My Search Marketing Summit 2018 talk on keyword planning for close variants. I talk about close variant mechanics, and how to choose your variants.

1. Keyword
Planning in a
Close Variant
World
Navah Hopkins

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What We’ll Be Covering
• What are close variants
• How do you pick your variant
• Revisiting account structure
• Worked in digital marketing since 2008
• Manage international accounts in all verticals
• Avid gamer and cat mom
A Bit About Me
Navah Hopkins
Services Innovation Strategist

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It Can Be Very Tempting to Think of Search Networks as Villains.

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In Reality, the Short Term Pain Foreshadows Long Term Growth.

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Google (and Bing) have made it pretty clear Audiences
and Automation are their Priorities

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So What Are We Doing talking About Keywords?

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Losers Think Abandoning Keywords For Display and
Autopilot Search is the Future

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Winners Know That Audience Focus Is At The Heart of
Keyword Strategy

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• Average AdWords CPC increased
14% Q4 2017 YOY
• Minimum first page bids for non-
branded keywords rose 23% YOY
• Mobile devices produced 55% of
Google’s Q4 2017 clicks
Keyword planning that
doesn’t factor in audiences
wastes money.
*https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/02/05/marketing-statistics

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Search Networks Are Evolving

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Can You Imagine if This Was Our Search Experience?

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We Used to Have to Account for All Variables

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You Would Need to Bid on These Keywords
• Exact: where is the nearest vet, vet near me, nearest vet, vetinarian
near me
• Phrase: vet near me, where is the nearest vet, vetinarian near me,
vet, vet near,
• Modified Broad: vet, where is the nearest vet, vet near me, where
nearest vet
• Broad: pet doctor, local vet, vet near me, where is nearest vet, cat
hospital

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This Caused Ad Groups to Swell to Unruly Sizes

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Now, You’d Only Need These Keywords
• Exact: where is nearest vet, vet near me
• Phrase: where is nearest vet, vet near
• Modified Broad: vet near me
• Broad: where is nearest vet

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However, Most Advertisers Are Still Configured This
Way
• Exact: where is the nearest vet, vet near me, nearest vet, vetinarian
near me
• Phrase: vet near me, where is the nearest vet, vetinarian near me,
vet, vet near,
• Modified Broad: vet, where is the nearest vet, vet near me, where
nearest vet
• Broad: pet doctor, local vet, vet near me, where is nearest vet, cat
hospital

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Google Sometimes Gets Fooled into Putting Budget in
Old Keywords Instead of Valuable Ones

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It’s Our Job to Honor the Rules of Engagement and
Help Google Know Where to Put Our Money

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What Are Close Variants?

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• Singular/Plural
• “ed”,“ing”,“er”
• Abbreviations
• Misspellings
• One Word Turned into Two Words
& Visa Versa
What Makes a Variant?

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To Be Clear, the Following Are Now Duplicates of One
Another (on the Same Match-Type)
• Wholesale = Wholesaler = Wholesaling = Whole Sale = Wholesaled
• Lawyer = Lawwyer = Lawyers = Law yer
• Real Estate in Texas = Realestate in Texas = Real Estate TX

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They Are Caught By Match-Type – Match-Types on
Different Bids Don’t Compete With Each Other
Always bid more on Alan Rickman

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The Order of Match-Types
1. Exact: all keywords must be present, nothing added (except for functional
words, but they can be in any order.
2. Phrase: keyword phrase must remain in-tact, but there can be keywords
before and after.
3. Mod. Broad: all keywords must be present, but they can be in any order and
there can be additional keywords in between, before and after.
4. Broad: so long as at least a synonym of one of your keywords is there, your
ad can show.

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A Pirate is Looking for Supplies
• Anti Fairy Repellant
• Mustache wax
• Crocodile hunters
• A way to stop child abduction

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• Anti-Fairy Repellant
• AntiFairy Repellant
• Repellant for Fairies
• Fairy Repellant
Exact Enters First

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Exact Enters First: The
Following Would Be
Duplicates on Exact
• Anti-Fairy Repellant
• AntiFairy Repellant
• Repellant for Fairies
• Fairy Repellant

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• Mustache wax under $20
• Organic mustache wax
• Mustache waxing
• Mustachewax
Phrase Enters Second

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Phrase Enters Second: The
Following Would Be
Duplicates on Phrase
• Mustache wax under $20
• Organic mustache wax
• Mustache waxing
• Mustachewax

