HOT TOPIC Google Ads: Google dipping their hand in our wallets

[ljean]

Google is no longer showing all the search queries that resulted in a click, only the most generic ones. In my account it looks like about 2/3 of the clicks are hidden. Unbelievable.

 

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[Andy Black]

Google is no longer showing all the search queries that resulted in a click, only the most generic ones. In my account it looks like about 2/3 of the clicks are hidden. Unbelievable.

I know... there’s no justification for it.

I think it’s a smart move on Google’s part. Now we can’t see how shit their matching is.

 

[Andy Black]

This is so rubbish.

 

[Fid]

Google is no longer showing all the search queries that resulted in a click, only the most generic ones. In my account it looks like about 2/3 of the clicks are hidden. Unbelievable.

If you go to Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Google Ads -> Search terms, you can still see those!

 

[Fid]

I never knew it was THAT serious. I run campaigns loccaly in Poland and this happens occassionaly, <1% of the search terms.

I just got my first client in the US, a real estate agent:



People looking for "houses for sale" are the exact opposite of people wanting to list their house for sale! How is that a "close variant"?!

 

[ljean]

Half my clicks are still garbage and I'm adding negative keywords daily for months, what a bunch of crap.

 

[Andy Black]

Half my clicks are still garbage and I'm adding negative keywords daily for months, what a bunch of crap.

What match types are you using?

 

[ljean]

What match types are you using?

Mostly phrase & exact.

 

[Andy Black]

Mostly phrase & exact.

Yeah, we don't use broad anyway, except for broad match modified.


I don't understand phrase anymore.

We had this in one of our client accounts:




1) How is that a phrase match? SEED LOCATION is reversed and now LOCATION SEED. Not too big a deal I suppose, but what does phrase match even mean now?

2) Worse, an estate agent is not a letting agent! Guess we have to add "estate" as a negative.

Just as well we can see the search terms.

Oh wait... Google is showing less of those now.

 

[door123]

What match types are you using?

Is anybody using SKAGs anymore. I remember they use to be very effective in keyword gating. How are they now?

 

[ljean]

Tons of garbage typos slip thru too. I can't possibly add every typo variation as a negative keyword.

 

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[ljean]

In your example, I'd be getting estat etate estatw estase...

 

[Andy Black]

Is anybody using SKAGs anymore. I remember they use to be very effective in keyword gating. How are they now?

I've always used one-keyword-per-ad-group. One actual keyword, not the "broad plus phrase plus exact" that seemed to go into SKAGs. The main reason is we name the ad group after the keyword and when looking at the ads we know what the keyword is (from looking at the ad group name).

A keyword matches a set of search terms. It's less about how many keywords per ad group, and more about the set of search terms the keyword matches.

Anyway... it's a bit of a mess at the moment. I can't even tell students what phrase match does anymore. I don't trust Google's documentation and am trying to figure it out from the search terms we're seeing.

 

[Andy Black]

In your example, I'd be getting estat etate estatw estase...

Eugh... add negatives of all the misspellings of estate? Hadn't thought of that in this case for some reason. On Monday I'll check to see what search terms are slipping through.

 

[Beerbread]

I'm noticing the same trend too, especially with my client's campaigns. There's no rhyme or reason why I'm getting these keywords and I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole with negative keywords I also can't figure out why these people are clicking my ads either because the copy is extremely unrelated to what they were looking for. It's strange.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm noticing the same trend too, especially with my client's campaigns. There's no rhyme or reason why I'm getting these keywords and I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole with negative keywords I also can't figure out why these people are clicking my ads either because the copy is extremely unrelated to what they were looking for. It's strange.

Lol. Whack-a-mole. I know what you mean.

People don’t really read on Google. They just scan headlines for the words they typed in.

I once mistakenly loaded Danish descriptions into Turkish ads. The CTR barely changed.

 

[Kid]

I once mistakenly loaded Danish descriptions into Turkish ads. The CTR barely changed.

Gosh!

Like, How to use Google:
1. Search with keyword.
2. Click first result that appears.
3. Repeat if necessary.