Anyone working in SEM will tell you it is very rewarding. You get to see the impact you have on small to large businesses' bottom line and be a part of their success.
What we don't talk about (very often) is the hilarity that ensues behind the scenes when managing a campaign.
Search Query Reports
A very common report that campaign managers generate is the Search Query Report. It lets you see what search queries were entered that triggered your ads.
You can browse this report and negative match keywords that you dont want to trigger your ads. For example "
Your Broad Keyword: +financial +consulting
Search Query: free financial consulting
Negative Match: free
You negative match free because you want the big spenders who are serious about managing their money.
While on your weekly negative match crusade on the search query report battlefield, you tend to run into odd search queries that give you a chuckle.
Funnies
Broad Keyword: swimwear
Search Query: Swimwear made out of Bananas
Comments: Banana Split?
Broad Keyword: +import +car +canada
Search Query: import a stolen car into Canada
Comments: www.NotTheFBI.com/Import-Stolen-Car-Services
Broad Keyword: +hot +tub
Search Query: Hot tub truck
Search Query: hot tubs buy and sell video games consoles
Comment: I think a business would be very successful if it covered these 3 areas
Broad Keyword: +air +conditioner +repair
Search Query: repair air conditioner duct tape
Comments: MacGyver or Red Green
Phrase Match: agriculture jobs
Search Query: agriculture jobs that pay in money
Comments: Oppose to what other form of currency?
Broad Keyword: +golf +teacher
Search Query: golf teacher cowboy hat
Comment: Yeehaw?
Phrase Match: used car
Search Query: used car made of gold
Comment: This person is obviously confused about their spending capabilities
Do you have any weird queries to share?
These were organic, but still funny. When I worked at a church a few years ago, some of the guys knew that I checked our inbound keywords from time to time to see what was working. One month I found a few like this:
mickey mellen “mtbethel.org ” -old -old -dad
mickey mellen “mtbethel.org ” -your -moma
They knew the phrase would find the church site, and that clicking through would get it to appear on my reports. They were patient and waited until I discovered it on my own. Pretty funny stuff.
I recently did an overview for a client who was managing their own adwords. They had broad match on the keywords “IPO” and “M&A” and oh man what a mess that was.
Best that stick out:
Can a Hipo kill a lion
I ma bitch
Plus tons of randomly garbly text. I swear they had more hits from cats on sleeping on keyboards then then real people.
Never broad match 2 and 3 letter phrases!
Hahahaha…funny post about PPC queries. I had many funny queries when worked at travel site in Brasil…Good times! 😀
I was once promoting an instant messaging program, and noticed I was showing for ‘leather bags’:
instant messaging > messenger > messenger bags > leather bags
Very tenuous I know, but it does make you steer away from unmodified broad match.