As Google continues on its journey to becoming Hal 9000 with the addition of Google Instant, the PPC world is a little concerned. As Geordie from PPC blog explains, Google Instant is streaming search queries as you type. But with millisecond long impressions, what will happen to my CTR? Google has accounted for this. They reworked the definition of an impression for Adwords. Searches are only impressions if the user clicks on the SERP, clicks “search” next to the query box, or the user stops typing for approximately three seconds during the query. So rest assured that Google Instant isn’t going to kill your CTR.
Geordie at PPC Blog is getting credit for two great articles this week by explaining keyword tasting to us. To understand this strategy, keep wine tasting in your mind. First, create some broad keywords. Let them run for about 300-500 clicks. This is where the wine tasting metaphor comes in—testing these keywords briefly is like smelling and sampling the wine. If the broader keyword gives you a few conversions (like if the wine is good), take a look at the specific search terms that got you the conversions and add those terms into your ad groups and campaigns. But if the broad keywords get you nothing, cut them out (or spit out the wine and don’t purchase, to go along with this wine metaphor).
It’s safe to say that in PPC, there are always keywords that will lose you money. Despite this, certain companies keep these keywords for very distinct reasons. Craig Danuloff at ClickEquations tells us why and not every reason is a good one. The first excuse is branding—these companies are willing to pay the price in order to get their name out there to the people searching for them. In addition, many companies think that although they are losing money on a few keywords, they are making up for it in sheer volume (disclaimer: this might not always be the case). Finally, a lot of the time the reason for this waste of money is simply because many ads and ad groups go unnoticed for weeks at a time, sitting in Adwords purgatory.
