Match types is another trick component of paid search – figuring out when it’s appropriate to use what match type. If you’re just getting started, start with our definition of broad match vs phrase match vs exact match. In this post, we answer questions we’ve received about match type. Leave a comment at the bottom and we’ll answer your question as well. For more posts, see our previous Ask a PPC Expert: Landing Pages and Ask a PPC Expert: Keywords.

Q: How do I change keywords from exact match to broad match?

For Search Alliance (Yahoo/Bing) access the campaign then go to the Ad Group and select one or all keywords. Then click on “Add or edit Keywords” button.  On this screen you can select exact match and un-select broad match for the specific keyword. In Google AdWords, select the correct campaign, click on Keywords tab, select one or all keywords, click on Edit and adjust keyword match type for one or multiple keywords.

-Dan Navarro

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Keywords are the foundation of a paid search campaign, and a topic area we see many questions about. We’ve gathered previous questions we’ve received on keywords, and shared our answers for everyone to see. See our previous Ask a PPC Expert: Landing Pages.

If you have a question about keywords, leave a question in the comments and we’ll answer them.

Will deleting non-performing keywords really help my campaign? Why can’t I just leave the garbage in and focus on adding more, improved keywords?

Dan Navarro: Deleting non-performing keywords simply helps to save your budget from non-converting or performing clicks. A non-performing keyword might have only a few clicks which shows that traffic is low for that keyword, unless the bid price is too low and not allowing the word to be used. Focusing on performing keywords is a way to use real data and refine your campaign even further by changing ad copy, etc.

Brandon Hess: There are very few reasons to delete a keyword versus pausing a keyword when managing your PPC campaigns. While some keywords may not perform at the level you desire, often the performance of keywords are based on more than the match type or bid price you’re using. New ads, better optimized landing pages, advanced settings and other factors can improve a historically poor performing keyword. Pausing keywords allow you to return to poor performing keywords as low hanging fruit begins to stabilize (branded terms, etc) and track their improvements. Only focusing on what works out of the gate, while a short-term goal, puts all your eggs in one basket in the long-term. Pause keywords that don’t meet your success metrics over a specific timeline but always look to improve portions of your campaign that are poor performers.  Many PPC experts will move poor performing keywords into separate ad groups noted as “Low Performance” and pause / adjust settings to allow them to both notate troubled portions of a campaign, better organize their efforts and allow them to return to these areas once other areas of a campaign have been improved.

In my analytics reports, many of the clicks come from people who look for the exact name of the hotel, which appears at the top of the page anyway, so, is it a good idea to put the complete hotel name as a negative keyword so I can save on those clicks?

Brandon Hess:  Making your brand name a negative isn’t recommended. The question of whether or not an advertiser should bid for their branded name if they already own an organic listing is a very common question. The answer to this is whether or not the advertiser has heavy competition for their brand name by other competitors and if they feel it’s worth the cost (which is usually low given the quality score the brand owner will pay to bid on the name they own) to take a position away from their competitors. As well, there are stark differences in Organic and Paid advertising for search. Paid ads have the flexibility to adapt and serve timely and adjusted messaging at a much quick pace than Organic meaning that your competitors are likely advertising on your brand name with messaging meant to dissuade customers from using your hotel over theirs. Organic listings are less flexible.

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Guest post by Josh Bernstein

Ever heard if you do one thing, you should do it well?  Well, say that applies to your business that wants to explore PPC but you don’t have a big budget.  What to do?  One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is companies running 60% or more of their keywords on broad match. It isn’t good folks. CPC’s are high and budget caps get eaten by noon. [Read more...]