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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Feb-25 00:56
I'm posting separate threads for various aspects of the Google Adwords issues so that each thread can be more specific to a particular aspect. In the long run this will make each thread more relevant and consise for those searching for this information.
I encourage all advertisers to read each thread and then please do make comments in whichever thread seems most relevant. The more input that gets posted the more beneficial it is for each reader. It may also compile information that can be shared with Google in hopes of improving these situations for the benefit of advertisers, Google, and searchers alike.
I started this thread to ensure all advertisers understand the change Google made from what we all knew as broad match to what they're calling "Expanded Broad Match".
NOTE: This issue affects advertisers using specific brand names, model numbers, and product family names the most. It can also affect other advertisers when it equates a word commonly used to describe something you sell with a word that DOES NOT describe something you sell. The words "cordless" and "wireless" are an example of that issue.
I especially want to draw attention to this specific aspect of how "Google Expanded Match" works:
"Expanded Match also uses all the keywords in your campaigns to generate ad results. I have a paused campaign for ML-1430 and it is linked to the same URL as my ML-1450 campaign. Expanded Match saw a ML-1430 query and popped up the ML-1450 ad. Pause for the ML-1430 keywords got overridden by Expanded Match."
This information was posted by tonerman in a thread he calls Up the Creek with Google Broad Match.
Here are other pertinent excerpts from that thread which I highly recommend reading. It is extremely long so I have pasted the most important comments below. (I have requested specific permission from the person who posted most of these comments. If anyone has an issue with my doing this please PM me about it.)
If enough advertisers bring this issue to Google's attention perhaps they will begin to understand and consider fixing it.
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" Expanded Match is hard to kill with negative keywords.
You can't kill expanded match with one negative keyword in the particular Ad Campaign it has taken hostage! It just takes another hostage!
I paused an ad campaign as reported earlier for the Samsung ML-1430 over ROI issues. Expanded Match started showing an ad for the ML-1450 in response to the "paused" keyword ML-1430.
So I made entered a negative keyword -1430 in the ML-1450 campaign. So what did Expanded Match do? It started showing ads for the ML-1440 in response to my entering -1430 in the ML-1450 campaign.
So now I've added -1430 in the ML-1440 Campaign. Wonder what ad campaign it will grab next in response to the ML-1430 queries?
Then when I added negative keyword -780 to stop it from showing ads for the Phaser 750 when the query was Phaser 780 Expanded Match started showing ads in response to query "Phaser 7750". SO I have now added -7750 to the Phaser 750 campaign.
This isn't expanded match - it is a free for all grab for clicks out of my account. The Phaser 780 and Phaser 7750 are real products but we do not sell or advertise them and I do not know how this BS is happening - I just know it is!
I am going to have to find a bigger stake to drive through Expanded Match's heart!"
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As I said, if you sell brand, model, part number specific products it appears Broad Match with Expanded Match is a ROI Killer. It will show ads for products that do not match the query based on some of the query words matching other keywords in your account regardless of where they appear (even in different campaigns), regardless of pause campaign, and regardless of specific negative keywords in your campaigns that match a term in a search query.
I'm done with this. None of this behavior is documented in Google Adwords anywhere that I have seen. It's simply content advertising at search term rates. Regardless of any other consideration I am going to have to convert all my campaigns to exact or phrase match.
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Andrew, I think you are being dismissive of the problem. I can understand how that could be, because for most of the accounts I manage, there are no noticable problems with expanded broadmatch. However, I have a few acounts that, like the situation tonerman describes, depend heavily on model number targeting. And with targeting like this, the errors introduced by expanded broadmatch are significant.
For simplicity, consider 2 models of widgets, BrandX 123 and BrandX 456. You set up one adgroup for 123 and another for 456. 456 is a high-end model, worth lots of bucks if you make a sale. 123 is a low-priced accessory. Consequently, you bid high on 456 and low on 123.
What's happening is that Adwords is IGNORING the targeting for 123 and instead delivering ads for 456. This prevents you from reaching the market for 123 and it creates expensive clicks that don't convert well for 456.
The user gets screwed because the ads have low relevance. The advertiser gets screwed on both opportunity and out-of-pocket costs.
I've been through this situation several times with my Adwords rep. Adwords thinks that on balance expanded broadmatch is great and that these problems are not important.
I must respectfully disagree with Adwords on this. I'm glad to see that other advertisers such as tonerman are starting to realize how they are getting screwed by expanded broadmatch.
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The phrase 'renault clio pre-reg' did not trigger the keyword 'clio pre-reg' in an ad group that was targeting pre-registered Renault Clio cars and delivering searchers to listings of those cars.
