Negative Keyword Help

[Instabill]

I am working on compiling a list of both broad and phrase-matched negative keywords for my AdWords campaigns, but I feel like I am encountering a problem.

We offer payment gateway services and business owners often search terms including online payment gateway, Internet payment gateway, credit card payment gateway, etc to see our ads. However, we have been getting bad leads from consumers searching for terms such as online payment, online payments, online bill pay, and various other phrases regarding consumers paying their bills online. We work specifically with business owners who want to accept payments and NOT consumers who want to make payments.

Here is my dilemma: If I have "online payment gateway" or [online payment gateway] as keywords as well as "online payment" or "online payments" as negative keywords, then I will be blocking business owners from seeing my ads when they search the term online payment gateway. Correct?

Is there any way to get around this? Am I wrong?

[MickEdwards]

A negative exact match should not exclude your search term.  For example:

**-[online payment] **will allow online payment gateway to show.

Check this post by Google and look at the chart of possible combinations - http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/adwords-optimization-tips-more-on.html

[PM_Academy]

around your keyword for example 

online payment gateway should be [online payment gateway].  This will make it so only the exact search will return the results.  I would also suggest making your negative keywords exact when possible as well.

This is what we used to solve this problem and has been extremely effective.

Trenton

[Instabill]

I feel like I should not use exact match negative keywords in this situation. Consumers are not searching for  exact match phrases. For instance, one of the search phrases a consumer used to sign up on our website through an ad was: airasia payment online by debit.

If I list -[online payment] as an exact negative keyword, this consumer would still see my ad. Even adding the phrase -"online payment" as a negative keyword would allow this consumer to see my ads since the exact phrase within the entire keyword is payment online and not online payment.

Other keywords consumers search and see my ads are:

• aircell online bill payment
• airtel landline online payment through credit card
• allen online payment
• at&t pay bill online
• best buy online bill payment
• boost mobile online payment

The list goes on and on . . .

I just do not know what to do. I feel like I need to either choose between blocking legitimate clients or allowing bad conversions.

[KeriMorgret]

One other thing to consider is finding a list of online payments people may be looking for, and add those as negatives. I searched for 'online bill pay directory' and found that Chase has a list of people that they will do a bill pay for at http://chasepayeedirectory.com/chasebiller/home.html. It's in flash and not easily grabbed in text format, but it's a start.

I wrote a post about finding these types of lists and other negative keyword brainstorming ideas at http://moz.com/blog/negative-keywords-for-positive-roi. It may be of help in finding lists of terms to exclude.

[Instabill]

Thank you, Kerri.

I have been analyzing the Search Terms in Dimensions to see what phrases people are searching to find our site. I have been building a list of negative keywords since my last post. Some of the negative keywords include:

• "abdomen" (yes, we have even gotten clicks for this term!)
• "belks"
• "car payment"
• "electricity payment"
• "make bill payment online"
• pay cell bill
• gas bill

I am hoping this helps solve my problem!

[PM_Academy]

I think you mistook my post, I would recommend using exact for BOTH the positive and negative keywords.

In your case, I believe, the positive keywords being exact would solve all your problems.  One, make sure these signups are coming from PPC, then for example, why not add [airasia payment online by debit] to your keyword list.  You've already told me it sells and you would be able to track the metrics for this keyword exactly.  Then, take the list that goes on and on, and export it to an excel sheet, add those keywords to your PPC campaigns. Make sure you put the [] around each though.  Excel can help you do this very quickly if you are familiar with excel functions.  Just my $.02.  Hope it helps.

Trenton

[Instabill]

Trenton,

The keyword airaisia payment online by debit does not sell. That is a keyword consumers used to find our ads--but I do not work with consumers. I work with business owners, which means any clicks or conversions are a waste of money from this term. However, I do understand what you are saying.

Also, I must add how much I love Excel's concatenate function. It saves massive amounts of time!

Thanks again for your help!

[Branden_S]

The best way I have found to create negative keywords is by going through the search queries.  I do this every month for my clients.  It takes some time to do this, especially at the beginning, when you don't have a large negative keyword list. But as time goes by you will have developed an extensive negative keyword list.

Set a broad date range, go into an ad group >>>  keyword tab>>  Details drop down >>  select Search terms All.  This will show you every search term that triggered your keyword.  Sort by impressions and start with the most impressions.  If this is a term that you don't want to show your ad for, just check the box and click "add as negative".  This will add this term as a negative exact match for this ad group.  It takes a while to go through all of the search terms, but it will pay off in the long run.  This is also a good way to add keywords.

Another thing that will help you is to stop using broad match for your keywords, ..broad modified, phrase & exact match are the only match types I use for keywords. This will give you much more targeted search queries.

[Instabill]

Thanks, Branden!

I did know know that I could sort through my keywords in this way. It does seem like a lot of work, but I am willing to do it if it provides me with better results. That is the goal, after all.

I am unfamiliar with broad modified keywords. Could you explain this a little more?

Regards,
Meghan

[Branden_S]

Hi Meghan,

Broad modified keywords are a new variation of broad match.  They are a hybrid between broad and phrase match types.  Broad modified keywords must use all the keywords.(like phrase) but they allow the keywords to be in any order.   Broad modified keywords main benefit is they will not be triggered by synonyms or keywords the Google/Bing believe are 'relevant".   Synonyms and 'relevant' keywords are what cause trouble for broad match...sometimes they are relevant, but often they are not relevant...broad modified does not have this issue.

To create broad modified keywords you just need to put a "+" in front of each word, and have a match type of broad.   While this can be time consuming to create manually, here is an awesome broad match generator.  http://www.acquisio.com/ppc/google-adwords-modified-broad-match-keyword-tool/

Use Editor... just export to excel ...all of your keywords, campaign, group, match type & dest url.  Make sure your keyword column in Excel is set to "text"...if its set to 'general' it will create problems when you paste '+keyword" back later.  Copy your keyword column, paste into the above Acquisio page, click the 'generate broad match button" , copy the new broad modified keywords and paste them back onto your spreadsheet.  Make sure all keywords have broad match type.  Save excel file and import back into AdWords editor.  You now have all keywords with a broad modified match type.  Should only take 5 minutes.  I would then recommend pausing broad match types...you will begin receiving much more targeted traffic, and will not need to micro manage your negative keywords.

By the way, I offer a free PPC marketing review.  Do you have 30 minutes to chat with me?  I can really help your PPC campaigns.  Private message me if you are interested.

Branden

[Instabill]

I am in the middle of re-vamping my PPC marketing campaigns. Once I have more data on the results of my changes, I may take you up on that offer for a free review. Thank you for all of your help!

Regards,
Meghan