Why This Firefox Addon Rocks!

This toolbar will display today’s basic key performance indicators at the bottom of your browser.

Double Click this toolbar for your stats to update – it may take 60 seconds to update depending on the size of your account. The data you see will be for today only.

Right click to see the tool menu and drill down into your account level statistics.

Clicks: Total number of clicks accrued today

aCPC: average Cost Per Click today

Cost: Total spent today

Conv: Total number of conversions accrued today

C/C: Cost per Conversion today

Requirements

-FF 2+ preferred while we’re confident this works from 1.5-3.0.*

-AdWords Client Center

-AdWords API Tokens

Tip: Your statistics might take 60 seconds or more to load depending on the size of your account. If you still do not see data, you may need to restart FF and test your credentials again.

How to Install This Firefox Addon

Upon download, Firefox should automatically recognize the extension and install it.

If you get any errors:

Right click the logo, click ‘save link as…’, after saving you can scan it with any Anti-Virus program, then open Firefox. In FF, click file -> Open File -> Find the file and open it -> Install

How To Use PPC Management for Firefox

Credentials

Login Email: Your Client Center login email address

Password: Your Client Center login password

Developer Token: AdWords API Token found in your Client Center (My Account->AdWords API Center)

Application Token: AdWords API Token found in your Client Center (My Account->AdWords API Center)

Client Email: The email address of the account in your Client Center that you want to see stats for

Save your credentials, then test! Load is kind of a pseudo button for now…

Tip: You might need to restart FF after saving your credentials for the tool to work properly!

Keyword Estimates Tool

This tool is very similar to the Estimates tool you find in AdWords.

You don’t have to enter a Max CPC if you want to see the absolute maximum you can expect to pay with the highest possible bid ($100).

Keyword Tool (AKA Kewyord Suggestion Tool)

Search Volume and Competition are on the old scale…1 to 5 where 5 is very competitive or very high search volume and 1 is limited competition with a very low search volume relative to other keywords in that space.

In the future we will incorporate the new real number estimates currently available at Google.

Site Keywords Tool

Enter your landing page in the Site URL field and click Generate Suggestions to see what keywords Google thinks the page is targeted towards.

Account Statistics Tool

You can drill down to the keyword level statistics to find out how your account is doing for the day!

Double click your way through and new windows will open displaying the next level of statistics. For example, double click on a campaign to see the ad groups of that campaign in a new stats window. Then, double click an ad group to see the keyword stats!

Privacy and Security

We are confident that this tool is secure and your privacy is protected. semvironment will not and will never ask for or gather the information you enter into this tool. All of your credentials are stored on your local machine, not our servers. All AdWords API calls are made via https. This project is in beta right now so there aren’t any guarantees that a site you visit might have malicious material that could crack this…or one of your buddies could borrow your computer and get your credentials, etc. Please send any privacy concerns back to us asap so we can add it to our development time line as a priority!

We hope you like it, comment on it, link to it, point fingers at it, poke it, and help us grow this guide – it will be dynamic. We will strive to keep it updated with the best comments and input while giving credit where credit is due!

Enjoy!

Table Of Contents

• 1. How To Use This Guide
• 2. Definitions
  +Keyword List Expansion
  +Negative Keywords
• 3. Theory
  +Negative Keywords and Your Quality Score
  +Keyword List Expansion
  +Keyword List Expansion and Your Quality Score
• 4. Your First Keyword List (3 Tips/Hints)
• 5. Negative Keywords
  +What makes a keyword negative?
  +How to Add Negative Keywords in Google (5 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +How to Add Negative Keywords in Yahoo! (5 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +How to Add Negative Keywords in MSN (5 minute Step by Step Guide)
• 6. Keyword List Expansion
  +What keywords should you add to your compaigns/ad groups?
  +How do you find the right keywords?
• 7. Filters and Settings
  +How these Filters/Settings apply to negative keywords and keyword list expansion
  +Google Analytics Filters (30 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +AdWords Data in Google Analytics (2 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +Conversion Data in Google Analytics (20 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +Tagging URLS in Google Analytics for Google, Yahoo! and MSN
• 8. Automating Reports
  +Automating Google Analytics Reports (2 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +Analytics Keyword Reports – Paid/Organic (10 minute Step by Step Guide)
  +Analytics Conversion Reports
  +AdWords Search Query Report (5 minute Step by Step Guide)
• 9. Other Discovery Methods
  +Search Suggest
  +Review the Results
  +Keyword Research Tools
• Appendix A: Huge Lists of Negative Keywords (Download .txt file)

1. How To Use This Guide [top]

semvironment PPC Management guides are designed to be simple, easy to understand and easy to implement. We don’t think any of this information is overly complicated – it is just time consuming and tedious…and your competitors are too lazy to do it so it can give you an instant competitive advantage over them!

This guide is simple. There are no real rules to using it. Just take the step by step guides one at a time so they’re easy to digest or you can take 1 or 2 hours and implement the entire thing so you can feel warm and fuzzy inside.

2. Definitions [top]

Keyword list expansion consists of taking the keywords that are ranking well organically and that are generating conversions and efficiently adding them to your campaigns and ad groups. This should be a regular activity for any PPC Manager.

Negative keywords are those search queries you don’t want your ad to be displayed on. These are words that may appear fraudulent, unrelated to your landing page, unrelated to your product or service, etc. Many times words have multiple meanings, and adding negative keywords allows you to filter out those searches that shouldn’t apply to your intended keyword meaning.

