The ‘search query report’ found in the adwords reports centre is one of my most used reports on a weekly/daily basis.

Here are my 5 top reasons why;

1.    Identify New Keyword Opportunities

Search query reports help expand your keyword lists by detailing the actual search queries that are currently triggering your ads. Additional keywords can then be added to your account to gain greater target traffic and also help increase the frequency of ads being served for these keywords.

2.    Identify Campaign Negative Keywords

These reports also help identify any keywords that aren’t relevant to your account/site. These keywords can be excluded at campaign level to ensure your ads are only served for the most relevant search queries.

3.    Identify Adgroup Negative Keywords

Keywords from several adgroups all can be served for a single search query. For example, the following account keywords;

mens football boots

“football boots”

Can all be served for the search query ‘mens football boots’. In this situation the ad with the highest ad rank will be served for the search query.

Search query reports identify which ads are being served for each search query, allowing you to add the necessary negative keywords at adgroup level, ensuring the most relevant ad is served for each search query.

4.    Identify Ads Being Triggered Without Accruing Click Costs

Up until recently, the search query reports would only detail the search queries that resulted in a click on one of your ads. However they are now detailing search queries that triggered an impression for one of your ads.

This now gives advertisers the ability to exclude any un-necessary search queries before they have paid for the click!

5.    Update Keyword Match Types

By detailing the exact search queries that are triggering your ads you can make the decision to expand your keyword search engine visibility by adding a broad keyword match type or restrict the visibility of a keyword by adding an exact match keyword match type.

Search Query report are easily accessible in main adwords interface as well as reports centre. Please see the following link for more information creating search query reports.