Google - “near exact and near phrase variants”

[DrewAment]

I was forwarded a unique memo from VW Marketing yesterday that I thought I would share and open for discussion (it wasn't marked confidential, so I feel ok sharing it).

http://press1totalk.com/uploads/VW_SEM__KMayer070512.pdf

It makes reference to “near exact and near phrase variants” that Google started a few months back. I have always struggled with this option for campaigns. And, have felt (gut feeling) that it does negatively affect the campaigns. But, have never had the broad data that VW would have access to to support my thinking.

I am a way analogical guy, and when data says - it is so. My gut feeling has been validated.

So, what are your thoughts and ideas? Do you, or your agency, use this option on your keyword campaigns? What are your results?

 

[DealerMarketing]

IMO..Negative keywords are more important than “near exact and near phrase variants” ..Negative keywords allow advertisers to block unwanted search queries. For Search Campaigns, these search queries are added as Negative Keywords and ads will not be shown for these terms on Google search and search partners sites.

• Reach Target Audience Only: Your ad copy will only be shown to targeted audience, in other words only to those who are interested in your product and services only.

• Improve ROI: When we block irrelevant terms, it helps advertisers to bring CPC down and increase ROI.

• Cost of Campaign: Helps to reduce cost by blocking clicks from the irrelevant unwanted queries.

• Improve Click-Through Rate: When you apply negative keywords carefully in your campaign it will not be showing your ads to unwanted audience, thus your chances of receiving a click improves immensely.

• Improve in Conversion Rates: You will see a positive effect on your conversions with the improvement of the quality of clicks by adding negative keywords.

• Improve Quality Score: It also helps in improving QS of the keywords as we know that quality score is being calculated every time search query runs. QS is highly based on the relevancy - When we add negative keywords it increases the relevancy between keywords and search query and thus leads us to improved quality score.

• Decrease in Cost per Conversion: When we protect our ads from unwanted queries the cost associated with those search terms decreases, this leads you to lower cost per conversion.