Are you showing off your brand new car to someone looking to find a burger joint? How does a dealership who sells cars end up spending thousands on paid search burger ads?  It happens way more than you’d think.  Let me explain.

A QUICK PRIMER ON PAID SEARCH

Paid search is powerful because you can target people who have the intent to purchase a car.  The fundamental concept of paid advertising is based on keywords and search queries. 

• Search query: Search query is what a shopper types in the Google search bar to find what they want.
• Keywords: Keywords try to capture the shopper's search query and are words or phrases that >is set up in your paid search campaign in the hopes of matching the shopper’s search query.

 (courtesy of wordstream.com)

TYPES OF KEYWORDS

As you could never guess all the possible combinations of search queries that a car shopper might be typing in the Google search bar, you can use different types of keywords to target shoppers.

Broad match

Broad match will show on any search query that includes the broad match word or phrase. This includes misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations.

• Keyword: Chevrolet
• Search query: Chevy Tahoe, Chevrolet, Chey dealership, Chevy Suburban Steering Whee

Phrase match

Phrase match will show on searches that match a phrase, or are close variations of that phrase, with additional words before or after. Ads won't show, however, if a word is added to the middle of the phrase, or if words in the phrase are reordered in any way. (Google)

• Keyword: Chevrolet Sonic
• Search query: Chevy Sonic, Chevy Sonic deals

Exact match

Exact match will show on searches that match the exact term or are close variations of that exact term. Close variations may include reordering of words.

• Keyword: 2017 Chevy Sonic Lease
• Search query: 2017 Chevy Sonic Lease, Lease 2017 Chevy Sonic

WHERE THINGS GO WRONG

Things can backfire when you use broad match keywords too liberally.  Broad match keywords are great for making sure you don't miss anyone but setting too broad of a keyword could lead to unwanted results.

We found one of our Chevrolet dealerships spending hundreds of dollars on people looking for Sonic, the fast food restaurant because they had set up a broad match keyword on the word Sonic in hopes of connecting with potential Chevrolet Sonic shoppers.  But it doesn't stop there, as Orbee typically found 5-10% of paid search budget being spent on what we call irrelevant search queries. Some of the common ones we found were:

• Non-auto: Sonic burger, Patriots the football team, Healthcare, etc.
• Old cars: 1990 and older vehicles
• Out of market: People looking for dealerships hundreds of miles away 
• Auto related services: Rental cars, insurance
• How-to: Turn on navigation, fix ac vent
• Parts: Auto parts for a make/model campaign 
• Commercial: Semi-trucks, forklifts
• Marine/Off-road: Boats, motorcycles

WHAT TO DO?

Irrelevant search queries can happen in any well managed paid search campaign but how do we make sure we minimize the waste? Here are some strategies you can implement with you paid search provider.

• What percentage of your budget goes to broad match?  It's not a hard and fast rule but if you are spending more than 30-40% of your paid search budget on broad match keywords, you might be getting a lot of unwanted shoppers.
• Avoid using one-word broad match keywords.  Dealership, chevrolet tend to be pretty bad ideas expecially if you don't have a robust keyword set up. Try at least combining two words such as Chevy Dealership.
• How diligent are you in adding the negative keywords?  When's the last time you added negative keywords to your paid search campaign?  If the question is more than a month ago, it's been too long and irrelevant search queries might be creeping up on your paid search campaigns.

Happy digital marketing!