Getting More for Less: Cutting Costs with Negative Keywords

and WordStream Savings Alerts

Larry Kim, Founder, CTO

Adam Shain, Product Manager

August 17, 2011

• Paid Search is a highly cost-effective way to market

your products & services, but typically we find

between 10-30% of wasteful spending in accounts

due to poor keyword selection

• By finding and eliminating wasteful spending in your

existing AdWords account, budget that would have

been wasted on irrelevant clicks can instead be used

to target more relevant searches

• Negative keywords help you get more for less!

Why Should You Care About Negative Keywords

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• What are Negative Keywords?

• Strategies for Finding Negative Keywords

• Introducing SavingsAlerts™ from WordStream

• Negative Keyword Research Workflow

• Am I Using Enough Negative Keywords?

• Q & A

Today’s Agenda

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Speaker Bios

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• Larry Kim

– I’ve been doing PPC & SEO for 10 Years!

– 3 Years ago, I started WordStream!

– Today we’re an industry-leading provider of a PPC Management Platform and Keyword Research Tools

– We help people get their website found on the internet!

• Adam Shain

– Associate Product Manager

– MBA from Babson

What are Negative Keywords

• Definition: A negative keyword tells Google AdWords to notshow your ads for searches containing that term.

• Example: The negative keyword –worst will prevent your ad from showing up in a searches containing that word, for example: “worst restaurant in boston”

• Adding negative keywords to your ad group is just like adding any other keyword. The difference is that you add them in the Negative keywords section. You can also add negative keywords at the campaign level.

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Why Do We Need Negative Keywords?

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Exact Match

[Nike Shoes]

Phrase Match

Expanded Match

“Buy Nike Shoes Online”

Adidas Slippers

Broad Match

Nike Shoes

Example:

• Google’s Broad Match doesn’t know anything about your business and often makes mistakes. (e.g.: what if you don’t sell Adidas products?) You can override this behavior by using negative keywords!

• A broad match keyword (default option in AdWords) means your ads can be displayed for searches that match the keywords you pick, but also user search queries containing variations, misspellings, synonyms & related terms.

But why do we Need to use Broad Keyword Match Option?

• If you only used Exact Match Keywords in your account, you wouldn’t need to use negative keywords, however…

– 70% of queries have no exact-matched keywords. (source: Google)

– 20% of searches every day are unique (source: Google)

• Using broad match helps you gain impressions for searches you may have not thought of. Though some will be relevant and some not relevant to your business.

• Tip: Using broad match + negative keywords can get you a combination of more quality and quality.

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Strategies for Finding Negative Keywords

1. Brainstorming a List of Negative Keywords: Think of words that you don’t want to be associated with your brand. E.g.: “Worst”, “Cheap”, “Free”, etc.

2. Using Keyword Tools and Negative Keyword Tools: See how people are searching for the words you’re interested in and set negatives based on that list – this is a “Proactive Approach”

3. Mining Your Own Search Query Data: Find out what people actually searched on before clicking on your ad and reviewing the list. (Warning: this can be a path to madness) – this is a “Reactive Approach”

Tip: Pay attention to keyword modifiers which reveal the searcher’s intent. Example: say you’re a local web consulting company and you’re bidding on “Web Development”.

– Web Development Jobs

– Web Development Software

– PHP Web Development

– Chicago Web Development

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Using a Keyword Tool to Find Negative Keyword Ideas

(Demo)

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Using Search Query Data to Find Negative Keywords

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127,775 Pages of Search Queries to

Review! Negative Keyword Research

can be a path to madness!

• We do all the work of finding

junk keywords

• You just review / approve the

findings.

• Quick. Easy. Powerful.

• 20 Minutes a Week can

improve your ROI on

AdWords by 20% or more!™

Introducing SavingsAlerts™ from WordStream

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Tips for Avoiding Negative Keyword Research Burn-Out

• Be Proactive: Do some negative keyword research before launching a campaign (use the WordStream Negative Keyword Tool and other Keyword Suggestion Tools)

• Don’t go too crazy: Spend 10-20 Minutes each Week using the High Priority SavingsAlerts™. Think of it as a ongoing task, like weeding a garden.

Workflow Negative Keyword Research

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• Use the New AdWords Performance Grader to Find out!

• (Demo)

Am I doing Enough Negative Keyword Research?

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Summary:

Negative Keywords & WordStream Savings Alerts™

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1. Effective use of Negative Keywords can improve ROI from Paid Search by 10-30%!

2. Negative Keyword research is hard. It’s so hard that many people don’t do it! Negative Keyword Tools and WordStream SavingsAlerts™ make it easy to find and eliminate wasteful spending in a fast/productive way.

3. Negative Keyword research is a processes. Like weeding your “PPC garden”. Try to dedicate 10-20 minutes / week towards negative keyword research.

Your Questions

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Thank you for attending WordStream’s webinar on Negative

Keywords and WordStream SavingsAlerts™.

Don’t forget to sign up for our Free Trial:

http://www.wordstream.com/ppc-free-trial

Or talk to one of our AdWords Certified Professionals about optimizing your account for Quality

Score:

http://www.wordstream.com/demoOr contact us directly:

lkim@wordstream.com

http://twitter.com/larrykim

ashain@wordstream.com

http://twitter.com/adamshain