New Automatic Matching Feature in Google AdWords
Filed under: PPC on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 by Nate LinnellGoogle AdWords has begun beta testing a new feature called Automatic Matching that according to Google will “show your ads for additional relevant search queries based on the keywords, ad text, and landing pages in your ad groups.” You are automatically opted-into the feature and have to go into Campaign Settings in order to opt-out. According to Google, Automatic Matching will only be used for campaigns that are not currently reaching their existing budgets.
This has the potential to upset advertisers who have spent endless hours creating a refined keyword list only to have Google come in and start displaying their ads for additional “relevant” keywords. Google has tried to take steps to make the feature transparent but only time will tell how advertisers react.
Here are a few additional details that have been provided by Google…
Google Network: Automatic matching does not affect your ad delivery on the content network. It does affect your ad delivery on Google and the search network.
Quality Score: The traffic accrued by automatic matching won’t affect your keywords’ Quality Scores or minimum bids.
Ad position: When ranking your ads on search queries acquired through automatic matching, the cost-per-click (CPC) bid will approximate the current average CPC of your ad group.
Performance statistics: Aggregated performance statistics for automatic matching will appear in each ad group’s Keywords tab, in a line item labeled Automatic Matching Total.
Search Query Performance report: You can see the search queries that triggered your ads due to automatic matching by running a Search Query Performance report. The queries will be labeled Automatic in the Search Query Match Type column.
Check out the FAQ page on Automatic Matching for additional details.
This feature should not come as a huge shock to advertisers as Google, just like any company, is always trying to find additional sources of revenue. This has the potential to significantly impact Google’s revenue from search and temporarily quiet the analysts who have been predicting a slowing of search revenue growth.
It also has the potential to benefit advertisers as much as Google, but only if advertisers do proper analysis on the Automatic Matching traffic. If you are using Google’s Conversion Tracking, then analyzing the Search Query Performance report will give you some great insights into how Automatic Matching is working for your campaigns.
You’ll be able to see which search queries came from Automatic Matching and be able to tell if those keywords converted. Those that don’t convert can then be added as negative keywords while those that do perform well, can be added as keywords in the campaign. In a sense, it’s like constantly testing new keywords, but without having your input into what keywords get tested. At the same time, it doesn’t require you to do any keyword research.
Because of the revenue opportunity that Automatic Matching has for Google, they have a strong incentive to make sure it works for advertisers so that they don’t begin to opt-out of the feature. It will, however, require proper analysis and optimization to be done by advertisers in order to make it work.
I am definitely going to give it a shot and see if I can make it work for clients, but what I and probably Google don’t know is if other advertisers are going to be willing to give Automatic Matching a chance.
