Reading a search term report is often a real nightmare for SEM Managers, it takes a lot of time, it's boring and it's not easy to know the real impact of the keywords added as negative keywords in the account.
By 'adding negatives,' we mean the task of detecting and adding negative keywords so that our pay-per-click campaign ads do not show if the user uses specific search terms that indicate they have no intention to buy or that a conversion will not occur.
This task is very important to filter the traffic that triggers our campaigns and to ensure appearance only in searches relevant to our content, thus optimizing our results.
Achieving a large volume of traffic to our websites through our advertising actions is our goal, but we need to achieve quality traffic interested in our brand. This can be determined from searches about obtaining information or how to hire or purchase our brands, products, or services.
If we correctly add negative terms, we will not appear in searches that are not of interest and we will avoid allocating a high budget that will not bring benefits, allowing us to efficiently allocate it to searches that may bring conversions.
Choosing the keywords in an account is one of the fundamental tasks to be performed. Among those important words for which we need to be found, there must also be those by which we do not want to appear. Once the term or terms to negate are found, the type of match should be chosen (broad, phrase, or exact), as well as the level of the negative, where it will have an effect, whether at the ad group, campaign, or account level.
Usually, enough time and effort are not dedicated to making lists of negatives, which must also be continuously updated. This leads to budget losses and reduced traffic quality that could be avoided to achieve objectives sooner. In fact, studies show that half of the advertisers may spend a month or even longer without adding negative words to their accounts, when it should be a routine task for a good account manager.
To maximize our return on advertising investment, we must appear in front of those who want and can buy from us. Otherwise, we are losing effectiveness in our PPC investment. Do not waste money on searches and users that do not bring benefit to the campaigns and be encouraged to add negatives to be able to run and 'break' things as quickly as you can.
You probably know that Google Ads works like an auction to set the cost of clicks and that ads are shown to users when they show interest in certain keywords. If your bid is good and you have a relevant ad, you have a great chance of your ad appearing in search results, and if your account is really well optimized, within the top positions.
Not showing your ad to users who are not interested with negative keywords
Imagine we have a company that markets shoes. It is reasonable to think that our potential customers will use words like red shoes or high-heeled shoes when searching online to buy elegant dress shoes or shoes for events.
Likewise, if it is about selling shoes to wear with a suit, we do not want our ads to appear for the search 'fast shoe,' a pop music group from the 90s. Whoever conducts this search is not interested in buying shoes, although their search includes that term, but will be looking for information about the group or buying tickets for their next concert. In this case, we should exclude that search by adding 'fast shoe' as a negative keyword to the account.
Negative keywords tell Google which search terms are not relevant to our business and by which we do not want our ads to appear. Terms should also be negated that clearly refer to a concept different from our product and that will not be found on our website.
It is also important to consider potential conflicts that can occur in some keywords due to having a keyword that is blocking traffic. If you want to know more about how to avoid conflicts in your negative keywords, check out our post 'Conflicts with Negative Keywords.'
Including the correct negatives is a good starting point to avoid unnecessary expenses on the account and maximize the investment.
To find negative words, in addition to thinking about terms that may be confused because they are different, we must analyze the search terms of the users in our account that have activated our keywords and look at those that have not generated conversions but have had a lot of expenses. This information is found in the search terms report in Google Ads. Normally these are very long lists, making it a very tedious task. Negative Words can also be edited and deleted from the Google Ads platform as needed.
Reading a search terms report in Google Ads is usually a real nightmare for SEM Managers, requiring a lot of time, being boring, and not easily showing the real impact of the keywords to negate in our Google Ads account.
To help with this, Dolnai has launched the 'Cloud Words' algorithm. Here you can see the unique words included in your searches, their overall impact across the account, in which searches they were included, and by which keywords they entered.
In addition to separating which words from the searches are included in your keywords and which are not in a separate section to find possible negatives sooner. With this tool, you can find negatives faster, knowing how much money you have wasted and how much you will save in the future. Achieve cleaner traffic and increase your CTR and Conv. Rate.
This analysis also shows combinations of sets of 2 and 3 words so that you can find combinations that never work or that you might be interested in adding as new keywords because they attract searches that end up converting.
If you prefer to read what we tell you in the video because you can't watch it, here's the transcript:
In this video, we tackle one of the most tedious and boring tasks that SEM Managers face when optimizing their accounts. This task involves reviewing the traffic entering their account through their keywords or dynamic ad groups (where the quality of traffic tends to be lower as it does not come through specific keywords).
This task is essential for analyzing the quality of the searches being bid on and determining whether they are valuable or if there are some that should be avoided to not waste budget.
Normally, the SEM Manager downloads and reviews each query from the search terms report, reads them one by one, and selects which terms are not of interest to add as negatives at the account level. This prevents bidding on those searches that degrade traffic quality, thereby improving the quality of searches and avoiding spending money on terms that are not qualified for the account being analyzed.
There are common terms that are usually not of interest, although these depend on the account, such as return, claim, fraud, swear words, etc.
Although this task brings great benefits to the account, it is not done as often as it should be since it is very time-consuming.
To make this task simpler and quicker, Dolnai has developed a series of algorithms that facilitate the reading of the search terms report.
The analysis is divided into 4 sections:
Each row is a word accompanied on the right by different KPIs displayed on screen to understand the real impact of these words during the analyzed period across the account.
To the right of the KPIs, we can see the searches and keywords through which these terms have entered to better understand their context and what type of traffic each word is attracting. The words are ordered from highest to lowest cost, starting with those that have not converted.
To benefit from this calculation, the idea is to read the words in the first column and see if it is interesting to negate them in the account for attracting unqualified traffic.
N-Gram 1: Shows all words included in the search terms, whether or not they are mentioned in your keywords.
N-Gram 2: Shows the combinations of 2 words from the search terms report
.N-Gram 3: Shows the combinations of 3 words from the search terms report.Once these reports are read and selected, we can get an idea of the money we would have saved had we negated them earlier. This list of words to negate can be added directly in the Google Ads platform as broad match negative keywords at the account level.
Thanks to Dolnai, there's no excuse not to have clean traffic.
Try it on your account and see for yourself!
Try it on your account and see for yourself!
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