Instead, the phrase 'renault clio pre-reg' triggered the keyword 'renault automatics' in an ad group that was targeting Renault automatics and delivering searchers to listings of that type of car - despite the fact that they were looking for pre-reg Clios. Note that every keyword trigger in this ad group contained the word "auto" or "automatic", yet it was still triggered in preference to the previous ad group.
Here is, verbatim, the reason we were given for this occurring: "In this case, the Quality Score of the 'renault' keyword is higher so it showed the ad most relevant to it."
IMO this reason does not tally with most normal people's definition of "most relevant". This is an example of the kinds of places that expanded broad matching is now going, and it's not good IMO. We fixed this particular problem by adding 'renault clio pre-reg' to our list of keywords in the respective ad group, but IMO this was just fixing a bug in Google's system.
I do not take kindly to being told that "renault automatics" is a better match than "clio pre-reg" for "renault clio pre-reg" and that I should change my entire account to make sure the right ad is shown!
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I have a very important key word and I built a list of about 1500 exact matches for this keyword. I also have a lot of other ad campaigns for the same brand, but for different model numbers and used for different purposes, a few of which are broad match. I had to turn some broad match campaigns back on because I was losing to much traffic without properly constructed phrase word matches in place when I flipped all my terms to phrase match in anger one day.
I noticed one of the new exact match terms had a couple hundred impressions and no clicks. So I did a search myself on the term and there it was in position number 1. I decided that maybe I should try lowering the ad position. So I dropped the max bid several dollars. Did another search and the ad was still in position 1.
Dropped the bid to the floor, did another search on the same term and it was still in position 1. Finally I paused the campaign, did another search and my campaigns still showed a match for the term in position 4 or 5.
Searched all my Google campaigns for the term and had no matches. Then I searched all the campaigns for the brand and broad match. Found some campaigns that were broad, but had different model numbers. Added negative keyword to all those campaigns contained in my exact match term.
Did a search again and finally no ad appeared! SO I turned the all exact match campaign back on, did a search at the lowball number and no ad appeared. Raised the bid to the original bid amount and ad appeared in position 1 again.
When Google says if you have problems with Broad Match with Expanded Match and you can solve them by changing your campaigns to exact match or phrase match - you can only stop this by not having any broad match ad campaigns with the same brand names and similar words and or different model numbers in the keywords! Your exact match terms do not mean diddley!
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The problem was Expanded Match substituting "3200" for one of my campaigns that had "3100" in it. I didn't have "3200" in my campaigns at the time. The Broad match keyword tool at the time would not display "3200" as a keyword to consider at the time the incident was occurring. Here is what Google said at the time:
"The expanded matches that your ad is running on are determined using data from your account (italics added) The expanded matches returned by the tool are determined using data from all accounts that are using a certain keyword. It is possible, therefore, to notice certain discrepancies between the expanded matches that your ad is running on, and the expanded matches predicted by the tool."
I finally stopped the ad from appearing by making "3200" a negative keyword in the HP 3100 campaign just as we learned earlier in this thread.
The point of this post are the words I got at the time saying that "The expanded matches that your ad is running on are determined using data from your account".
There is the rub! As the data in your account changes the terms that will trigger ads based on Expanded Match will change also. So if you launch a new campaign, then ask to see what keywords Expanded Match is going to use as a trigger for ads for the new campaign, the expanded match keyword list for that campaign is going to change everytime you modify anything in your account.
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Expanded Match would crack me up if it wasn't costing me money! How about this one? I had a campaign for the Sharp AL-1000 toner cartridge and the ad displayed for the query "1000 round ak drum clip".
Must have been a query by a dumb terrorist! Idiot clicked on an ad with the headline "AL-1000 Toner Cartridge" All I know is it cost me an average of $2.50 a click.
Besides for being in the arms business Adwords also thinks I sell digital cameras. It displayed my ad for the "XD Toner Cartridge" for the query "olympus p-440 photo cartridge". That campaign averages $3.00 a click.
I do have the terms "photo conductor" and "cartridge" in my keywords but never by themselves and I do not have "p-440", "440", or "Olympus" anywhere in my campaigns. Now it's making up brands, model numbers, and products!
Here's aother made up non-existant product from expanded match: "minolta 2200 laserjet toner". Minolta printers aren't called Laserjet and I have not heard of a "2200" but maybe it exists. HP makes "laserjets" and Minolta doesn't. They make "Pagepro" laser ptinters. It also made up another product this weekend, the "qms 2400 toner". I checked and I do not have the term "2400" anywhere in any campaign except as a negative keyword (-2400) in one campaign.
Altogether there were 5 model number screw ups (showing ads that didn't match the query for 5 model numbers or products that do not exist) with a average cost per click of $2.70. So Google hit me for only $19 in lousy clicks this weekend.
