{"id":898,"date":"2009-12-11T17:06:03","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T17:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rocketclicks.com\/blog\/?p=898"},"modified":"2009-12-11T17:06:03","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T17:06:03","slug":"how-many-negative-keywords-are-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocketclicks.com\/industry-news\/how-many-negative-keywords-are-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Negative Keywords Are Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many negative keywords are enough? \u00a0\u00a0I realize it would be comforting to have a solid number as a rule of thumb, but there is no magic number, no ideal threshold for negative keywords. How much time you should spend on negative keywords depends on many factors.<\/p>\n

An Advertiser\u2019s Risk Tolerance Impacts Negative Keyword Buildout<\/h4>\n

The risk tolerance of the advertiser matters.\u00a0 Herein lies a paradox, in my experience:\u00a0 When an advertiser is gung ho and risky, it\u2019s best to build out more negatives. \u00a0If an advertiser is conservative, you may think well you should build out even MORE negatives, because improved negative filtering certainly sounds more conservative.\u00a0 However, in my experience conservative turn on broad match very selectively for clearly relevant and unambiguous terms, or they turn on phrase match without turning on broad.\u00a0 In those situations, negative keywords mean less. You need good filters for risky <\/em>Adwords <\/em>endeavors.<\/p>\n

The Specificity of High Traffic Keywords Also Affects Negative Keyword Buildout<\/h4>\n

How general the keywords you plan to use dictates how much research you have to do, especially for new campaigns in untested categories.\u00a0 I’ve made money generating leads for roofing quotes by using the keyword “roof”.\u00a0 If I made a new account trying to generate roofing leads without my existing knowledge, I’d want to carefully evaluate using “roof” broad match right out of the gate. The more simple or general your keywords, the more negative buildout is needed.<\/p>\n

Keywords With\u00a0Multiple Meanings<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s a natural fact of language that words often have multiple, distinct meanings. Do the keywords important to your business have several meanings?\u00a0 That’s another key question.\u00a0 If you’re generating leads for a lawyer who specializes in workman’s compensation claims, the core keyword set is pretty straightforward and unambiguous.\u00a0 The term \u201cworkman\u2019s compensation\u201d that leads to most of the conversions has one clear meaning.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you were creating a campaign for an artist selling wallpaper images for computer backgrounds, there’s lots of ambiguity and multiple meanings in the core keyword set.\u00a0 The term \u201cbuy wallpaper\u201d naturally means something very different to many people. \u00a0Purchasing wallpaper means purchasing paper to cover walls in physical rooms most of the time.<\/p>\n

Broad Match Versus Exact Match<\/h4>\n

How much traffic in your account comes from broad match words versus exact match words? \u00a0The exact match type needs no negatives at all. \u00a0If you see lots of traffic from broad match terms, negative keyword buildouts are that much more valuable.\u00a0 Note that the broad versus exact proportion often varies greatly from one keyword theme to another in the account.<\/p>\n

Account Size Matters<\/h4>\n

How much traffic runs through the AdWords account?\u00a0 That matters, too when you’re asking how many negative keywords are enough.\u00a0 Proportionately small savings add up for big accounts, because even “small” savings are significant and worth pursuing for as advertiser spending $30,000 a month.<\/p>\n

Large accounts also have more data to go over, so negative buildouts for them can and should focus more on mining traffic data than theoretical research.\u00a0 Using third party tools, Google’s own non-AdWords resources, and combing through sites to find how words are used on the internet are \u00a0theoretical research that may save you money or may not. \u00a0Sometimes your theoretical negative keyword research provides a fix for a problem you don\u2019t or won’t have. \u00a0On the other hand, processing actual traffic data has definite practical implications and surely saves you real money.<\/p>\n

Content Versus Search<\/h4>\n

Some accounts spend more money on the content network than on search.\u00a0 This is often the case when a product or service is creative and innovative, but not well known.\u00a0 Contextual advertising creates its own need in these situations, and search traffic can be minimal. The 80\/20 principle dictates spending more time on optimizing content campaigns than on improving negative keyword filtering in such cases.<\/p>\n

When Restructuring Existing Accounts<\/h4>\n

Lastly, there\u2019s one question that\u2019s always interesting to ask when restructuring an existing account.\u00a0 How many negatives are in the account now? Yes, there are still advertisers that succeed despite themselves in this day and age with \u00a0no negative keywords whatsoever.\u00a0 Of course, any good analyst has to add a lot more negatives in a situation like that than if the account already has thousands of negative keywords.<\/p>\n

Rob Sieracki<\/em><\/p>\n

Director of Paid Search<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many negative keywords are enough? I realize it would be comforting to have a solid number as a rule of thumb, but there is no magic number, no ideal threshold for negative keywords. 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