If you haven’t been using “close variants” in your Google AdWords campaign, be warned. The tech giant announced that starting next month, you won’t be able to use exact phrase and keyword matching anymore. Close variant keyword matching will be applied to all existing AdWords account once the update has been rolled out.
Currently, each campaign has close variant keyword matching by default, but it can be turned off at a campaign level on the campaign settings page. This basically means that if you want your ads to show only for specific keywords, like “baby clothes” for example, all you have to turn off the default settings and your ads won’t show for search queries with the keywords “baby cloth” or “baby clothing.”
But when Google’s latest update takes effect on September, you won’t be able to enjoy precision keyword targeting anymore.As a result, your ads will show up for keywords that closely resemble the keywords you want your ads to show up for, including their misspellings.
To help you adjust to Google’s upcoming update, Matt Lawson of Google offered some tips you might want to consider. By following these tips,you can make the transition a much easier and less stressful experience.
Tip No 1: Stop routinely building variants into your keyword list. He said AdWords will continue to prefer keywords that are identical to search queries. Therefore, misspellings, plurals, and “stemmings” will receive impressions if they have a higher Ad Rank. Because of this, close keyword variations will now be able to cover that traffic for you so you don’t have to include them in your keyword list.
Tip No 2:Look for better versions of queries you’re targeting. Matt also suggests looking for prominent, high-volume versions of the queries you’re trying to target. Then, add in your highest-volume terms first. He said you should use your query data so you can determine what course of action you should take after finding out what close variations your ads are triggering.
Tip No 3: Understand your keywords. Make it a point to understand which user queries are being matched to your keywords. In doing so, Matt said you can get to know your potential customers better and obtain an insight into what they are doing when searching for your products or services.
Tip No 4: Don’t worry about DKI.In case you are using dynamic keyword insertion or DKI, you shouldn’t worry too much about your ads. According to Matt, the new update actually makes it much easier for you to deploy DKI since you don’t have to worry about your ads being disapproved due to misspellings.
