Build your campaign: Improve keywords

Build your campaign: Improve keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that you associate with your ads so that potential customers who are searching the web can find your ads. Keywords could be shoes, beach resorts, or acting classes in New York. If you have a keyword that matches what someone searched for, there's a better chance they'll see your ad.

How keywords work with ad groups

To better understand keywords, you need to know about ad groups. Ad groups are the best way to organize your campaigns by the specific products or services that you offer.

When you create a campaign, think about the different kinds of ads that you want to create. For example, if you’re a toy retailer, you might want to write ads for kids’ electronics and different ads for your tricycle and wagon products. This is where ad groups come in. Keywords in the first ad group might include walkie-talkies, electronic pets, and kids’ music players. The second ad group might include keywords like pull-along wagons, tricycles, and kids’ bikes. If you don’t create separate ad groups within your campaign, people searching for "kids' bikes" might end up looking at your ad for electronic pets and vice versa. Use ad groups to help make your ad more relevant to users’ searches and to improve your ROI.

Create a new ad group

Organize your keywords within campaigns according to different services or products you offer.

Create a new ad group.

Add new keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that you associate with your ads so that potential customers searching the web can find your ads.

How to add, edit or delete keywords.

Use negative keywords

While keywords get your ads in front of the right people, negative keywords keep them from showing for searches that won’t likely lead to sales. For example, if you’re a toy retailer running a sale on kids’ electronics, you won’t want to pay for search traffic from people looking for other children’s toys. In this case, your negative keywords can include dolls, board games, and puzzles. Make sure to spend as much time perfecting your negative keywords list as you do your keywords list.

How to add keywords that won't trigger my ads (negative keywords).

Use the Keyword Planner

If you want to do more than guess what people are searching for, use the Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas and suggestions for your campaigns. The tool helps you find the most relevant keywords for your target customers and suggests bids that will help get your ads seen.

How to use Keyword Planner.