Google announced on September 1st that search term reports in Google Ads will only show search terms that reach a specific volume threshold. This has caused a huge concern in the advertising and agency community. This is because we rely on these reports to gain insight and data to further optimize performance in Google Ads.
There are many questions regarding this change including why they chose to do this, and how marketers can maintain their accounts with this new change. We now know a little more and will cover as much of information as possible to help you transition through these changes with Google Ads.
What is a Search Term Report
Search term reports are a feature in Google Ads that let you see what search terms trigger your ads. They also let you see what search terms closely relate to the keywords your ads are targeting.
For example, if you are targeting the keyword “t-shirt” and someone searches for “cheap t-shirts” the search term “cheap t-shirts” will be on your search term report.
Digital marketers rely on this report to optimize their Google Ads performance through:
Matching type optimizations for keywords
Building out negative keyword lists
Finding new search terms to add to your keywords list
All of these features help to assure your allocation of budget is set up properly and that you are not spending money on keywords that provide no return.
How is the Search Terms Report Changed
Google announced that, starting September 2020, search term reports will only include terms that have significant numbers. You will likely see fewer terms in reports from now on. This means that you won't be able to use this report to see every search term that triggers your ads. More importantly, you will no longer be able to see search terms that have lower search volume. This is the most recent update that Google has posted.
The Impact of the Search Term Report Change
All digital marketers know that irrelevant clicks are a waste for your ad spend. If you have several low-volume terms that get picked up daily, it can really add up in your account especially with a high budget.
The major concern to all marketers is the reduced visibility. This report is an essential part of ad optimization. It assists with the small tweaks that help prevent vast amounts of wasted spend. It also assists with keyword mining and negating invaluable keywords. Finally, it helps to lower bidding and reduced conversion rates.
Recommendations
Google will more than likely stick with this new change and there isn’t anything we can do as a community to change their mind. On average we will be losing around 15%. There are things you can do to mitigate this loss.
We shouldn’t let this loss of data interfere with the best practices. Instead, we need to put more effort into making optimizations based on the data we are given. Even if we can’t find the keyword that can potentially waste clicks, don’t let this lost data prevent you from working with what you got, which is still major and valuable data.
Review Bing
Google isn’t the only search engine that digital marketers can use. Yes it takes more than the vast majority of most budgets, but a lot of marketers are using Bing as well. A digital marketer with a seasoned Bing account can attest to the fact that Bing and Google both share search trends in their campaigns and you can leverage Bing to map out search terms. Bing is not implementing the changes to their reports that Google is. So you can leverage Bing regularly to review search terms to optimize both your Bing and your Google Ads campaigns.
Brush up on Skill Sets
Another recommendation we suggest is that if your company highly prioritizes search engine ads you may want to start expanding your digital marketing skills for business growth. You should start looking into social media ads, SEO, EMM, data analysis, website development etc.
It’s early in the game and there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the changes Google has made. For example we don’t yet know how they will measure “significant” and how it will affect overall search trends. What else will Google change? We’ll help by keeping you informed and by providing tips to help you out to help out your accounts. In the meantime, try out some of these recommendations!