Third Phone Call with Google AdWords

This is the fourth week since I started using Google AdWords to sell Shiroi Koibito, Japanese Chocolate. I have 6 weeks of free support from Google AdWords, and I have made a third phone call to Google to get their input on how I am doing so far.

Please view my first and second phone call with Google AdWords for previous phone call information.

This phone call was more useful than the last phone call.  I was not sure how much more I can get help from them, but since the time is limited, I thought about calling again and see what the had to say.

As always, I did not have to wait at all after calling their toll-free number (1-866-2GOOGLE (246-6453)).

I have told the Google Representative that I have followed all the suggestions they have suggested so far, but I have a concern that now I get more clicks but not enough sales.  In other words, my conversion rate is not good.  Following are the two suggestions they have mentioned to me which I thought was a great tips:

1. Use Match Types to narrow down the audience

Match Types can be defined per key words, and define them so that the ad will show up with more specific type of match.  Google define following four match types:

• Broad Match - By default this is the selection.  Google will match based on relative term to the keyword specified.  For example, my keyword is "Milk Chocolate Cookies" which could match to "Chocolate Cookie", "Cookies", "Milk Cookies", "Hot Milk" or even mistyped keywords such as "Milk chocorate"
• Phase Match - By selecting this, exact wording sequence must be in user's keywords in order for the ad to appear.  For example, my keyword is "Milk  Chocolate  Cookies" which matches with "Yummy Milk chocolate Cookies" or "Buy Milk Chocolate Cookies", but it WILL NOT match with "Chocolate Cookies" or 'Milk Cookies" because these terms do not contain phase of my keywords exactly how I spelled it. 
• Exact Match - By selecting this, ad will only show up when user types exactly what my keywords are being typed. If my keyword is "Milk Chocolate Cookies", the ad only shows up if user types that keywords. 
• Negative Match - By selecting this, we can restrict the ad to show up when user types the negative keywords.  if my keyword is "Milk chocolate Cookies", and set Negative Keywords as "Hot Chocolate", my ad will not show up "Hot Milk".

In order to set the Match Type to the keywords, do following:

Click on Keywords, and right underneath Keywords is a button of "Columns".  Click Columns->Customize Columns. Select Attributes->Click on "Add" next to Match Type.  Now Match Type shows up at the end of each keywords that I have already defined.  I can set any of the four types of the match types for each keywords.

This helped me greatly because by default Google sets up all the keywords with broad match which is great to get more clicks, but the conversion rate for them to buy my chocolate was lower earlier.  Now I can only attract users who are really specifically wanting my chocolates.  This reduced the number of clicks, but that reduced the cost which in turn increased the conversion rate.

For more information about Match Type, you can also see this link.

2. See What people are really searching for

In order to really narrow down the audience using the #1 method above, I need to know what is really showing my ads when people typed something.  This second suggestion from Google help me find that.

Now that I have been running Google AdWords for last month, I have enough data to really dig down what users are searching when my ads are being clicked.  This information is being "hidden" (I use this term because I didn't see this!) under "See Search Terms".

It is under the keywords tab, under graph you see "See Search Term" button.  You click "All" on this.  Make sure to select the date range that are not limited to only a day or two.  You want to see as far back as possible to get all the data.
Now you see all the "Search Term" relative to which campaign and ad groups users actually used to get the clicks that we paid for.  You will also see "Match Type" that I explained above if it was Exact match or broad match.  You start to see really wired keywords matching with broad match type.  I had a click with "Sushi Chocolate".  I really do not want someone to be even clicking on my link when they are looking for Sushi chocolate.  Yack!    You can check the ones you Don't want and select "Add as negative keyword" button at that top.  Now I just added "Sushi Choclate" and all other keywords as "Negative Keywords" so that when someone searches for these terms, I won't be paying for their clicks.  

You see that green highlight with "Added" wording.  This means that this keyword was already added.  So i am good with those words, but any other keywords that you think that it is relative, I can add those keywords by selecting those keywords, and "Add as Keywords".

I can keep narrowing down and digging down the data to get optimized list of keywords.

I thought this phone call was a worth phone call for me.  I have two more weeks before my free support expire.  Let's see how things go.

For more information about See Search Term report, you can see this link.