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Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Improving PPC Campaign ROI with Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are crucial to the success of a PPC search campaign conducted at the top-3 PPC search ad networks, Google Adwords Search, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. Negative keywords can be effective because they can have a major impact on the CTR (click-through rate), quality score and ROI of the campaign. Therefore, it is important to always include negative keywords in the keyword list of the campaign when using the “phase match” and “broad match” options with the Google AdWords and equivalent campaign features at Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.
The Function of Negative Keywords in a PPC Search Campaign
The role of negative keywords is to filter out those search queries that do not apply to the intended keyword search meaning and to prohibit ads from displaying in the PPC search results for those terms. If any of the negative keywords are in the search query, the ad will not appear in the PPC search results.
A comprehensive negative keyword list can significantly improve not only the CRT, but also the conversion rate because ads only appear to those users who are highly interested in what advertisers have to offer on the landing page. The overall CRT is positively impacted because there will be fewer instances where users are viewing ads, but not clicking. By achieving a high quality score (more on that later), the higher CTR will cause the ad to attain a higher position in the PPC search results without requiring a higher CPC (cost per click).
Broad Match and Phrase Match Options
When applying the “broad match” or “phrase match” option to the keyword list of a Google AdWords PPC search campaign, there will be an expanded user audience that is seeing the ads. When the "phrase match" option is applied to the keyword phrase “men’s shirts”, the ad system not only brings up an ad for the search query, “men’s shirts”, but also for the term “men’ shirts on sale”.
That potential audience expands even further when the “broad match” option is used. In this case, a search for “men’s blue silk shirts” would trigger the display of the ad in the PPC search results as well. Some advertisers might welcome an expanded reach, but often the “phrase match” and “broad match” options are causing ads to show up for search queries that are not relevant to the advertisers’ products and services, or do not a commercial intent. This has a negative impact on the overall campaign performance and campaign ROI. The worst scenario for advertisers occurs when users actually click on those ads.
Quality Score
Negative keywords can indirectly help improving the quality score as well. The most important aspect of quality score is the CTR (click-through rate) - the percent of ad impressions that turn into clicks and visits to the web site or landing page. While increasing clicks is the common way to bring CTR up, advertisers can also increase CTR by reducing impressions. Negative keywords are decreasing ad impressions and as a result, fewer impressions with the same amount of clicks mean a higher CTR.
Finding Negative Keywords
Finding the right negative keywords and adding those to the campaign keyword list is one of the most important aspects of a PPC search campaign, but it’s also a task that can be difficult to understand.
To discover and compile a negative keyword list, you can use the same tools that are used for regular keyword research. These keyword research tools are all going to generate keyword phrases with measurable traffic that are more of less relevant to the products and services offered by the advertiser. But just because they're relevant does not always mean that they are matching the intent of the user. Negative keywords can help filtering out those terms that are not matching user intent.
There are no charges for negative keywords and no penalties for having as long a list of negative keywords. So there’s no reason to not perform extensive keyword research to compile a comprehensive list of negative keywords. Google Adwords allow for maximum 10,000 negative keywords per campaign. Yahoo accommodates 250 phrases and Microsoft adCenter has a 1024 character limit.
Keyword Research Tools
Tools like Google Suggest will provide advertisers with an insight that goes beyond the most frequently searched keywords. Server log files can be a useful source for finding information about search queries that lead to visits. A thesaurus can be another source for related keywords, but always remember that you're looking for phrases that disqualify ads to run.
When products and services are only available in certain geographic areas, names of countries, states, cities and neighborhoods can be used as negative keywords to disqualify any areas where services and products are not available. Advertisers that are offering high-end products or are looking to discourage tire kickers from clicking on their ads, can use words like “free” and “sale” as negative keywords to block their ads from showing up for search queries that include those search terms.
By using negative keywords advertisers can eliminate non-relevant ad impressions and save money to generate more targeted traffic. By dropping the ad impression count, the click-through rate and quality score goes up and the overall performance and ROI of the PPC campaign improves, making the ad budget go further.
By using keyword-matching options with negative keywords, advertisers can gain even more control over the search queries they want to filter out. We cover this subject in another issue of this newsletter in the near future.
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Past Presentations
WebmasterWorld PubCon 2008
Las Vegas
“Integrating Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) into the Advertising Mix”
Presenter: Louise Rijk, Vice President of Marketing and Sales
Click here to play the presentation
128 Business Expo 2008
The Westin Waltham-Boston Hotel
"Using Social Media to Connect with Prospects and Customers"
Presenter: Louise Rijk, Vice-President of Marketing and Sales
Click here to play the video.
495/MetroWest Business Expo
Sheraton Framingham Hotel
Pre-Expo Keynote Presentation
“A Strategic Approach to Integrated Marketing”
Presenter: Louise Rijk, Vice-President of Marketing and Sales
Click here to play the video.
Bentley College, 2008 - Waltham, MA
“Planning and Integrating a Targeted Internet Marketing Campaign”
Click here to play the video.
WebmasterWorld Pubcon 2007 - Las Vegas, NV
“Planning and Integrating a Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) Campaign”
Click here to play the video.
BizAction 2007 - Washington DC
"Email, Social Media and Search in the Overall Marketing Mix"
Click here to play the audio.
128 Business Expo 2007
"Blogging and Podcasting For Business"
Click here to play the video.
495/Metrowest Business Expo
Pre-Expo Keynote
"The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Advertising Medium"
Click here to play the video.
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If you would like more information on Internet Marketing, Consulting, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing, please
click here.
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Copyright © 1996-2008. Advanced Media Productions, Inc.
Advanced Media Productions, Inc.
251 West Central St., Suite 28, Natick, Massachusetts 01760, USA
Tel: 508-647-5151 Fax: 508-647-5150
E-mail: info@advmediaproductions.com
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