In September Google changed search term queries. The new reports are limited compared to the past. Search term reports are a feature in Google Ads that let you see what search terms trigger your ads. They also allow you to see what search terms closely relate to the keywords your ads are targeting. With these changes however, you are no longer able to see search terms that have lower search volume.
There are several reasons why this is such a concern to advertisers, especially ones advertising to niche markets. Google now only shows search term queries with a “significant number number of users”. Any business or marketer working in a vertical that has already low search volume is now going to be seeing even less data. Google does, however, update the search query system so when a search term does reach its threshold it will continue to show it from that point on.
How Do You Maintain Your Search Query Visibility?
Continually expanding your close variant search terms is one of the best options to maintain search query visibility. It will be a challenge since we are working with a limited search query to begin with. However, being able to identify what is a poor match to your account from the search query results and negating these matches will help you see better search query results.
It will also help you reduce potential wasted spend and expand your negative keyword list, allowing your query list to give you better results.
Bing (Microsoft Advertising) has not followed Google’s lead in limiting search term query results, so if you are advertising in Bing it’s a great source to leverage. You will be able to fill in some of the blanks that you can’t see in Google to help you identify what is still relevant and useful to you.
Leverage Other Skill Sets
With this low visibility for niche verticals, we suggest also prioritizing other forms of digital marketing to help you grab some of your marketing presence back. If you haven’t already started doing this we recommend optimizing your SEO first, making sure you can grab as much organic page clicks as possible. To complement your SEO, look into your web development and see what pages you can improve speed on, and how your backlinks look. This will also directly affect your SEO in addition to your Google Ads efforts.
You can also work on leveraging your social media accounts. We recommend looking into Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. All of these platforms might not work for you depending on your vertical, so if you start seeing more success in a few of them and diminishing returns in others don’t be afraid to just expand the more successful social media platforms.
Next you can start growing an email marketing list. Providing updates to your customer on how your business is doing, as well as any promotion you may be having such as holiday specials, can help keep you top of mind with your customers.
With the new limited search term query reports it will be a little more tedious in Google Ads for veterans and young digital marketers alike. But, by negating variant exact matches, using Bing as an additional search term query, and beefing up your other digital marketing funnels you can help insure your success in the digital marketing realm! If you want some more tips on ways to promote your business, you should check out one of our most recent blog.