How to use Keyword Planner

Use Keyword Planner to find new keywords, research the popularity of those keywords and then organize them into meaningful ad groups and campaigns.

Note

Keyword Planner is now available to all customers, and more capabilities are coming soon!

Choosing keywords is one of the most important aspects of creating and maintaining a successful advertising campaign. But where to start? How do you identify the many possible keywords that describe your business? How much should you bid on those keywords to be competitive with other advertisers?

Keyword Planner can help answer all of these questions and more. Better yet, after identifying potential ad groups with keywords and finding the profitable bids, you can use Keyword Planner to directly save those keywords to your account.

Keyword Planner is a valuable tool for new advertisers and PPC veterans alike. Use it when just starting a campaign or anytime to expand and improve your ads' performance and reach.

Go to Keyword Planner. (When you select the link, you will need to sign in to Microsoft Advertising if you aren't currently signed in.)

Find new keywords expando image

Search for new keywords

From the top menu, select Tools > Keyword planner.
Select Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category.
Enter one or more of the following in the boxes that appear:
- Up to 200 words or phrases that describe what you're advertising
- The URL of your website or a page on your website (see note below)
- A category relevant to your product or service
Optional: Enter targeting information.

This will impact keyword suggestions, historical statistics, and traffic estimates. For more information, select the question mark (?) next to Targeting in Keyword Planner.
Optional: Enter negative keywords, separated by commas.

Words you enter here will not be included in keywords that are suggested to you.
Optional: Set date range.

You can set the start and end months to get the search volume trends and data for the specified time range.
Optional: If you want to narrow the suggestions down to only keywords that contain certain words, enter those words in the Search options section.
Select Get suggestions.

You'll get ad group and keyword suggestions with historical statistics, like monthly search volume trends and data, competition, suggested minimum bid, and ad impression share. You can also change the graph's data by selecting Search volume trends, Mobile trends, Breakdown by device, Breakdown by location, Compare to competitor domains, or Compare to market leader domains from the dropdown menu above the graph. You'll also see two tabs below: A tab for suggested keywords and a tab for suggested ad groups to organize those keywords. Be sure to look at both. After reviewing the recommended ad group and keyword suggestions, you can Add selected to estimates or Export the suggestions.

Note

Keyword Planner extracts keywords from the HTML code on your website or landing page. If your HTML code contains JavaScript, which generates content at runtime, Keyword Planner will not extract keywords rendered from the JavaScript and you'll see fewer or no keywords.

Plan your budget and get insights for keywords expando image

One of the best ways to decide which keywords to use in your campaign is to see how many people are searching using those keywords. Keyword Planner gives you detailed information about keyword search trends as well as data about searches from specific locations or devices. You’ll also get suggested bids, based on the competition for those keywords.

Get search volume data and trends

On the top menu, select Tools and then select Keyword Planner.
Select Get search volume data and trends.
Enter keywords manually in Option 1: Enter keywords or upload a .csv or text file in Option 2 by selecting Choose file....
Optional: Enter targeting information.
This will impact keyword suggestions, historical statistics, and traffic estimates. For more information, select the question mark (?) next to Targeting.
Select Get search volume.

You'll get historical statistics, like monthly search volume trends and data, competition, suggested minimum bids, and ad impression share for your keywords. After reviewing the recommended ad group and keyword suggestions, you can Add selected to estimates or Export the suggestions.

Get performance and cost estimates

On the top menu, select Tools and then select Keyword Planner.
Select Get performance and cost estimates.
Enter keywords manually in Option 1: Enter keywords or upload a .csv or text file in Option 2 by selecting Choose file....
Optional: Enter targeting information.
This will impact keyword suggestions, historical statistics, and traffic estimates. For more information, select the question mark (?) next to Targeting.
Select Get estimates.

You'll be presented with a bid landscape for all of your keywords. To get detailed estimates in the table, enter a bid in the box above the graph or hover and select any point directly on the graph to choose a bid. To see estimates for a specific bid and budget, enter both a bid and a daily budget.

To change one of your bids, select the bid amount under "Max. CPC" in the table, enter your new bid, and select Save. If your keywords have different bid amounts, the graph will show the estimated number of clicks you'll get for each bid percentage change. To adjust all your bids by the same percentage, hover and select the desired percentage directly in the graph.

After reviewing the recommended ad group and keywords, you can select the Save to account button on the upper right corner to directly save to your account by creating a new campaign or adding to an existing campaign.