Selecting your match type is extremely important, there are four different match types available to select the default is broad.  Broad means that you are bidding for each and every possible word that you have listed.  For example if your keyword is ‘tennis shoes’ your ad would appear on every possible ad that has to do with ‘tennis’ or ‘shoes’ in other words you would be bidding on ‘tennis gear’ ‘tennis balls’ ‘dance shoes’ ‘kid shoes’ and everything else that have either tennis or shoes in the keyword.

Broad match overview –

• Keyword = broad match
• large amount of searches
• large amount of clicks
• Extremely costly
• Low conversion rate

The next match type available is phrase match going back to the example of ‘tennis shoes’ you would be bidding for red tennis shoes black tennis shoes green tennis shoes cheap tennis shoes and everything else.  Both words have to be used in the search and in the order listed.  For example shoes for tennis would not be listed because ‘tennis shoes’ is not in order.  It is important to setup phrase type correctly, for example ‘tennis shoes’ ‘cheap tennis shoes’ would be good phrase match keywords while ‘tennis’ would not.

Phrase match overview

• “keyword” = phrase match
• More targeted then broad match, but more flexible than exact match
• Good amount of clicks and more costly than exact match
• Ok conversion rate
• Could be the right option for different keywords if setup correctly

Exact match provides the most correct information and exact information for the keyword that you enter.  If you enter ‘tennis shoes’ your bid will only appear for tennis shoes and for nothing else if they enter ‘tennis shoe’ your website will not appear because you are missing an s they must enter the exact same keyword for your ad to appear.  This is an excellent match type and will provide exact information for each keyword.

Exact match overview

• [keyword] = exact match
• Less clicks and impressions
• High conversion rate
• Highly targeted traffic
• Great option for low-budget and to gather great marketing information

Negative match are a list of words that your ads will not show up on any search that contains that keyword.  It will filter unwanted keywords that will increase the conversion rate.  A good example on how a negative match is free if you are selling something that costs money or used or any other word that does not reflect what you are selling.  Negative keywords also don’t affect exact match only phrase and broad.

Negative match overview (- keyword)

• -keyword = negative match
• List of words that your ads will not show up on
• Great for getting more targeted traffic
• Will also increase conversion rate
• Very important when using phrase match or broad match

The ideal would be to have a large list of keywords and have most of then as exact match and others as phrase match.  The few that could be phrase match will normally be keywords with several words for example ‘cheap tennis shoes’ ‘stylish tennis shoes’ ‘extreme tennis shoes’ this will allow your to get even more searches while receiving targeted traffic and maintaining a high conversion rate.  This will create great information for your ad tracker to pickup.

In our next series we will go over setting up each ad group correctly and how to write advertisements that will result incredible results

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• Dominating PPC 101 – search engines (part 2 of 8 series)
• Dominating PPC 101 – keywords (part 1 of 8 series)

The first step to getting your PPC campaigns setup is to actually setup a budget.  It is important to setup a good size budget with each of the big 3 search engines.  It is also important to note that your budget is a maximum so when the budget is reached all advertising will be halted so it is far better to have as big budget.  In the ideal situation your budget would never be reached because if it is reached that means your ads are offline, possible quality clicks are unavailable and people searching for your website will be unable to find it.

Next you have the opportunity to set bidding options meaning automatic or manual.  Most of the time you will want to select manual because you will be changing your bids later.  Automatic will run with the goal of getting the most clicks possible where as manual you will be able to control with the goal of getting the most sales possible.  Automatic is generally for someone that is interested in setting it up and never optimizing their campaign again.  Note – most automatic PPC bidders don’t make money.

After setting up your campaign it is time to add all keywords into your campaigns start with the first ad group and add the keywords for that ad group and keep doing so until you have added all ad groups.  Having more ad groups is better than having less because each ad group will have its own set of advertisements.  Match type is extremely important and there is a lot of information to know about it so we have dedicated the next series completely to match types.

Match type is extremely important and this next series is defiantly worth your time reading if correctly understood you will prevent future money loss and PPC failure..

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