Comments on: If You Are Ignoring Session-Based Broad Match, You Are Losing Money

By: Improving Google AdWords | The PPC Blog by Matthew Umbro

Improving Google AdWords | The PPC Blog by Matthew Umbro — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:25:21 +0000

[...] the feature is always on. For further reading, John A. Lee does an excellent job of explaining session-based broach match and its [...]

By: John Lee

John Lee — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:31:29 +0000

Robert and Al,

Thanks for the comments!

Problem vs. annoyance – either way, it is something that AdWords advertisers need to be aware of. There are still a lot of people out there who aren’t even using Search Query Reports. Education is so important, and that was my primary initiative! ; )

By: Al Kuenn

Al Kuenn — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:48:46 +0000

John,
Great description of the situation. I view it as more of an annoyance than a problem. The only real way to prevent it is to keep adding negative kw. If the click total is high enough to cause real concern, then you should have had a negative keyword in that campaign to stop it anyway.

It is amusing to see what Google thinks is relevant in this type of match…yet see how they beat you up on quality scores if your keyword is deemed ‘not relevant’…

-Al

By: Robert Brady

Robert Brady — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:57:31 +0000

Business as usual. AdWords pays the bills, so any means of upping the revenue gets pushed live regardless of whether it creates a “better user experience” or not

By: John Lee

John Lee — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:00:52 +0000

Shawn,

Thanks for commenting. My opinion as of late has been a little less “conspiracy theory.” While I don’t disagree that Google is out to monetize AdWords in every conceivable way, I would argue that some of these initiatives began as a valid idea to help (and to steal your phrase) naive users who don’t know how to perform keyword expansion on their own.

Regardless, we’re both in 100 agreement that as more and more systems are put in place to pump additional queries through broad match, the importance of Search Query Reports only grows!

By: Shawn Livengood

Shawn Livengood — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:45:35 +0000

Great post, John. This just goes to show how crucial search query reports are in effectively managing a PPC campaign. I get the feeling that Google keeps expanding the broad match qualifications to squeeze a little extra revenue from the more naive users of their PPC platform, at the expense of a higher cost per conversion for the advertiser.

By: John Lee

John Lee — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:35:02 +0000

Jordan,

Thanks for the comment. Definitely on board with keeping options open. Just want to point out that I don’t recommend turning broad match off as a rule. I want advertisers to be aware that in the case of session-based broad match – you can’t turn it off. My recommendation is to remain vigilant in reporting, primarily with Search Query Reports to ensure that the session-based query matches that do come through are relevant. If they aren’t, roll that knowledge (and those queries) into your negative keyword lists.

By: Jordan McClements

Jordan McClements — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:22:59 +0000

I agree 90% – but it *is* possible to get conversions for session based broad matches.
If you are in a niche where there is not much search traffic, and a new client/sale is worth a lot of money to you then it is probably a good idea to keep all your ‘broad’ options open..