If you’ve been running a broad match Google Adwords PPC campaign for your Magento eCommerce store, you might want to go for exact matches on all your AdWords and use more long tail phrases.

Within your Google Adwords UI; If you click on the “campaigns” tab (top menu), then the “keywords” tab in the content – you can see all the broad matches that people came in on.

Single words are very difficult to convert – when I say convert I mean A SALE / A CONVERSION. The problem is that they are very broad. If you think to yourself how do you search? I know I don’t use single words as the results that come back aren’t specific / relevant enough.

e.g. If I was after a Apple product, I don’t think I would just type in Apple. As this is a specialist product, and I obviously already know the brand, either;

  1. it’s very likely I have bought something by Apple before, or
  2. been recommended it.

In both these cases I would either know exactly what I’m looking for

e.g. “Apple MacBook Pro 13 Inch” or “Apple MacBook” or “Buy Apple MacBook” – people do use the word buy quite a lot when searching for products.

… or I would be a little broader e.g. “Apple Computers” or “Apple Notebooks”.

Ideally you use all of these (and more)!

You’ll find that going for longer keywords will be cheaper, and using exact matching will convert more as the advert is more relevant – as it is exactly what the visitor has searched for. Google makes broad matching the default because it makes them more money.

More about matching options here – http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6100

To make keywords exact matches, just encapsulate them in square brackets i.e.

Apple MacBook Pro 13 Inch

=

[Apple MacBook Pro 13 Inch]

To add and update campaigns via the online tool is a nightmare – it can be very time consuming. e.g. you can copy and paste groups of keywords or entire campaigns, you can also do find and replace. Download the offline tool here:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor/

It’s free! It is also easier to change all of your keywords to exact matches with the tool – you can do it in less then a second. Just select them all (Edit > Select all) now with the “Match type” drop down, select “Exact”  – Done!

What I would do

  1. When setting up a campaign, split them up as much as possible so e.g. don’t have a campaign called “Brands” have a campaign called “Apple”. Your campaigns will be more manageable then and you can copy and paste, find and replace a lot easier.
  2.  Now with your Apple campaign, add all your broad terms – think how these can be used with all your other brands e.g.> Apple Notebook / Buy Apple Notebook / Apple Tablet / Apple Phone etc> Samsung Notebook / Buy Samsung Notebook / Samsung Tablet / Samsung Phone etcDo as many variants as possible (research your keywords);
    • use the Google keyword tool,
    • look at the keywords tab as I described above to see how people have found you in the past – what key phrases did they use?,
    • look at Google Analytics see what keywords have been used on your organic traffic,
    • search for Apple yourself, what keywords are your competitors using,
    • start typing Apple [space] into Google – see what the suggestive search brings up
  3. Now copy this whole campaign call it “Samsung”
  4. Do a find and replace in this new campaign for “Apple” for “Samsung”, the advert itself can be identical – something generic, what makes each one unique is the title – your key phrase…. OR …If you want to get really creative use dynamic keyword insertion – your advert will be much more relevant if you do this (YOU SHOULD REALLY DO THIS) – http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74996
  5. Repeat the process – this will take time no doubt about it, like anything though, the more you put into it the more you’ll get out of it!
  6. Next add all your product names (and variants) to each branded campaign e.g. MacBook Pro 13 Inch / iPad 4 / iPhone 5 etc
  7. Make sure that all you AdWords are pointing to the most relevant page, if the keyword is a product then point it too the product page e.g. Apple MacBook Pro 13 Inch > http://store.apple.com/uk/mac/family/macbook-pro… if it’s a broader term point to a category e.g Apple Mac Computer > http://store.apple.com/uk/mac … and set categories up if you don’t have them already.

Don’t think that by creating all these key phrases your spend will go up, exact matches will have less traffic, but the traffic should be better – more relevant.

Google AdWords is all about relevance. Relevance, relevance, relevance ….

Google want’s people to find what they are looking for, it wants AdWord campaigns to work financially for business’. So it rates your campaigns. The more relevant your advert is to the landing page, the more it rates you – you will gain a better position, your key phrases will become cheaper, you will make more money.

So in a nutshell –

  1. Use exact matches (use broad matches for research – not for too long though £££)
  2. Use keywords that are longer than one word – research your key phrases
  3. Organise your campaigns into more manageable folders
  4. Download the offline tool
  5. Setup as many key phrases as you can
  6. Make sure your landing pages and adverts are relevant

Don’t forget you can always pause campaigns or reduce the daily spend. Just keep an eye on things.

Google