3. Theory [top]

Negative Keywords and Your Quality Score [top]

Negative keywords are meant to improve your quality score – even more so now than a few months ago. With the recent changeover to dynamic quality scores, every query now has a quality score attached to it. If your clicks are irrelevant to the ad and landing page, you are going to be paying more for that click because the quality level is poor!

The following are the theories behind each major element of the Quality Score as it relates to negative keywords and your key performance indicators as a company:

CTR – Your click through rate is probably not going to be high for a keyword that’s irrelevant to your advertisement or landing page. This will make the query’s quality score poor and your costs high for that certain phrase. Adding that phrase or a portion of that phrase as a negative will improve your click through rate and your quality score.

Relevancy – Relevancy drives clicks drives action drives quality. The user experience is a big focus at any of the search engines, so if you can make your campaign more relevant, then you will lower your overall costs. One way to make your campaign more relevant is to make sure all queries that are triggering clicks are relevant. You can do this by aggressively using negative keywords.

Advertisement – Negative keywords not only apply to your keyword list, but also apply to your advertisement. Are you using dynamic keyword insertion? If yes, then you are making your ad more relevant to search, but if you aren’t using negative keywords in your strategy you are making your ad less relevant to your key performance indicators. Everyone’s seen the ads that say “Looking for Garbage Man? Find it at Amazon…” Not only does the grammar work out wrong, but it’s just silly.

Landing Page – Dynamic landing pages follow a similar pattern to advertisements. If you’re not aggressive with negative keywords, then don’t use dynamic keyword insertion in your landing pages. It makes your company look funny and is not relevant to the user if the keyword should be negative and your overall objective is not being met.

Keyword List Expansion [top]

Expanding your keyword list with keywords that are meeting your company objectives is one of the best ways to consistently lower your cost per acquisition on the web. You are simply taking an acquisition that occurred through a keyword you are not advertising with – but incurred a click through broad match technology – and adding it to a specific ad group (with the potential for a separate ad group and advertisement). This puts the odds in your favor for a lower cost for those types of acquisitions in the future.

Keyword List Expansion and your Quality Score [top]

Keyword expansion can be tricky when it comes to the Quality Score. The search engines are increasing minimum bids on long tail terms and giving you errors when there is not enough search volume in that space. But, for at least 80% of the keywords you expand into, you will be increasing your account quality and decreasing your click costs in general.

The following are theories behind each major element of the Quality Score as it relates to keyword expansion and your key performance indicators as a company:

CTR – Your click through rate should increase because the search engines favor those with better ad positions and lower click costs if they are targeting the exact query.

Relevancy - Obviously relevant? If you are advertising on the exact keyword, you are already ahead of the relevancy curve.

Advertisement - The ad will need customization to include as many words in the phrase as is practical. The ad needs to make sense. Use dynamic keyword insertion for these expanded ad groups and lists! If you know they convert, make the ad as ‘click sticky’ as possible… the more clicks you get, the more conversions you stand to receive.

Landing Page – While we’re working on expanding our keyword list with highly relevant, transactional keywords, let’s get cracking on the dynamic landing pages! Or, create custom landing pages that fit the mold of one or two ad groups or a small group of ad groups at a time! Your quality score will increase, thereby decreasing your overall costs even more.

4. Your First Keyword List [top]

When you initiate a campaign or ad group, you probably engage in some kind of keyword research. Here are a few ways to avoid clicks that will not convert before they happen:

1. Open a text editor so you can write down negative keywords while you are doing your research and building your campaign/ad group keyword list.

2. Find a big list of negative keywords and add all that are applicable to your campaign/ad group.

3. Don’t use broad match if the search results for your most general query are for something entirely unrelated – a good example is ‘apple’…especially if you’re selling the fruit. Don’t advertise on ‘apple’ but advertise with phrase and exact (or standard match in Yahoo!) on ‘red apple’ or ‘fresh apples’, etc.

Next, we discuss the filters and settings that will prepare you for the regular task of finding more negative keywords and expanding your keyword list.

5. Negative Keywords [top]

What makes a keyword ‘negative’? [top]

A negative keyword is a word or phrase that you do not want your advertisement to be displayed for. A few reasons that make it necessary to make a keyword negative are:

Zero conversions

Expensive conversions

Expensive clicks

Limited budget

Bad brand association

Not relevant for the user

Quality improvements

Lowering costs

And various other reasons…

How to Add Negative Keywords in Google [top]

If you have negative keywords that apply to the whole campaign:

1. Go to your Campaign Summary page and click on a campaign.

1. Your campaign details will show up in the upper left of the page. Simply click “Add” or “Edit” next to your negative keyword summary:If you don’t have any negative keywords:

Conversion soup…yum!

If you have a bunch of negative keywords:

If you have negative keywords that apply to an ad group:

1. Drill down to your ad group level: Campaign Management->Campaign Summary->Click any campaign and you see a list of ad groups in that campaign.

2. Click an ad group.

3. In the left middle part of your screen you should see a link that says “Quick Add”. Click on it to add negative keywords.

4. Add your list of negative keywords but make sure you add the minus sign in front of the word! Example: -negative keyword or phrase

5. Don’t forget to save!

There are other ways to add negative keywords, but the ones we just discussed are quick and easy. They take only a few seconds in the UI!

