The recently expanded Automatic Matching feature in AdWords came up at a client meeting the other day.
Here’s Google’s explanation of what automatic matching is:
Automatic matching is an optional feature that helps your ads reach targeted traffic missed by your keyword lists. It works by analyzing the ads, keywords, and landing pages in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.
This feature originally appeared in some accounts in February and was greatly, yet quietly, expanded in May. The program has taken a lot of heat because advertisers were automatically opted in to this program. So if you don’t want this feature running in your account, you have to go in turn it off yourself.
There are some who think this is a conspiracy by Google to bleed every last penny out of advertisers’ budgets. I’m not that cynical, but I do wish advertisers had to opt in to the program instead of opt out of it.
Conspiracy or not, my feeling is that most advertisers are better served by not using automatic matching. The reason why comes down to one question:
Do you want control of your advertising budget or do you want Google to?
Google has already had a form of automatic matching in their campaigns for a long time – it’s called broad match. With broad match, you greatly expand the number of search queries that will trigger your ads. The downside is that your ads may be triggered by search queries that have absolutely nothing to do with your business. This can be a bid budget waster.
Automatic matching greatly expands the universe of search queries over what broad match alone would do. While this may bring in some additional quality keywords that you might otherwise miss, I think more often than not it will eat up your budget with traffic that’s not highly targeted to your business.
If you do decide to give automatic matching a try, here are a few tips:
1. Run search query reports and watch your server logs frequently to see what search terms are triggering your ads. If you start finding a lot of terms that aren’t relevant to your business, either turn off automatic matching or add a bunch of negative keywords to your campaign.
If you find some keywords that are relevant to your business, add them to your keyword list and optimize your ads and landing pages for them.
2. Make sure your daily budget is capped at a number you can afford.
3. Monitor your daily spend and conversions closely to see how much more you are spending due to automatic matching and what you’re getting in return. If the ROI isn’t there, opt out.
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