Stopping Expanded Match from displaying ads with negative keywords is impossible because there is no rhyme or reason as to how it arrives at what queries will trigger your ads.
Maybe I'll start selling thousand round clips for AK-47's and digital cameras!
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Yesterday I made "olympus" a negative key word in a campaign when Expanded Match started showing my toner cartridge ads for Olympus parts. Today it picked another campaign to show ads for a different Olympus part. I didn't have the part number anywhere in my campaigns, and I didn't have Olympus except as a negative keyword.. So tonight I made Olympus a negative keyword along with the latest non-existant part number in all my campaigns. Sure hope that Olympus part wasn't a popular keyword!
This would be fun except the joke is all at my expense in lost time, wasted clicks and impressions I can't stop until I get a click I didn't want!
Maybe I should listen to Google Expanded Match and start selling stuff for Olympus cameras! After all, I even OWN an Olympus camera! Of course, that's about all I have to do with Olympus except in the insane mind of Google Expanded Match.
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Here are today's beauties from Google Expanded Match:
Query "micr toner hp8150". I have a campaign for the HP 8150 MICR toner cartridge with the keywords "HP 8150 micr toner". Seems like a good time for expanded match to kick in right? It did - it displayed my ad for the "HP 4 micr toner cartridge", ignored my "HP 8150 micr toner cartridge" key words in every variation in an ad group named "HP 8150 MICR". The user took one look at the wrong item and split. Kachung! $3.85 for Google - 1 page view for me.
Query: "Sharp_FO-4400_Fax_Machine/display_~full_specs". I have a campaign for the FO-4400 toner cartridge but all of the keywords have toner, cartridge or some variation in all the keywords. Expanded Match decided this person needed one of my toner cartridges, although he wasn't looking for one, and then BRILLIANTLY showed my ad for the Sharp FO-50ND toner cartridge! I have a campaign for the FO-4400 toner cartridge. Wouldn't it be nice if at least it offered him the right product even if he wasn't looking for it?
Altogther today's wasted clicks totaled about $15 included the above stupidity and ads for model numbers we don't advertise and one ad click in spite of a creating a negative keyword days ago trying to stop clicks for that term! Like the Adwords Rep said, it takes a while for the network to update so I keep paying in the meantime for clicks on terms I didn't ask for in the first place.
Why don't we start a thread that is a contest to find the dumbest Expanded Match Click of the Month? I'll throw up a prize even. At least we would get something in the form of entertainment for our wasted clicks.
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This is disturbing. It's well-known that more-specific searches (e.g., containing brand names and model numbers) convert better than more-general searches because for more-specific searches the user is closer to their decision point. Consequently, bids are higher for more-specific terms than more-general terms. What this means is that Adwords is taking the liberty of taking advertisers' high-bid/high-value keywords and running them on keywords that are not worth nearly so much.
And yes, I sent full details of the finding to my Adwords rep.
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We are experiencing the same problem as everyone else in this thread. For years, one of the terms we have bid for was a highly specific but infrequently searched for term. Since these terms were so specific to our business but infrequently searched for, our max bid was around $2 per click. Our impressions averaged around 100 per day. Beginning in early January, this term increased from 100 impressions per day to 1,200 impressions per day. Never before has this infrequently searched for keyword received over 150 impressions in a day. This impression surge continued until early February when we pulled this term offline.
Google has changed something on how it implements the broad match/expanded match criteria, which has effected this term. Oddly enough, only one keyword has been affected.
We have attempted to contact Google on several occasions in an attempt to rectify the situation. Google will not reveal number of searches for this keyword (only the number of impressions) or a list of the expanded terms for which this keyword is displayed. Our company has been an AdWords advertiser since it was introduced years ago. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising with Google and used the 'broad match' option for our campaigns until now.
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joey_skulls
Joined: Sep 15, 2006
# Posts: 133
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Posted: 2007-Apr-17 19:57
When did Expanded Match come in effect officially?
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2007-Apr-19 09:09
It has actually been around for years; however, it seems to be getting broader and broader and equating more and more keyword phrases. That is a function of a neural network or artificial neural network.
I had come across an article recently about the current level of
I was looking for a recent article on the current level of sophistication of neural nets. Haven't found it yet but came across the Numb3rs Television show blog.
Although they are specifically talking about crime solving on that show, the concepts apply to any data mining program or neural net. Here is an excerpt:
Data Mining and Neural Nets
From the page: "This whole set-up is somewhat problematical in the case of solving a particular crime. It usually takes quite a while to prepare the database for data mining, and the algorithms have to be fine-tuned. This may take from weeks to years, depending on the data and the sophistication and accuracy required.
Finally, one must remember that any sufficiently complex system will have "bugs": things that make it go wrong, giving unpredictably false answers and/or correlations. "
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