How to Add Negative Keywords in Yahoo! [top]

Yahoo! only gives us the ability to add 250 “excluded” keywords at the account and ad group levels.

To add negative keywords at the account level (great for bulk general negative keyword lists), do the following:

1. After you log in, click on the Administration tab.

2. Click on “Edit” in your Tactic Settings found in the lower right of the Admin Page.

3. On the right side of your Tactic Settings screen there is a text box for “Excluded Keywords” or Negative keywords. Add your list of negative keywords in that text box, then click “Save Changes” and you’re all set at the account level!

Yahoo! doesn’t let us add negatives at the campaign level, so we will proceed to ad groups!

To add negative keywords at the ad group level:

1. There are two different ways to get to your ad groups. You can click on the Campaign tab, then the Ad Groups link, or click a Campaign, then an ad group. You get to choose how you want to get to an ad group – just get there!

2. When you’re at an ad group summary page, click on “Ad Group Settings” found near the ad group name in the upper left corner.

3. Click on “Tactic Settings”.

4. Yahoo! Will sometimes automatically hides the ‘Excluded Keyword’ feature, so you might have to click ‘show’. (You can find the Excluded Keyword area in the upper right area of the Tactics box)

5. Simply add your list of negative keywords in that text box, then click “Save Changes” and you’re all set at the ad group level!

Whew, all done in Yahoo! It takes a bit longer than Google, and we are limited to 250 “Excluded keywords” at the account level plus another 250 at the ad group level.

How to Add Negative Keywords in MSN [top]

To bulk replace the campaign negative keyword lists:

1. Click the campaigns tab.

2. Click “Bulk Edit”.

3. Add your keywords. Do not include the minus sign and separate keywords/phrases with a comma instead of one per line.

**Warning: This will replace all your existing campaign negative keywords if you have some already set. You may need to edit each campaign individually!

1. Click Apply if you want these negative keywords to replace all campaign negative keywords.

To edit the negative keywords at the campaign level invidually:

1. Click the Campaigns tab.

2. Click on a campaign.

3. Click “Edit Campaign Settings”.

4. Add your negative keywords, separated with commas, into the lower right corner of the Campaign Settings page.

5. Save!

Follow these same instructions for adCenter Ad Group bulk or individual Ad Group negative keyword editing. If you use ad group negative keywords, campaign negative keywords will not apply to that ad group.

One thing that is very unique to adCenter is the ability to add negative keywords on a single keyword! Be careful though, whatever negative you add to a single keyword will over-ride all ad group and campaign negative keywords.

To edit the negative keywords at the keyword level:

1. Drill down to your keywords. Campaign tab -> Campaign -> Ad Group -> Keywords.

2. Click “Edit Keywords”.

3. Scroll down until you see your keyword list and start listing your negative keywords associated with specific keywords!

4. Don’t forget to separate negative keywords/phrases by a comma.

5. Press continue…

Notes about adCenter: You are limited in adCenter to 100 characters for a negative phrase and 1024 characters, including commas, for an entire negative keyword list. This is quite restrictive so be very strategic with your negative keywords in adCenter!

6. Keyword List Expansion [top]

What keywords should you add to your campaigns/ad groups? [top]

I like to add keywords that convert or engage a user. If I find a keyword I like, I will expand on it through research and discovery, especially if it has converted. For example, if the word “basket weaving class” converts for me, then I will go to a keyword research tool to develop permutations and variations of that keyword. Then I will add that new list of keywords to the appropriate ad group/campaign.

How do you find the right keywords? [top]

Review your Analytics and Query Reports regularly (See Section’s 7 and

Survey your users/customers

Survey your sales reps

And, of course, there are a lot more things you can try!

7. Filters and Settings [top]

How these filters/settings apply to negative keywords and keyword expansion [top]

The following filters are a preliminary or preparatory step to getting the data you need to adequately and efficiently manage your keyword lists.

All of the filters/settings we’ll be talking about boil down to the level of detail you want to see in your reports when scouting for keywords to add to your ad groups or keywords to add to your negative keyword list. When you are persistent about checking for negatives/keyword expansion opportunities, you gain a competitive advantage that most advertisers don’t have. Your costs will come down, so you can outbid and out-qualify your competition.

Google Analytics Filters [top]

1. Click on Analytics from your AdWords account or sign into your Google Analytics account:

2. You can choose to skip this step if you want to edit your current website Analytics profile – we recommend you create a separate profile. Click on Add Website Profile >>:

4. Choose to add a profile to an existing domain:

5. Pick your domain, label the profile, make sure you have a check mark in the Apply Cost Data section and click finish:

6. You should see your new profile listed with any other profiles you already have:

7. Now you need to edit the settings of your new profile – Click on Edit next to your new profile:

Analytics Filter 1

8. Find the Filters Applied to Profile section and click Add Filter:

9. Choose to Add new Filter for Profile:

10. Give your filter a good name, drop down to the Custom Filter type and choose the Advanced option:

11. In Field A -> Extract A choose the Referral drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)

12. In Field B -> Extract B choose the Campaign Medium drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

cpc|PPC

13. In Output To -> Constructor choose the Custom Field 1 drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

$A3

14. Make sure all fields are required and they do not need to be case sensitive, then click Finish:

15. You should be back on the profile settings page where you can see this first filter has been applied to your detailed analytics profile.