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• I need a crocodile hunter
• Crocodile hunting permit
• CrocodileHunter boots
• Hunt crocodil groupon
Mod. Broad Enters Third

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Mod. Broad Enters Third:
The Following Would Be
Duplicates on Mod. Broad
• I need a crocodile hunter
• Crocodile hunting permit
• CrocodileHunter boots
• Hunt crocodil groupon

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• Child abduction hotline
• Runaway children
• Gps tracker for kids
• Donate to amber alert
Broad Enters Fourth

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Broad Enters Fourth: The
Following Would Be
Duplicates on Broad
• Child abduction hotline
• Runaway children
• Gps tracker for kids
• Donate to amber alert

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How Do We Pick Our
Variants?

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HAH! is My Favorite Way to Pick Variants
•Historical Metrics
•Auction Prices
•Human Intuition

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Historical Metrics Are Important

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Conversions (if you trust them) Are the Most
Important

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CTR is a Great Second Consideration if Conversions
Can’t Guide You

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QS Can be a Tie Breaker, but Not a Major
Consideration

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Do You Really Want to Pay a Premium for
Conversions?

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By Removing Close Variants, We
Were Able to Reduce CPA by 37%

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Do we trust conversions? If not, shouldn’t come into
the equation at all.

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CTR and the volume of impressions to clicks will be a
major deciding factor.

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Auction Price is a Big One

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Depending on Device, You May Need to Chase
Position #1 vs #2-3

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• Budget able to fit at least 10 clicks
per day
• Do locations fit into this at all?
• Are bids close together or are there
outliers?
Deciding What Auction
Price Makes Sense

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How did your best customers say they found you?

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How would you search
for your services?

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Are certain terms close but not quite your ideal
customer?

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What if There is No Data?

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Test the following keyword
strategies for 2-3 weeks
and then grow!
– B2B: be sure to include “service”
“software” and/or “platform” to weed
out any B2C traffic.
– B2C: Go longtail on broad, then harvest
queries!
– eCommerce: Consider leading with
Dynamic Search Ads to see what your
customers search for, then build off
those queries!

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Revisiting Account
Structure

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Healthy Campaigns have the Following Traits

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No More than 5-7 Ad Groups

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Here’s Why:
60% of
impressions
Budget will
only go to
“winners”
instead of
everything

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No More Than 5-10 Keyword Concepts Per Ad Group

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Ads need to be relevant to be effective

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One Time Zone

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Different Locations Have Different Auction Prices and
Ways of Thinking

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One Strategic Objective

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Conflicting objectives can choke budgets: if you need
volume, you can’t have big ticket leads and visa versa.

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No Bid Should Exceed 10% of Your Daily Budget

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You’ll under serve and compromise lead volume
Based on $369
spend between
October 25th and
November 23rd
2017

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So How Do We Transition?

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Pick One Ad Group to Represent the Variants of a
Keyword

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Move Necessary Keywords into Chosen Ad Group and
Pause Redundancies

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Copy Campaigns if Settings Need to Be Carried Over

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Client Story: A & A Machinery Pre-Close Variant (July 2017)

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Post Close Variant Change (August 2017)

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Seven Months Later, Still Going Strong

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How did we achieve close
variant victory?
– Segmented giant national campaign
into micro campaigns focused on high
ROI hubs of customers. (Two months to
ramp up)
– We audited each location for how users
searched and paused variations driving
up the spend. (One month to see ROI)
– We imported successful campaigns into
Bing.

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Let’s Recap!

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What is Now Considered Duplicates
1. Singular/Plural
2. “ed”,“ing”,“er”
3. Abbreviations
4. Misspellings
5. One Word Turned into Two Words & Visa Versa
6. Exact match keywords in different orders

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• Auction Price
• Historical Data
• Human Intuition
• Proven Keyword Structures
Keyword Planning Should
Be Ruled By the Following:

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Happy Ad Groups
Look Like This
• 5-10 Keyword concepts
• 3-5 expanded text ads
• Multiple match types
• Have bids that fit within the budget (10
click minimum)
Not Like this
• More than 30 keywords
• Too many keyword concepts
• Too many ads to test for variables

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Tests Are Important – Don’t Feel Like You’re Locked
Into Your Choice

81. © Copyright 2017 WordStream, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thanks!
Questions?
Navah Hopkins
nhopkins@wordstream.com