Brent Hodgson, Copywriter

Do you know how irrelevant some of your Google Adwords traffic is?

For the past few days I’ve been using Tracked.to to trawl through thousands of my Google Adwords keywords.

I’ve been looking at the keywords I’ve received clicks for, and comparing them to the exact searches people used to find my ads.

You’d think the keywords I was targeting, and the searches people made, would be roughly the same - right?

Maybe you’d pick up more long-tail stuff in the data?

WRONG!

There are often HUGE differences between the two.

And I feel like a huge chump…

Google promised me quality clicks, and I’m getting some real duds…

The thing is, unless you had data like this, you’d never know what Google is making you pay for…

Good Long Tail Keyword Matching:

Sure, I have legitimate long-tail examples like these:

Great examples of long-tail keywords, and high-quality matching…

Bad Long Tail Keyword Matching:

And some not-so-great long-tail examples too…

Not really relevant to a web design and freelance programming company… But you can easily avoid these with some good negative keywords.

Horrible Broad-Matching:

But you also have examples that show you how “Broad” Broad Match can be - like these:

You’d assume kitchens, bathroom showrooms and graphic design are vastly different things, right?

Worst Semantic Matching Ever!…

And then… I don’t know HOW to describe THESE:

uhh… okay?

How does someone searching for “baby cooking full muha” possibly find an ad targeted to the keyword “website styles”…

(No, it’s not Content Network… These are from the search network only…)

Any ideas?

It goes without saying - targeting like this is nothing short of &%$#! [read: very bad]

Yes, it’s funny seeing the weird and wonderful keywords Google matches your ads to… until you realize you’re paying for clicks like these.

And here’s the kicker…

Not only are you paying for these clicks - but because these visitors are hitting the back button as soon as they realise your site isn’t what they want - your quality score goes up, and you end up paying more per click!

What a scam!

This is the so-called “quality targeting” you’re paying for with Google Adwords…

Then again…. unless you saw the raw data for yourself, you’d never know what you were paying for…

Brent
*feeling livid*

P.S. - The tool I’m using to do this is Tracked.to. It’s a Google Adwords Tracking tool I co-own that tracks your Adwords clicks. It shows you the search term someone typed into Google when they found your ad, and the keyword Google figured your ad related to (just like you see above).

If you’re interested in finding out more, or getting free access Tracked.to to use on your own Google Adwords account, click here.

Long story short, I’m looking for beta testers who want to use the system for free - to help me get some more real-life case studies like these.

(Note: You MUST use Google Adwords to qualify for the Closed Beta)

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