Farewell 'Pure' Exact Match in AdWords
- Thread starter retraCC
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Great, just great.
The real world effects also have a huge effect in the amount of traffic that comes through. A LOT more people will be searching about fire, than firefighter.. This just makes things even harder to figure out how much traffic you'll potentially be getting.
The real world effects also have a huge effect in the amount of traffic that comes through. A LOT more people will be searching about fire, than firefighter.. This just makes things even harder to figure out how much traffic you'll potentially be getting.
I don't see what the problem here is. At best I might pick up some new keywords that I never thought of that make me lots of money, at worst I have to add a few new terms to my negative keyword list. Whats the big deal?
If you have an exact match campaign setup with ad copy specific to a keyword, it sucks.
Rent Cars
Rental Cars
Cars for Rent
Rent a Car
Car Rentals
Are all viewed as "close enough" by Google. Yes, they're similar, but they aren't the same. This means you can't have copy that aligns with the keyword, as well as being able to as easily track keywords that converted
(dimensions tab instead of adgroup level). I'm assuming that negative matching will be similar as well, so it will be equally as useless?
QS is already a black box that lets Google arbitrarily manipulate their ePMs. Google shouldn't care if you're paying .10 CPC and have a 1% CTR or paying $1 CPC and have a .1% CTR, they'd be making the same amount for every 1000 impressions. By removing exact match, CTRs will probably decrease, CPCs will increase, but Google should still make the same amount, unless I'm missing something?
You bring up valid points, but yeah, I think you're missing a few things...
Regarding dimensions, just keep an eye on it and optimize.
Do you have any evidence that negative keywords will be equally as useless? It seems counter-intuitive to Google's monetization system to me. Why wouldn't they allow negative keywords (see below)?
You understand their auction system, Right? KW relevance, ad copy, CTR, CPC, LP relevancy and all of that good stuff plays into Quality Score.
So over time, someone who optimizes to a 4% CTR - assuming all other factors are equal - can expect to pay 25% per click as someone with a 1% CTR - again ignoring other potential factors.
It's an auction system that works extremely well for them. The higher relevancy to the user, the more conversions for the advertiser, the more they can charge for ad inventory.
Here's what you're missing...
By using negative keyword, targeting, etc, advertisers can maintain a positive ROI. Without that positive ROI, they'll stop advertising. Advertisers succeeding is in Google's best interest.
Now if you want to get into the "idiot tax", where businesses are clueless and just spray clicks to their websites without conversion goals or metrics and have no clue on ROI - driving up ad cost for everyone else...
...People who know how to really optimize a campaign can compete. And advertisers, no matter how clueless, will eventually realize a negative ROI and pull-out eventually - leaving the money to people who know how to optimize a campaign.
I'm not a Google fanboy, although I do love adwords.
But from Google's perspective, making it win-win makes sense. If advertisers can't produce a positive ROI from their marketing, and Google gives them every tool to do so, they'll stop paying.
It's in Google's best interest to make sure advertisers win. They can only play the "idiot tax" game for so long before small businesses drop out.
RIP Google adwords - I can already see the shock on businesses when they see their PPC billing quadruple whilst conversions half or worse.
FB, LinkedIn and other PPC platforms are going to get more expensive as a result though....
This has got to backfire in some spectacular way...
FB, LinkedIn and other PPC platforms are going to get more expensive as a result though....
This has got to backfire in some spectacular way...
I always sucked at Adwords. The one thing that does annoy me is that they'll probably be getting rid of exact match searches in the keyword tool 
yeah... i'm sure google has done a lot of simulations and know the impact this change will have. google is a media company now. Big money is in for the long haul.
Yeah... the "idiot tax" is exactly why google is doing this. They continue to REMOVE functionality, simply because it increases profits.
Their entire black box system is meant to take advantage of information asymmetries between advertisers and themselves. See Winner's curse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is yet another move by adsense to make bidding more difficult, allow uneducated bidders to push up costs, and create more confusion regarding what bidders are actually bidding on. The "idiots" don't just increase costs for themselves... they increase costs for everyone.
No, this is simply a bi-product. Google is not an emerging medium any more. It is a new one, but this implies it's already established and its importance will continue to grow immensely. Not to mention being home of institutional investors. They can't have predatory advertising practices associated with their brand. Public opinion polls regarding privacy show staggering concerns. "For-profit surveillance" gets mentioned a lot. A lot of NGOs are pressing HARD and google is on top of their list. This is not some random enterprise, their business relies heavily the public's perception and trust.
Allowing such precise targeting options and sharing this much intelligence was a trade-off in the early years. Think of it like taking money from a questionable sponsor, in order get your campaign going. Advertising will be measured, tracked, analyzed and targeted similarly to how "traditional" media has done it. Precision, of course will be higher, but there is going to be a lot more work. And this is normal. You didn't expect to be able to make monies in your underwear forever, did you?
Allowing such precise targeting options and sharing this much intelligence was a trade-off in the early years. Think of it like taking money from a questionable sponsor, in order get your campaign going. Advertising will be measured, tracked, analyzed and targeted similarly to how "traditional" media has done it. Precision, of course will be higher, but there is going to be a lot more work. And this is normal. You didn't expect to be able to make monies in your underwear forever, did you?
You do list a number of factors that go into the quality score, but it is just an approximation. Account history, KW in copy, landing page and all of those factors likely do go into the QS, but without a concrete set of rules, who is to say that Google can't arbitrarily lower QS to increase revenue? This is obviously a cynical view, but I typically associate any lack of transparency or obfuscation as generally being sketchy. Yes, just like with SEO, Google can't give every factor considered in fear of being gamed, but PPC should be less susceptible to exploitation.
The negative keyword matching issue assumes that you can't negative match a keyword, such as that you want to bid on
rent cars
but not
rental cars.
So if you negative match rental cars, under the new policy, I took it as both above terms being excluded?
Small businesses are at an inherent disadvantage to begin with. A mom and pop shop probably doesn't understand the difference between a broad match keyword and exact match keyword. They'll just understand that they are paying $X to get Y orders. If they are spending 90% of their budget on non-converting keywords being shown on broad match, they're leaving all of that potential value on the table by being able to pay more for the keywords that are actually delivering orders. BUT, they are helping improve fill rate and competition for other keywords that may not be as desirable. Negative matching does work, but you will spend money finding the keywords, as well as it being beyond the scope of most smaller businesses using AdWords.
A good example of the idiot tax you speak of is Groupon. In a repeated game, people will adapt and figure out that this may not work given their best interests. Businesses with lower margins may have ran 1 or 2 Groupons, then realized it isn't profitable for them to do so after the rush/excitement wears off.
A win/win situation would be higher ePMs for Google (can be accomplished through higher CTRs and/or higher CPCs, or lower QS?) and a lower cost/more leads for the advertiser. Does this accomplish that?
they'll probably be getting rid of exact match searches in the keyword tool
Fuck, that'd be awesome. 99% of the competition wiped out in one easy step. Make this happen.