Analytics Filter 2

16. Repeat steps 9 through 11 to create a second filter. Remember to give the second filter a different name and give this filter the attributes outlined in steps 18 through 21. ***You NEED both filters for detailed keyword data to work!***

17. In Field A -> Extract A choose the Custom Field 1 drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(.*)

18. In Field B -> Extract B choose the Campaign Term drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(.*)

19. In Output To -> Constructor choose the Campaign Term drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

$B1, ($A1)

20. Make sure all fields are required and they do not need to be case sensitive, then click Finish:

21. You should be back on the profile settings page where you can see this second filter has been applied to your detailed analytics profile. Make sure they are in the order we described: Filter 1 should be listed BEFORE Filter 2 under the Filters Applied to Profile section.

Now you need to wait a few hours for the data to be captured and reported. When you revisit Analytics, you simply need to look at these reports and note the added data next to your AdWords keywords:

Traffic Sources -> Keywords

- or -

Traffic Sources -> AdWords -> Keyword Positions

Or a number of other reports…

The data in your old Analytics profile should look like this:

And the data in your new profile should look like this:

The keywords shown in parentheses (key+word) is the exact term the user searched when they found and clicked on your advertisement.

We cover the credits and sources here at this blog post – lot’s of high value comments there too if you want more information about these filters.

AdWords Data in Google Analytics [top]

1. Log into AdWords and click on My Account -> Account Preferences:

2. Find the Tracking section in Account Preferences and make sure Auto-tagging is set to “yes”:

Conversion Data in Analytics [top]

1. Go to your Analytics tab from AdWords or sign into Google Analytics.

2. Click ‘edit’ in the Settings column of the profile you want to edit.

3. Click ‘edit’ under the settings column for your Goals G1-G4, whichever you want to set.

4. Fill in your Goal Information and Define your goal’s funnel.

Goal Information

Turn the goal ‘on’.

Choose your Goal’s match type.

Exact Match – From Google Help:

“This option requires that the URLs entered as your funnel and goal URLs exactly match the URLs shown in the reports. For example, there can be no dynamic session identifiers, query parameters. Exact matches can also be regular expressions.

When setting your goals, it’s ideal to remove the hostname from your goal URL. For example, if your goal is www.domain.com/1/thanks.html, enter ^/1/thanks\.html as your goal.

If you are using an exact match for a goal (i.e. http://domain.com/page.html), any trailing spaces will cause the goal to be invalid. If you are using partial matching (i.e. ^/page.html), trailing spaces are not an issue.”

Head Match – From Google Help:

“If your website has dynamically generated content, use the Head Match filter and leave out the unique values.

For example, if the URL for a particular user is http://www.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&id=9982251615 but the ‘id’ varies for every other user, enter http://www.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1 and select Head Match as your Match Type.”

Regular Expression Match – This match type is quite advanced, but very useful. We use it quite a bit for large sites. From Google Help:

“This option uses regular expressions to match your URLs. This is useful when the stem, trailing parameters, or both, can vary between users.
For example, if a user could be coming from one of many subdomains, and your URLs use session identifiers, use regular expressions to define the constant element of your URL. For example, page=1 will match http://sports.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&id=002 as well as http://fishing.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&language=fr&id=119.”

Learn more about regular expressions that Google Analytics supports here.

Type in your Goal URL – make sure you format it correctly so it corresponds with your Goal Match Type!

Give your goal a name.

We regularly give our goals very simple names that define the action. A lead is a ‘lead’, a sale is a ‘sale’, a partial lead is a ‘partial lead’. Keep it simple.

Is your goal URL case sensitive? If so, mark the box.

Always, always, always add some sort of monetary value to your goals.

Tying a value to a goal helps you monetize or visualize the value of your site; even if the ‘mini’ goals do not make actual revenue, you can normally assume that there is value to a visitor reaching the ‘mini’ conversion. It takes time to learn and adjust to the right values, but getting into the practice of it will help your focus and increase your drive to create action on your website!

Define Funnel (Optional) [top]

From the Define Funnel section -

“A funnel is a series of pages leading up to to the Goal URL. For example, the funnel may include steps in your checkout process that lead to the thank you page (goal).

Please note that the funnels and ‘Required step’ that you’ve defined here only apply to the Funnel Visualization Report.

Note: URL should not contain the domain (e.g. For a step page “http://www.mysite.com/step1.html” enter “/step1.html”).”

Example Goal Funnel -

Step 1 = /product-page.php
Step 2 = /shopping-cart.php
Step 3 = /checkout.php
Step 4 = /checkout-confirmation.php
Goal = already defined

Implemented like so:

Save your changes.

You should start to see conversion data within a few hours!

Tagging URLS [top]

You can tag all of your URLs for Google Analytics tracking via this nifty URL tagging tool. The tool isn’t very scalable, so using dynamic tags will help you scale quickly and efficiently.

Tagging your URLs will give you detailed keyword data from other search engines/PPC platforms – not just from Google.

Google [top]

If you turned on auto-tagging in AdWords, then Google’s clicks are automatically being dynamically tagged. If you haven’t turned on auto-tagging… do it!

You can find a ton of data about AdWords auto-tagging here.

Yahoo! [top]

Yahoo! tracking variables and additional information can be found here. What follows is a brief summary.

