Negative keywords and their positive impact | Digital Clicks Blog
Negative keywords are a very important part of any successful PPC advertising campaign. Having negative keywords in your keyword list means that your ad will not show when searches that include those terms are used. Is this beneficial or not? Some of you may be wondering. It is very beneficial to remove yourself from these irrelevant searches. Many advertisers don’t see the harm in having their advertisement mistakenly appear in the odd irrelevant search or two. The logic is that if the advertisement is not relevant to what the user is searching for, then nobody will click it, and so no cost is incurred. While this is true, it is still just an unnecessary waste. The large majority of people will ignore an unrelated ad, but some, even if a small amount, will click on it. While you may think that those small numbers of people must be interested in the ad or why else would they click it, you have got to think about the searcher's level of intent. While yes, the advertisement may have caught their interest, they were not actively searching for what you are trying to sell. It is much more likely, therefore, that they only have a small interest in your ad and so are far less likely to convert. Another impact of having your ads turn up in inaccurate places is when you attempt to measure the quality score for your campaign. CTR (click-through rate) is often the principal way the success of any online campaign is gauged. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times it is shown. I hope some of you are now beginning to understand why including negative keywords is such a good idea when carrying out any online marketing campaign. By using negative keywords, you maintain a strong CTR, which means a higher quality score; you also achieve a better rate of conversion on those who click your ad, meaning a better ROI. So how do you use these negative keywords? When setting up the keywords for your campaign, you simply attach a “-“ before words that you do not want your search to come up for. For instance, if you were operating a prize draw with a paid entry, you could include the negative keyword –free, to make sure those searching for a “free prize draw” aren’t included in your targeting. Now when it comes around to your next PPC advertising campaign, make sure you spare a thought for how you gain some real positive effects from including negative keywords.