring you the most targeted traffic. Semantics plays a role where an exact matched keyword as in the examples I gave will not always be relevant for every user that searches exactly those terms because they may be looking for very different things.

On the other hand I’m not saying that exact matched keywords are bad or even dangerous, just that because of certain keywords’ generic nature or double meanings, they can result in a low CTR and consequently a lower quality score.

You are also right about keywords and ad copy going hand in hand when it comes to CTR. For this reason some exact matched keywords can result in a low CTR especially when you have a very targeted ad copy. Which in turn will cause your quality score to suffer.

Some exact matched keywords like [buy nintendo games] may not always bring in targeted traffic if you only sell games for the Wii and not for other Nintendo systems. You’ll be able to spot this by a low CTR especially if you mention in your ads that you sell Nintendo games for the Wii.

In this case, you’ve made sure to mention what you’re selling in your ads and are using an exact matched keyword that appears relevant, but may prove to get queried by people both looking for games for the Wii and games for other Nintendo platforms. So at best some of your traffic will be relevant and some will not – this is what you have to look out for.

If you have more irrelevant impressions on [buy nintendo games] ie. Low CTR on high volume of impressions, then you have a problem with this word and need to stop the CTR bleed before your quality score suffers.

Hope this helps clarify the point I’m trying to make with exact matched keywords not always being relevant.

Thanks for your comment and feedback!
http://socialmediarockstar.com Brett Borders

Xurxo,

I know dangerously little about quality score metrics… so I really appreciate this post!
http://www.makeitbloom.com/blog Xurxo Vidal

@Brett

Glad you found the post helpful. Quality score can definitely be a tricky beast to tame.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you ever have any specific questions – would be my pleasure to help out!
http://www.seashell.co.in/ Ganesh J. Acharya

@Xurxo: If you created 3 different adgroups/campaigns for all the match types should that not help? It might sound 3 times the work but it counts.
http://www.makeitbloom.com/blog Xurxo Vidal

@Ganesh

For some campaigns creating 3 separate adgroups for each match type in combination with different negative match types to make sure you are accurately attributing the searchers’ queries to the appropriate match type is a great strategy.

Even if it means more time and work to put it together.

Although it won’t always be feasible for all campaigns because of scalability issues, I completely agree with you on this.

In my post however, I was talking more about semantics than structure. Specifically how certain exact match keywords can mean different things. And since negative keywords can’t help you in cases like these, your CTR can suffer and consequently your Quality Score.

Creating 3 different adgroups as you mentioned might help you identify this problem faster because you’ll have your exact matched keywords in their own adgroups.

Still, you’ll have to keep an eye out to make sure that your exact matched keywords are relevant and not killing your Quality Score with low CTRs.

Thanks for your comment and for stopping by!
http://www.accelerate.uk.com Graham Price

Hi

Thanks for the post, a good read.

The problem I feel with adwords is that google will not tell you the exact search term and you need to tally it up with a third party programme to see real click through results.

As an example I used to pitch for anything to do with “sales trainer” or “sales coach”, as that is what I do. My click through was fine but bounce rate was somewhat high and these are not cheap keywords. Looking at Google and the traffic i could view this as a successful programme but when you find out what people are really searching for, the story is somewhat different..

“sales of Reebok Trainers”
“trainer sales”

“Coach sales in nottingham”
“Sales of Coaches London”
“Coach Sales auctions”

So i now look for exact match terms and this my cost a little more but the quality is higher
http://www.searchbrat.com Kieran

Hey

Just following up on my comments in LinkedIn so you have all of these in one place

Pretty interesting. Google is becoming a little more aggressive in what it will match against broad keywords. I think it is trying to get more clicks so is widening the net on what it deems related keywords. So I would usually lean towards phrase and exact. But this is good info to have.
http://www.seashell.co.in Ganesh J. Acharya

Google will tell you the exact search phrase, just that you have to implement some special changes. Check this http://www.getelastic.com/exact-keywords-google-analytics/
http://www.estate.nl Tom – Estate

I’ve been struggling for quite a while to get the most out of exact matching without hurting campaign statistics.

Lately I run a lot less exact matches, but use the filters Ganesh is linking to. This filter is just great and a very good way to add some negatives.

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