Some of Yahoo!’s dynamic variables are:

Paid Keyword = {YSMKEY)

Actual Search Query = {YSMRAW}

Yahoo! Ad ID = {YSMADID}

Yahoo! Campaign ID = {YSMCAMPGID}

How you should tag your destination URLs in Yahoo! -

www.example.com/page?utm_source=ysm&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={YSMKEY}&utm_content={YSMADID}&utm_campaign={YSMCAMPGID}

If you use other dynamic variables, like a dynamic landing page, then you will simply add the tag like this -

www.example.com/page?kw={keyword}&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={YSMKEY}&utm_content={YSMADID}&utm_campaign={YSMCAMPGID}

You can manually use Yahoo!’s UI to copy the tag onto the end of every destination URL for every advertisement or simply download your campaigns from Yahoo! into an Excel document, concantenate the dynamic tag with your existing destination URL, then reupload your document into Yahoo!.

Don’t forget to turn on Tracking URLS in Yahoo!, or these tags won’t work as designed:

Log into Yahoo! -> click the Administration tab -> click Tracking URLS -> turn on Tracking URLS -> Save Changes

A great post on alternative tags for Yahoo! can be found here.

MSN [top]

Our source for this came from the only result for a search for “query string” in adCenter’s help section.

MSN’s dynamic variables are:

Term = {QueryString}

Ad ID = {AdID}

Campaign ID = {OrderItemID}

How you should tag your destination URLs in MSN:

www.example.com/page?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={QueryString}&utm_content={AdID}&utm_campaign={OrderItemID}

If you use other dynamic variables, like a dynamic landing page, then you will simply add the tag like this -

www.example.com/page?kw={keyword}&utm_source=msn&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={QueryString}&utm_content={AdID}&utm_campaign={OrderItemID}

MSN Auto tags your URLs if the dynamic variables are there. You can use adCenter’s UI to add the tags to your destination URLs, or you can follow a similar pattern from Yahoo!. Download the campaign or account, concantenate the tag to the existing URL, save and reupload to MSN.

PPC Hero also posted about this here.

8. Automating Reports [top]

Automating Google Analytics Reports[top]

On almost every report page you will see a little menu above the main title of your report that contains buttons to ‘export,’ ‘email,’ or ‘add to dashboard.’ I recommend adding some critical reports to your dashboard, but for a consistent, persistent reminder I recommend that you review and add negative keywords or expand your keyword lists. We’ll use the ‘email’ function.

After clicking the ‘email’ button, click on the ‘schedule’ tab to schedule the email report.

Fill out the information in that form, set your schedule and hit ‘schedule’. I recommend getting the information sent in CSV form for easy keyword copying/pasting, although the PDF is a lot prettier.

Analytics Keyword Reports (Paid/Organic)[top]

When viewing your site’s Google Analytics, Click on ‘Traffic Sources’ in the menu located to the left of your Dashboard stats. Then click ‘Keywords,’ and you will arrive at a ‘total’ keyword report that includes paid and non-paid (usually organic) keywords.

Click on the dates in the upper right corner to specify a relevant date range:

Paid

In the lower right corner of the page, choose the number of keywords you want to view at a time:

Now automate this report!

Organic

To review your organic keyword based traffic, click on ‘non-paid’ (this link is found under the data graph, on the left side towards the main Analytics menu).

In the lower right corner of the page, choose the number of keywords you want to view at a time:

Now automate this report!

Analytics Conversion Reports[top]

The Analytics reports outlined above are critical to understanding your other paid search platforms and their exact queries. AdWords gives us a little bit more to work with than Analytics: The AdWords Search Query Report.

AdWords Search Query Report [top]

Under ’1. Report Type’ select the “Search Query Performance” report.

’2. Settings’ can be anything you want them to be, but I would suggest this configuration: Level of Detail: Ad; Unit of Time: Summary; Date Range: Yesterday (if daily activity); Campaigns and Ad Groups: All.

’3. Advanced Settings’ are optional. For this activity and this particular report, we are simply doing extensive keyword research and management, so we only need a few metrics to keep us focused on the activity. Place a check in the following: Campaign, Ad Group, Ad ID, Search Query, Search Query Match Type, Clicks and Conversions.

You can add filters if you want – they can be found under section 3 ‘Filter your Results’. For example, you might only be concerned with keywords that generated 5 clicks or more:

Please note that you can add more restrictions or remove any restrictions by simply clicking on the little blue links to the right of the filter or underneath the filter.
’4. Templates, Scheduling, and Email’ is probably the most important part to the whole process because you can schedule the report, thereby automating the gathering process and making your job that much easier.

Simply check the box next to ‘Schedule this report to run automatically’ and choose your timing. You will probably want it to correspond with the custom date range you specified in the report. If you are looking at yesterday’s report, then schedule the report to run daily.

Next, check the Email box and insert your email address there with the attachment type you want to receive every time the report runs.

Finally, click ‘Create Report’.

You are finally at a point where you can reap the rewards by reviewing your automated reports regularly, adding negative keywords or expanding your keyword list appropriately, and thereby saving money and driving down your costs per acquisition!

9. Other Discovery Methods [top]

Search Suggest [top]

One activity that I do regularly is type in several keywords each day to see what the search engines suggest. I will normally find a few negative keywords that I need to add or I will see opportunities for list expansion.
For the following images:

Items in red are what I would look at as potential negatives if I did not offer loan solutions to college students, unemployed individuals, etc.

Items in blue could expand my keyword list by targeting “loans online” and “loans by web”. I would then go to a thesaurus to find other ways to say “web” or “online” and trace that route until I had several new keywords to add to my campaigns.

