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Here is yet another article on the major financial losses hitting advertisers due to Google AdWords expanded broad match. Every person running an AdWords campaign - and especially those using geo-targeting or who have brand names, model names, or model numbers in their keywords, is eventually going to be hit. The time to take action is NOW - before you see those spending spikes and have already lost the money.
"The tech team at Google looked into the issue, and the results came back simply as an “expanded broad match issue.” Apparently, “Cheap John’s Toyota Farm Boston” is the same as “Toyota Solara” and, logically thinking, Pittsburgh=Boston. Therefore, searchers across the nation were seeing a targeted localized ad countrywide."
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"The tech team at Google looked into the issue, and the results came back simply as an “expanded broad match issue.” Apparently, “Cheap John’s Toyota Farm Boston” is the same as “Toyota Solara” and, logically thinking, Pittsburgh=Boston. Therefore, searchers across the nation were seeing a targeted localized ad countrywide."
13 Comments
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With all the money advertisers are spending on Google AdWords, all the SEM and PPC people at Sphinn, and the number of PPC managers who insist they have never seen this problem yet, I find it amazing that this submission has not "gone hot". My motive is not to be right or make anyone else feel wrong here. It is to raise awareness and help you protect yourselves and your clients from this very real and important issue. I did not write this article. I didn’t even find it. The most brilliant PPC person I know - someone involved in the original creation of Overture that started the PPC industry - forwarded it to me because she also knows how huge this issue is. Please do not ignore the message because you may disagree with the messenger or perhaps the way I come across rubs you the wrong way. I am not the only one to write about this. It is, though, one way I recognize who is brilliant in the PPC world and who is not. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being brilliant, the person who sent this to me is a 10. Here is my scale: 10 - someone who discovers the issues themselves and then shares them to help others. 9 - someone who keeps on top of the discoveries of others, immediately confirms whether they are correct or not, and then helps spread the word. 6-8 - someone who is very active in the community and may write books or speak at SES or other conferences but may or may not be a visionary or believe what the 9s and 10s are saying because they don’t know how to confirm whether they’re true or not. These rankings are for PPC ONLY - some of these people are 10s in other specialties or may not be that high in other specialties - no one has enough time to be a 10 at everything. Those I’ve identified to date and remember while I’m typing this: 10 - Mary O’Brien (ppcSummit) - no one knows more about pay per click than Mary 10 - AussieWebmaster (Frank Watson) - moderator at Search Engine Watch, obviously does enough PPC and is brilliant enough to see the issues, help others avoid them, and develop strategies he then teaches. 9 - Marty Weintraub, AimClear Search Marketing - He is a 10 at the power of social networking and probably a 9 on most everything related to online marketing - a true visionary I am fortunate to work with on a daily basis. 9 - Andy Beard - All around brilliant, obviously a 10 on many subjects and at least a 9 across the board. Note that this is a PPC list and only those I personally know. There are others I will be adding once I make the time to read their blogs (or someone helps me out by letting me know who else belongs on this list). There are many, many others who are clearly 9-10 either across the board or in their specialties like Danny Sullivan and Lyndon Antcliff. [My apologies to the brilliant people I did not mention; it will only be because you didn’t come to mind and my mind is a little tired from the hours I’ve been keeping lately.] Most of the most well known PPC speakers and writers are only at 6-8 because while they do spread the word they are focused on traveling, speaking, or writing. Some would be 9-10 if they spent as much time doing hands-on PPC work as the 10s do on a daily basis. They do help spread the word well once the issues eventually become accepted as true and are very important. What is with all those extra line spaces that I didn’t put there? I suspect it is due to the length of my comments hitting something in the CSS? (That is only a guess - I am not a Web designer.)
Thank you for the vote; even a -1 is participation and preferable to apathy. A comment would be better, though, as there is no way I can guess what it is about the above post that someone disagreed with or perhaps didn’t want to hear?
