All PPC advertisers should have a dedicated list of ‘good housekeeping‘ techniques that they follow on a regular basis in order to ensure they are maximising return for clients ad spend and negative keyword research has to be one of the most important!
Negative keywords give advertisers the ability to refine what ads are served for target keywords in their PPC accounts by telling the PPC engines not to show any ads for these keywords.
For example;
If you are selling trainers (footwear) online, you will want to add the following negatives at either adgroup or campaign level; jobs, abs, teacher, instructor etc to stop your ads being served for any unrelated search queries.
There are several free tools available to identify any unrelated search queries to add to your PPC accounts and could potentially save you thousands of pounds!
Adwords Keyword Tool
Not only useful for identifying your target campaign/adgroup keywords but also for identifying those irrelevant keyword permutations.
Search Query Performance Reports
The ‘Search Query Performance Report’ can be found in the adwords reports section and details the performance data for the majority of search queries which served your ads that were clicked.
Google Analytics True Keyword Data (Advanced Filter)
The Google Analytics advanced filter will details the actual search query in Google Analytics instead of the keyword that triggered tour ad. Please see this excellent post from the GA Experts on how to implement this advanced filter.
Related Searches
The Related Searches feature can be found by clicking on the ‘show options’ plus box in the header of the main Google search results pages and selecting the Related Searches option.
This will detail several top performing keyword permutations relating to your search query.
The Wonder Wheel
The Wonder Wheel feature can also be found by clicking on the ‘show options’ plus box in the header of the main Google search results pages and selecting the Wonder Wheel option.
The Wonder Wheel identifies and refines additional keywords areas for you to target in PPC including many related long-tail /niche keyword data.
All very helpful tools to identify those irrelevant keywords that could be costing a small fortune!
Paul Broomfield
PPC Campaign Delivery Manager
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