Google Search Suggest

Yahoo! Search Suggest

Ask Search Suggest

Review the Results [top]

Simply search the terms that you are advertising with or plan on advertising with and review the results. Do you see any other keywords or phrases you should add? Are the results typical of what you are offering or is there a mismatch? If you find mismatches, make sure you add those terms as negative keywords or if you find opportunities, add those terms as part of your keyword list expansion process!

Keyword Research Tools [top]

There are keyword research tools within each search platform,but the following are free, quick and easy to access.

When I see a word that I want to expand on or create a negative list for, I will simply visit these tools and look for variations, permutations, etc.

Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

Microsoft AdLabs – You can find mutations, groups, and more here…probably one of my favorites!

Keyword Discovery

WordTracker

Appendix A: Huge Lists Of Negative Keywords [top]

Big Lists of Negative Keywords or Expansion Opportunities

There are two lists combined in this file: One from Engine Ready Software and the other from KoMarketing Associates.

Download the .txt file here!

You can find detailed instructions on exposing your keyword data in this post:

PPC Management: AdWords Keyword Data Exposed With Google Analytics!

I looked into it and it looks like Google fixed their advanced filter problem (at least for these filters) on March 5th.

Yes, I will eat my words and gladly admit that I overreacted in this post.

AdWords/Analytics Keyword Data Fix – Thanks Jeff!

If you have any questions, you can find the source that Jeff found and shared with us here – credit rightly belongs to the Unofficial Google Analytics blog at ROI Revolution for authoring the fix. <—Bold was added for emphasis…I already had that sentence written at the bottom of the post. ROI Revolution may credit others in that post…
This fix was found and shared with us by Jeff because he saw that we documented some problems that were caused by the extra wide use of the tip found here. <—- If you read that post you will find out exactly where we found that tip at the bottom of that post…

Jeff James kindly stopped by the blog to tell us that he continues to receive his specific keyword data through a script fix that captures the specific keyword data from the cookie. I was on to that but I was trying to take the data from a different part of the cookie and I suck at writing javascript…I guess I should always leave quick fixes up to the pros – after all, I have to admit that I’m not a programmer but I can fake my way through some of it – clearly not all of it.

Thanks for finding and sharing this fix Jeff!

Here is the fix:

Download/Save this file: ga_keyword.js

Don’t forget to upload the file to the proper directory/location on your website and change the code below accordingly!

Rewrite your analytics code so it looks like this on your landing pages or throughout your entire website if it’s easier:

<script src="http://www.yourwebsite.com/ga_keyword.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-XXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
sleuth();
</script>

sleuth(); displays the exact keyword data under the cross segment option User-Defined Value.

So, after implementing this fix, you should see most of the exact keyword data under the cross segment menu. I recommend taking this route but you can find the cross segment menu in almost any detailed page of Google Analytics:

Traffic Sources -> Keywords -> Under the text that says “Search Sent * Visits via * Keywords” you will find a drop down that has the word “Segments:” next to it -> At the bottom of that list you will see “User-Defined Value”…click that and there you have it, your newly exposed exact key term data from Analytics!

I hope Google doesn’t poop on this fix too…

That was until I felt the wrath of Google over the past week!

I saw it coming I guess – it happens in the SEO industry…or it used to happen until Google smacked any SEO that shared a secret by patching/fixing/closing the “gap”. And it still happens every once in a while.

What the heck am I referring to? I’m referring to this cycle:

I can understand and see the value of this cycle for certain things that help people fraudulently take advantage of a system – of course that needs to be stopped…it’s killing the stuff that really helps IMPROVE relevancy, users, systems and businesses that simply makes my blood boil.

This month Google changed their auto-tagging function so it would render the “AdWords keywords exposed” tip useless for a short time! We’re talking with Google right now but in the mean time…the stats may not reflect exactly what you expected for a while (since January 15th?). I’ll write a separate post about the details of what I have done, what I’m testing, and where I think the issues is because I simply can’t place my thumb on the right solution although I’m confident we’ll come up with it soon!

Enter Evolution

This is why there is a secret “10%” of SEO knowledge out there…and I’m now convinced that we are probably going to hold back on our ultimate PPC secrets that we planned to expose which will contribute to the idea that there is a secret 10+% of PPC knowledge that is not and will not be exposed.

Evolution changes everything:

I believe this new innovative/creative evolution is what drives the success or failure of a PPC marketer or an SEO.

So…my questions to Google are:

Why won’t you let us easily see every exact query that comes through AdWords?

Wouldn’t it drive advertisers to be more relevant? Better ROI for businesses and therefore increased confidence and budgets for AdWords?

Are you or are you not striving for the most relevant results to a search query?

Why do I think Google Sucks?

Because their behavior with this particular issue is not consistent with their perceived “willingness” to help small business owners make more money and get better ROI with AdWords!

Summary

Google SUCKS and I will find another way to improve the community’s ROI quickly and effectively – this time I’m going to discretely release the solution…probably via RSS messaging and email.

_____________________

Unfortunately, as simple as your code example is, it introduces a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability to your page. XSS can lead to all kinds of bad things like session hijacking and browser redirection. Check out these links to learn how to prevent XSS:

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/XSS

http://shiflett.org/blog/2005/jan/xss-cheatsheet

http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html

The code snippets on the ha.ckers.org site show you different ways to exploit or discover XSS problems. To fix it, you have to properly sanitize the input from the query string variable before you display it on the page.