Hi Rose. I wonder if people aren’t noticing this problem because it’s a function of quality score. Ironically, the higher your QS, the more likely your ad is to "qualify" for the expanded matches. Here’s what Google told me when I explained this problem to them: "When you use broad matching keywords, expanding matching is enabled and your ad can appear on variations of your keyword. As your quality score improves, the number of expanded variations that your ads are eligible to run on increase." More details on this problem: http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/blogger/2007/03/adwords-flaw-could-cost-small-business.html
I just started with a new client that was getting destroyed by broad match while running their own Adwords campaign. After a few hours of negative keyword research we managed to trim a few thousand bucks off their monthly spend. The thing you have to watch out for is Adwords will just all of a sudden blow up on you. On a new account, once it settles in the broad match gets more lenient in its matching and if you’re not paying attention it will bite you in the wallet. If you pay attention and run Search Query Reports on a regular basis you can build an effective negative keyword list that will let you reap the benefits of broad match and block all the junk that can come with it.
Thank you Richard! No wonder this issue is hitting me so much. I’ll check out your post and add it to my links on this subject on my own blog. Rob, thanks for the input. I just deleted every broad match phrase in the largest account I manage. I’ve always run broad match in the past but it is just too risky now. You’re right about all of a sudden. I’ve seen huge spikes on one keyword in two weeks that equal the entire normal monthly spend and spending jumps in accounts that have run practically unattended for years. It used to be possible to stabilize accounts but not any more.
Google needs to let advertisers opt out of expanded match. My suggestion is to have Google proactively notify advertisers on which keywords they could be bidding on.
I think I’m a -1 when it comes to PPC.
@adamap as of just recently they will tell you which queries have triggered your ad and gotten clicks (search query performance in your reports section), but the creativity/ridiculousness of the general public is too great for them to predict in advance. And when you match that with a computer trying to figure out what you might mean it can get pretty ugly unless you employ lots of negative words throughout your accounts. I have two recent posts on the matter of the Search Query Report and Negative Keywords. Used appropriately they can save you a bunch of dough without hurting your conversions. http://www.smsrd.com/2007/08/back-to-basics-forgotten-art-of.html http://www.smsrd.com/2007/07/focused-expansion-controlling-expanded.html
Thanks for the article. As someone who runs local campaigns and who runs combinations of exact match and broad match I appreciate your comments. I’ve tended to focus on exact match for years, if only to prevent this type of thing from happening. Doing so, though, eliminates the opportunity to capture ppc on the amazingly large scope of the long tail. So exact match has its limits. The other day I was reviewing some ppc tools....and noticed they reported (scrapes of) ads running for totally unrelated broad match ads that will never convert. So now I’ve got to either convert all broad match to exact or generate a ton of negative words. Neither is a good alternative....and a waste of time and resources. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Dave
Hey, it’s not just local campaigns that are affected! We’ve had loads of issues over here in the UK on national campaigns. http://www.latitudegroup.com/index.php?/weblog/permalink/googles_broadmatch_room_for_improvement/ Not the best piece of branding for your client to be appearing on the results for penis enlargement pills!!!!
Thanks everyone for the comments and tips. This expanded broad match issue is eating my lunch because for years I’ve used broad match and even with tons of negative keywords it goes out of control. I now have thousands of negative keywords in many campaigns and recently have begun mass-deleting all broad matched keywords across entire accounts. I avoided doing that because I’ve actually tracked by broad, phrase, and exact and know the broad in one account was driving right at half of all sales and revenue. RobD, that report hasn’t been very enlightening for many of my accounts because it is full of "other unique queries" instead of actual search phrases. Does anyone know what the threshold value is to trigger a phrase to show up? Thanks for that link, Richard. If you don’t mind I’ll add it to my Additional Resources section for this topic in my http://ppcThink.com blog.
I hate that little "other unique queries" result. It makes me wonder what they’re hiding. From what I can tell though there is no threshold to showing the query. I’ve had results that were 1 impression with 1 click. There’s some other factor blocking the results on the other unique queries. With the accounts I’m running I’ve found that most of them will always give me something to work with if I run a report on a regular basis. So in a lot of accounts the first pass gave me piles of negatives, from there on out it gets much smaller but it’s kind of like chasing the long tail but with negative keywords. It’s not perfect, but it’s the only thing that Google gives you directly. I’ve managed to use it to save a lot of money and hold onto some really broad words in my campaigns.
When I saw tons of "other unique queries" on EXACT MATCH keywords I first thought they couldn’t be exact. I investigated that and posted what I found out about why I see so many "other unique queries" in my reports. If you use a lot of long-tail keywords or advertise products that can be searched for with a huge combination of words you’ll see a lot of that. See my past at http://www.ppcthink.com/2007/08/24/mystery-solved-other-unique-queries-in-report-instead-of-actual-search-queries/ for more details.