{"id":4867,"date":"2009-04-21T09:22:21","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T09:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=4867"},"modified":"2009-04-21T09:22:21","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T09:22:21","slug":"are-you-sure-you-know-where-google-is-showing-your-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/are-you-sure-you-know-where-google-is-showing-your-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you sure you know where Google is showing your ads?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> One of the biggest USPs Google AdWords has is the ability to (in their own words)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cReach people actively looking for information about your products and services online\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Unlike TV, radio, magazine adverts or even web banners, people are only shown your advert when they are actively looking for information or products related to your site. So you set your daily budget, build your list of keywords to bid on, write your adverts and set it all live happy in the knowledge you won\u2019t spend a penny more than you budgeted for and your adverts will only be shown against the keywords you have chosen. Wrong!<\/p>\n<p>If you have any broad match keywords (click here to see the different type of <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/adwords\/answer\/2497836\">keyword matching<\/a> options) Google will automatically activate what they call \u2018expanded match\u2019.\u00a0 Here is how they describe it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cWith broad match, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren\u2019t in your keyword lists. Keyword variations can include synonyms, singular\/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases containing your keywords.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Most advertisers know that broad match will show adverts for plurals and phrases containing the keywords (that is why they have been set to broad match in the first place) but few know they can be also shown on \u2018variants\u2019 of the keyword. This essentially means your adverts will be displayed against keywords you haven\u2019t bid on.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately Google\u2019s programming is far from perfect and you should be concerned with the attempts to match your ads with synonyms and misspellings because the system can get it very wrong.\u00a0 Using ourselves as an example, we found we were being shown for the search terms \u201cAir hostess\u201d, \u201cMaster resale rights\u201d (no idea??) and \u201cQVC host salaries\u201d despite not having \u2018host\u2019 set to broad match (it used keywords based around \u2018reseller hosting\u2019). They were synonyms Google presumed were related to our account. We have now set those to negative matches.<\/p>\n<p>To find out which keywords your adverts are running against use the<i> &#8216;Search Query Report&#8217;<\/i> found in the <i>&#8216;Reports&#8217; <\/i>section of your AdWords account. If you find any keywords unrelated to what you do, pick them out and set them as negative keywords to make sure you aren\u2019t shown anymore.<\/p>\n<p><i><\/p>\n<p>Account > Reports > Create a new report > Placement \/ Keyword Performance<\/i><\/p>\n<h4>Related blog posts:<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/how-to-create-a-localised-google-adwords-campaign-and-save-money\/\">How to structure your AdWords account<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/excel-for-seo-part-1-tips-and-tricks-for-keyword-research\/\">Increase your ROI with negative keywords<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/how-to-create-a-localised-google-adwords-campaign-and-save-money\/\">How to spend less on Google and earn more<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest USPs Google AdWords has is the ability to (in their own words)&#8230; \u201cReach people actively looking for information about your products and services online\u201d Unlike TV,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-search-engine-tips","8":"category-your-website"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are you sure you know where Google is showing your ads? 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