You have an additional issue on your page as it looks like magic quotes are enabled. For example:

http://www.semvironment.com/prosperity.php?kw=james’

To fix the XSS problem, you’ll need to filter the input. For efficiency, you can do this once, save the output, and use the cleaned variable for displaying on the page.

Right now, your script allows pretty much anything to be injected on the page. In your use case, it seems reasonable that you want to prevent any kind of HTML. After all, this looks pretty silly:

http://www.semvironment.com/prosperity.php?kw=%3Ch1%3EBIG%20TEXT%3C/h1%3E

If this is the case, you can simply use the htmlentities function to escape all tags:

//top of the script
$cleankw = htmlentities($_GET['kw'],ENT_QUOTES);

//wherever it appears on the page
php echo $cleankw;

On the other hand, if you want to allow HTML, it’s a much harder problem to solve. I recommend this article as a starting point:

http://blog.liip.ch/archive/2005/01/16/xss-how-we-try-to-prevent-it.html

An extreme example of what can go wrong when you allow XSS to persist can be found here:

http://namb.la/popular/

Hope that helps

______________________

If you want to learn more about John Herren, he has a blog here. Thanks again John!

Note: Input problems appear to generally occur when the user can manipulate it from a form, etc. Because our users are clicking directly to the page, input is supplied by Google and the query searched by the user. After the user is ON the page, they can manipulate the page if you don’t use htmlentities to escape html characteristics…you also have the risk of a savvy user hijacking things which is why it is good to filter the input once then display the output. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding…here is a great list of ways to filter the data from php.net: http://us.php.net/filter.

If you missed the introductory installment, you can find it here.

___________________________________________

This secret will rock your world – it does not need great copy to hype it up because the results will scream success!

*Note 3/31/08 – I changed the first ucwords in the dynamic code to htmlentities for security purposes…I recommend you use htmlentities as shown in this blog post.

Without further ado, here is your quick 4 step guide to making a dynamic landing page with PHP in 15 minutes or less:

1. Open your landing page in your favorite editor and make sure it is saved as php OR html.

Copy and paste this line to your .htaccess file if you are going to use an html (or htm) landing page:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm .html

Now you can run php scripts in your htm(l) files.

2. Copy and Paste the following code into your landing page’s Title and content. Put your original content (the word or phrase you are replacing) in the string “Your Original Info Here”:

<?php
if ($_GET['kw'])
{echo htmlentities($_GET['kw']);}
else
{echo ucwords("Your Original Info Here");}
?>

For example, I want to replace the Title on the semvironment landing page so I would use this code for my Title:

The title would display the original content if somebody landed on the page without querying a keyword:

And if somebody came to our page from a specific keyword in the destination url, our Title would look like this:

This is the code I would use for one of our original content questions or headlines:

<p>Are You Looking For
<php?
if ($_GET['kw'])
{echo htmlentities($_GET['kw']);}
else
{echo ucwords(“High Quality PPC Management”);}
?>
?</p>

This question would be displayed if somebody landed on the page without querying a keyword:

Are You Looking For High Quality PPC Management?

And this question would be displayed after somebody clicked on our ad from the query “PPC Management Services”:

Are You Looking For PPC Management Services?

Using ucwords in the code will capitalize the first letter of every word in the search query or string…, you can simply remove ucwords and the corresponding parenthesis () if you don’t want to have the first letter capitalized on each word – your code would look like this:

<?php
if ($_GET['kw'])
{echo $_GET['kw'];}
else
{echo "your original info here";}
?>

This is particularly useful if you are using it in a paragraph of regular text. You can format this so your searcher’s query can be bold or italicized or underlined, making it appear more relevant and useful to the user.

3. Save, Upload, and Test your landing page.

To test it, simply type in your landing page url -

www.yoursite.com/yourlandingpage.php?kw=your+search+query

Pretty freaking sweet, huh?

4. Now go to any ad platform and simply enter this in your destination url on your ads:

www.yoursite.com/yourlandingpage.php?kw={keyword}

Example -

My landing page is already edited using the steps listed above…so I went to AdWords to play with the Quality Score on a highly irrelevant search query. Please excuse or have fun with my mild sense of humor…

I started a new campaign and a new adgroup using the keyword homestar poopsmith.

The destination url (our company name is now semvironment – we used to be known as apollo sem):

The live ad:

And this is what I get when I click through the ad after searching for Homestar Poopsmith (click on the screenshot to enlarge):

The entire page is technically about PPC Management. I added the dynamic text to two headlines on the page…one at the beginning of the content and one towards the middle of the page. The title is also dynamic.

Here is my quality score for the broadly matched term homestar poopsmith:

How will this help you?

Your landing pages will be more relevant to your users AND Google; your quality scores should go up, your costs should come down, and we can expect you to convert more visitors!

Recommendations

Use this pay per click secret with caution! Your results can and will vary!

If you are an ecommerce site with a specific product, you will probably want to carefully include the dynamic search query in your content and titles – maybe you will use empty or open questions like “Are You Looking For (Keyword)?” “This is the closest match…and we think it will be a perfect fit for you because…”

Everybody that implements this secret should aggressively use negatively matched keywords in your campaigns and ad groups.

