Negative Keyword Tool...Google’s Expanded Broad Match Antidote?

If you have not seen it, keep an eye out for the Negative Keyword tool in your keyword tab on Google.  This handy addition will let you eliminate unwanted impressions and clicks that have crept into our programs with the expanded broad match.

While many of us can identify some of the big offenders to use for negative keywords, estimating the impact on impressions is kind of a pain. With the new tool, you can select specific keywords in your ad group, or the whole ad group. It will present you with a list of suggested negatives, along with an estimated reduction in impressions. You can then click to add them. This is great for streamlining your campaigns and tightening quality scores. However, before you jump on this, do some homework.

Take a look at your conversion data. At the very least, set a baseline for sales by keyword  "pre negative keyword tool implementation". Then, after the period of time you need to get a sufficient number of clicks / conversions, run the analysis again and compare it to the first. How is your conversion volume and ROI? Ideally, what you should have cut out are clicks that did not lead to sales and impressions that did not drive clicks. If, however, you find that your CTR, or post click conversion rate did not improve, or your order volume dropped, then the negative keyword tool may have filtered out good searches on a broad match of your keyword.

Ideally, your system captures the exact search phrase that triggered your ad. If you do this, then you can track it to the sale, and compare that information with the suggestions from the negative keyword tool to minimize unintended cuts is sales; if the suggested cut actually produced sales, obviously, don't add the negative (see below).  Yahoo! and MSN have this as part of their URL tagging also. If you do not have log file analytic tools that can help you pull the search query, you may be able to apply the Yahoo! and MSN information (to capture the exact search term) to the Google tool.

I mentioned above that if you can capture the literal search string, you should (obviously) not add the negative to your campaign. However, an experienced SEM should be calling this out as an opportunity to optimize the campaign. Take these search phrases and turn them into exact match keywords in their own adgroups. This is a great way to reduce costs and improve relevancy. The trouble is that most companies aren't set up to leverage this (it does require time to start and maintain). If you're one of them, then at just take the time to identify them and not to add as a negative.