This is post N° 4 in my series of posts about Google Ads step-by-step daily optimization routines (see the introduction post here, the general overview here, and the Monday routine here).
Alright, so if Tuesday comes and your Google Ads account is underperforming, this is what you should do.
This is one of the easiest days. All you have to do is go to your Search Terms report, and check for new keywords to add or remove from your account.
Make sure you select the proper date range.
Looking at the last 7 days worth of search terms data is a good rule of thumb, although you might have to expand the range if you have a lot of junk traffic, if your budget is high, or if you have broad match keywords, which tend to trigger a wide range of different search terms, that should be audited.
Any search terms that have converted and make sense, you should add as new keywords to their respective add group. You can do this from the search terms report interface itself.
I typically add these keywords as “exact match”. This means, if someone searches for something that matches exactly or is pretty close to what your new keyword is, it should show your ads for that search term.
To add a keywords as exact match, you need to type your new keyword between bracket signs, like this: [new keyword]
Make sure you do this, because if you add the bracket signs, the keyword will be added by default as broad match, which in most cases will not give you good results.
In some cases, when I need more traffic from a particular ad group or campaign, I also add these new keywords as “phrase match”. This means that it will work as an exact match first, but if someone searches for something that CONTAINS a closely related version of your keyword, it should show your ads for that search term as well.
For example, a phrase match keyword “red shoes” will not only trigger ads when someone searches for that, but also for other phrases that contain that keyword, like “buy red shoes” or “red shoes near me”.
To add a keyword as phrase match, you type it between quote marks, like this: “your keyword”.
Phrase match will get you more traffic that exact match, but it could be slightly less relevant traffic. If you already have added a keyword as exact match from the Google Ads interface, you will have to repeat the process, and add it again, but this time as phrase match.
Now, you also need to add as negative keywords any search terms that are not relevant.
The process is quite similar to adding positive keywords.
However, you need to be extra careful with match types.
Most of the time, you should be adding negative keywords as exact match. If you add them as phrase or broad match, you could end up blocking a large portion of good traffic.
Although, in some cases it might be a good idea to add negative keywords as phrase match, so you can block certain keywords or phrases that repeatedly signal low quality traffic.
For example, you might want to add as phrase match negative keywords such as “free”, “bargain”, etc. That means that any search query that contains those words won’t trigger your ads.
Even if your account is performing well, doing this will make it work even better, so this one of the changes that you can safely do as often as you want. Once a week is probably enough in most cases.
Also, if you haven’t done this in a long time (or ever), it might be a great idea to review your older search terms reports.
So, you could audit the last 30 days worth of search terms, or the last 3 months, the last year, or even the entire time your account has been running ads, and find some goldmine new keywords for your account based on conversion data, or some hidden offenders that should be barred from triggering your ads in the future.
P.S.: If you need help with your Google Ads, go here to book a free consultation with me.