Creating a dynamic landing page might compromise your SEO strategy. We generally recommend that you duplicate your SEO landing pages (if you are using them for PPC) and place them into a separate file or directory for you to advertise with. Add the “advertisement” directory to the robots.txt file as a disallowed directory to avoid some duplicate content issues.

You will be able to view the exact search terms people are using by filtering through your landing page results in Analytics – another useful way to find negative match keywords.

That’s a wrap! Now You can Create A Dynamic Landing Page in 15 Minutes or Less with PHP!

The originating source of our knowledge regarding this post came from this 2006 Digital Point Forum post.

(These instructions start after you are logged into your Analytics profile of choice…)

If You DO NOT Use Goals -

1. Click on Content.

2. Then click on Top Content.

3. Find your conversion page and click on it…you will get a bunch of fantastic stats about that page.

(Click the image above to see a bigger picture…)

4. Drop down the Segment menu and choose Keyword (directly underneath and to the right of the bold sentence “This page was viewed **** times“).

If You USE Goals!

1. Click on Traffic Sources.

2. Then click on Keywords.

3. Click on a detailed keyword.

4. Finally, click on Goal Conversion – you can see the keyword conversion rate, number of conversions, and my favorite: the Per Visit Goal Value for that specific keyword!

Now you can review all the specific keywords that converted from AdWords!

secrets ever!

_______________________________________

You CAN expose your specific AdWords Keyword Data beyond the dreaded “other unique queries” in the AdWords Search Query Report with Google Analytics!

Don’t you hate running the AdWords Search Query report because you know the best data is behind the cold words “other unique queries”?

Do you have a sick feeling in your gut because you know you can make more money with your affiliate programs, blogs, and ads if you could only tighten up your AdWords advertising?

If you answered “yes”, then you need to read and implement this Analytics secret immediately.

Here is a detailed, step by step process to take a look at what lies beneath the silky covers of “other unique queries” using Google Analytics:

1. Log into AdWords and click on My Account -> Account Preferences:

2. Find the Tracking section in Account Preferences and make sure Auto-tagging is set to “yes”:

3. Click on Analytics from your AdWords account or sign into your Google Analytics account:

4. You can choose to skip this step if you want to edit your current website Analytics profile – we recommend you create a separate profile. Click on Add Website Profile >>:

5. Choose to add a profile to an existing domain:

6. Pick your domain, label the profile, make sure you have a check mark in the Apply Cost Data section and click finish:

7. You should see your new profile listed with any other profiles you already have:

8. Now you need to edit the settings of your new profile – Click on Edit next to your new profile:

Analytics Filter 1

9. Find the Filters Applied to Profile section and click Add Filter:

10. Choose to Add new Filter for Profile:

11. Give your filter a good name, drop down to the Custom Filter type and choose the Advanced option:

12. In Field A -> Extract A choose the Referral drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(\?|&)(q|p|query|kw|searchfor|wd)=([^&]*)

I’ll update the image later – but the q|p…etc will effectively pull almost all queries from the url at the serp. Each search engine uses a different url parameter for this so if you find one you want to track, simply add it to the regex above using the bar | to separate them. The above regex was copied from the search lab.

13. In Field B -> Extract B choose the Campaign Medium drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

cpc|ppc

14. In Output To -> Constructor choose the Custom Field 1 drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

$A3

15. Make sure all fields are required and they do not need to be case sensitive, then click Finish:

16. You should be back on the profile settings page where you can see this first filter has been applied to your detailed analytics profile.

Analytics Filter 2

17. Repeat steps 9 through 11 to create a second filter. Remember to give the second filter a different name and give this filter the attributes outlined in steps 18 through 21. ***You NEED both filters for detailed keyword data to work!***

18. In Field A -> Extract A choose the Custom Field 1 drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(.*)

19. In Field B -> Extract B choose the Campaign Term drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

(.*)

20. In Output To -> Constructor choose the Campaign Term drop down and copy and paste this code into the available field -

$B1, ($A1)

Some replicated posts detail using $B1, $A1 without parenthesis – and I haven’t seen any difference in results so it appears either way should work fine.

21. Make sure all fields are required and they do not need to be case sensitive, then click Finish:

22. You should be back on the profile settings page where you can see this second filter has been applied to your detailed analytics profile. Make sure they are in the order we described – filter 1 should be listed BEFORE filter 2 under the Filters Applied to Profile section.

You are done setting up the secret that will expose your AdWords Keyword Data!

Now you need to wait a few hours for the data to be captured and reported. When you revisit Analytics you simply need to look at these reports and note the added data next to your AdWords keywords:

Traffic Sources -> Keywords

- or -

Traffic Sources -> AdWords -> Keyword Positions

Or a number of other reports…

The data in your old Analytics profile should look like this:

And the data in your new profile should look like this:

The keywords shown in parentheses (key+word) is the exact term the user searched when they found and clicked on your advertisement.

This particular client is only selling home security systems so I would look at this report and add “car” as a negative keyword and I would research “home security devices” to see if there is a decent volume for that term. Then I would consider optimizing a page for that term and add the keyword to my AdWords campaign to see if I can turn those visitors into the kind of visitor that puts money in my wallet.

One note regarding GOALS

We published a post detailing how to see your keyword data for Goals/conversions. Enjoy!

That’s a wrap! Your AdWords Keyword Data is now EXPOSED!

Our source for learning and applying this secret to our client accounts and our own accounts comes from a November 2007 blog post by the GA-Experts. Thank you, GA-Experts, for sharing this secret with us!