PPC tips and advice

Using the Search Query Function in Google AdWords

A useful and cost-saving new function which has been added to the updated Google Adwords interface is the integrated search query report pop-up screen. This provides advertisers with more detailed information on the search queries that their site visitors have used before clicking on their PPC advert and allows better targeting of the campaign over time.

Once advertisers are logged into their Google AdWords management interface they can click on the "See Search Terms" button that now appears at the top of each keyword activity report. This opens up a pop-up screen containing data about the actual search queries that have been used by searchers on Google which then lead to a clickthrough from the relevant PPC advert.

Advertisers can therefore now view the search phrases that generated clicks to their site and assess whether they are relevant enough. The detailed breakdown by search phrase will show the usual data provided by Google, such as the total impressions, clickthrough rate and average ad position, as well as the cost and any conversions generated from the clicks.

The power of this report is that it enables advertisers to identify the relevancy or otherwise of their targeted search terms, particularly if these are set at the broad level. It can demonstrate the wide variety of search terms that users input into Google's search panel and can either show high volume terms that should be specifically targeted – if not already – as well as phrases or individual words that should be excluded as a negative term to reduce impressions and clicks.

This data was previously available as a report within AdWords, but this new tool allows more immediate and flexible control of the keyword targeting within a campaign. It can sometimes mean that words or phrases are excluded after the click, but this can reduce future unnecessary spend. What it doesn't do is indicate where high impressions may still be generated from terms where the advert is not clicked.

However, this tool is one of the good improvements added to the Google Adwords management interface and allows campaigns to become more tightly focussed upon the most effective keywords, which should help to improve clickthrough rates and conversions.

This article was first published in the August 2009 edition of our monthly newsletter.

If you'd like to know more about this function and how it can be used to help improve your Google AdWords campaign, please contact us for details. Alternatively, please request a FREE website assessment and see what you could achieve with a successful search engine marketing campaign.