Run Your Search Term Report On Google Ads

One of the main problems we find when doing a search engine marketing audit is that traffic is not relevant in one’s Google Ads PPC account. A potential client comes to us and says I got “X” amount of traffic per month, and all of my keywords are relevant, but it is not yielding leads or sales. Just because one has relevant keywords does not mean that traffic is relevant. For example, let’s say a client sells car decals for a Camaro and has the broad match keyword, Camaro decals. Throughout the month, that keyword gets 300 clicks but only 1-2 sales. Something does not add up because the client has a relevant website, and the cost is below his competitors. When running the search term report, it is observed that 90% of the actual search terms are not relevant.

For instance, Camaro dealerships, cost of a Camaro ZL1 and other terms that are in no way related to what the client sells. When you demonstrate this to the prospective client, they are usually shocked to see this, and the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, those are not my keywords! Or, I never added that. That being said, the search term report shows the verbatim (word for word) search term that the user used in a Google search, which then resulted in the click of the client’s ad. Whereas, the keywords entered in the account are just that (keywords or phrases). Just because the keyword (Camaro decals) got 300 clicks, it does not mean that is what one typed to get to the ad. Many clients waste enormous amounts of their budgets on irrelevant traffic.

A solution to this is first to consider using phrase match or exact match instead of broad as your keyword match type. For instance, in the example above, one could use the phrase match term of “Camaro decals” instead of broad match. This method would all but eliminate irrelevant search terms from making your ad come up because one needs to type in “Camaro decals” in that order for the ad to even serve.  However, if one chooses to use the broad match keyword of Camaro decals, then there must be a lot of attention put into adding many negative keywords. For example, dealership, “Camaro price”, “where to buy a Camaro”, among others. Running your search term report regularly can potentially save you thousands of dollars in unwanted traffic while also increasing leads and sales because traffic coming to your website will be highly relevant.