Marketing Google Ads Search

What is AI-Powered Search Ads?

  • Users have been known make billions of searches

    • Unprecedented opportunities for marketers

Create a Keyword strategy to Reach users

  • Identifying the search terms that might be used to find your business can help you prepare an effective keyword strategy so relevant ads can be served on your consumers' queries

Build an effective keyword strategy

  • Consumers come to Google Search every day to find the products and services they’re looking for. When people search for a product or service, they naturally use different combinations of words to describe what they want or need. Those words, known as search terms, lead to different search results. Your ad may appear when someone uses a search term that matches the keyword list you created in an account.  

    • For example, if Linda works for a company selling sneakers, she might add "running shoes" as a keyword in her Google Ads campaign. When someone enters the search term "running shoes" on Google, a number of factors lead to whether her ad may show on the search results page. Let's examine how that works. 

Exact Match: [Tennis Shoes]

  • Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword. Of the three keyword matching options, exact match gives you the most control over who sees your ad but reaches fewer searches than both phrase and broad match.

Phrase Match: “tennis shoes”

  • Ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword. The meaning of the keyword can be implied, and user searches can be a more specific form of the meaning. With phrase match, you can reach more searches than with exact match and fewer searches than with broad match, showing on the searches that include the meaning of your keyword.

Broad Match: tennis shoes

  • Ads may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don’t contain the keyword terms. This helps you attract more visitors to your website, spend less time building keyword lists, and focus your spending on keywords that work.

The case for Close Variants

  • All positive keyword match types are eligible to match to close variants, which are variations that are similar (but not identical) to a specific keyword.

  • All match types are now semantic, meaning keywords expand based on the meaning of a query rather than the structure of the query

  • Close variants help you connect with consumers who are looking for your business, despite slight variations in the way they search, and avoid the need to build exhaustive keyword lists.

    • Close variants in match types may include:

      • Misspellings

      • Singular or plural forms

      • Stemmings (for example: Floor and Flooring)

      • Abbreviations

      • Accents

Broad match Keywords cover all the same queries of narrower match types, plus more.

  • There’s no need to add the same keyword in exact, phrase, and broad match to an ad group, as broad match users Google AI to cover search queries that exact and phrase match keywords would have matched to.

Switching to a broad match strategy

  • Depending on your current comfort level and keyword strategy, there are a few ways to successfully help transition your keyword strategy to focus on broad match.

I want to test broad match with a standard testing solution

  • Use one-click experiment within the Recommendations page to test between exact or phrase match and broad match keywords.

  • An experiment is automaticaly created. The control arm keeps a current campaign running as is, while the experiment arm upgrades exact or phrase match keywords to broad match.

  • Make sure your objective is defined with the automated bidding strategy used in the campaign

  • Let the experiment run until the results are statistically significant. The rule of thumb is to achieve 30 conversions within a 30-day period. When evaluating performance, exclude the ramp-up period (usually around seven days) and leave the test running for at least three to four weeks or longer for statistical significance.

  • Present the experiment results to your advertiser, based on measured KPIs previously defined to ensure relevance, and work to further scale broad match across campaigns or accounts.

I’d like to customize broad match test setup

Organize your ads by a common theme

I’m ready to scale broad match

Remember these tips for applying recommendations automatically.

  • You’re in control of which recommendations you’d like to apply on a regular basis. Review your options below.

Select a set of recommendations from bundles.

  • one way to apply recommnedations automatically is to choose one of two bundles. A bundle is a set of pre-checked recommendations, categorized by a goal. Selecting a bundle will apply its recommendations anytime they’re available. Two Bundles are:

  1. Grow your business: This bundle can help you scale your business, optimizing targets and improving ad performance. Recommendations include maximizing conversions with Smart Bidding, and upgrading keywords to broad match

  2. Maintain your ads: This bundle will help keep campaigns up-to-date with best practices, including foundational keyword and targeting recommendations.

To select a bundle, navigate your Recommendations page, look for the box entitled Save time with auto-apply, decide which bundle you’d like to select, and click Select all.

Mix and Match recommendations from both bundles.

For more flexibility, marketers can select the individual recommendations from one or both bundles based on business goals.

  • To select recommendations individually, simply navigate to the Recommendations page. Then, click the down arrow to expand the Maintain your ads and Grow your business categories. Select individual recommendations in the Ads & assets, Keywords & targeting, and/or Measurement categories. 

When finished, click Save in the top right-hand corner.

Set it up: create your keyword strategy

  • Step 1: From the Overview page, select Audiences, keywords, and content and then Search Keywords.

  • Step 2: Select the plus button, and then choose the Campaign and Ad group to add keywords to.

  • Step 3: Enter your keywords or use the keyword planner within the Planning tab in the Google Ads interface for keyword discovery, traffic estimation, and implementation of Google Search campaigns.

    • To access Keyword Planner, select Tools. Then, in the Google Ads interface via any CID, select Keyword Planner.

Optimize score tip

  • You can use Optimization Score recommendations to identify ways to improve their keyword strategy, such as adding new keywords, removing duplicate keywords, adding negative keywords, or addressing conflicting negative keywords.

Best Practices

  • Defining the right keyword list for a campaign can help show the right ads to the right consumers. Keywords should match the terms that consumers would use to find your advertiser's products or services.

    • Think like your audience: When building a keyword list, think holistically about all the different terms a potential user could use to search for your advertiser's business.

    • Organize your keywords by theme: Having well-defined keyword groups makes it easier for you to manage and maintain your account and allow for more relevant ads. For example, if you own a shoe store, your campaign might be organized like this

Ad group 1: Running shoes

  • Keyword 1: Running shoes

  • Keyword 2: Running sneakers

  • Keyword 3: Sports shoes

Ad group 2: Evening shoes

  • Keyword 1: Evening shoes

  • Keyword 2: High heels

  • Keyword 3: Dress shoes

    • Look at the Search Terms Report: This report helps advertisers see which queries triggered their ads to appear on the search network.

    • Use negative keywords: Negative keywords prevent an otherwise eligible query from triggering an ad for an irrelevant search. Adding negative keywords can help reduce undesirable traffic and keep your ads focused on the types of searches you want. For example, if you sell men's athletic footwear but don’t sell soccer cleats, you could add “cleats” as a negative keyword. Be mindful when adding negative keywords to campaigns, as it can also limit additional searches that haven’t been considered previously.