We recently launched a new
keyword column in the search term report to let you see exactly which keywords matched particular search terms. With this information at your fingertips, you can quickly and easily make better keyword and bid management decisions. But don’t take our word for it. We’ll let Top Contributors Calin Sandici and Moshe Avichai from the
AdWords Community explain why the column is an important part of a healthy AdWords diet.
What’s so special about this new column?
Calin: You can now see in one simple table which keyword matches which search terms, for all the keywords in an ad group, campaign, or even the whole account, and you can act accordingly. It's cool, it saves time, it’s zero calories and it’s good for your health.
Moshe: Finally, there’s no need to guess which keyword triggers an ad.
What were your first thoughts when you heard the column was available?
Calin: For the first time, I can stay within AdWords and decide whether I should delete or pause a keyword altogether, or keep it and use some negative keywords to block unwanted impressions for irrelevant search queries. In the past I had to resort to the Analytics API to achieve the same effect. That’s no longer the case, because we now have access to a lot more information right in the AdWords interface.
How does it change the search terms report?
Moshe: Now the report is much more transparent. A campaign manager can see, at one glance, the complete funnel that triggered an ad: the original search term a user was searching for, through the keyword that matched the search term, and finally the ad group of the ad shown, all on the same page.
Calin: You no longer have to guess which keyword matched which search terms if you’re looking at more than one keyword. Previously, you could select one keyword at a time, and see the search terms that it matched. Now you can look at a whole ad group, campaign or account, see all the search terms that have caused your ads to show during a certain period of time, and right next to them, which keyword is "responsible" for a particular search term.
And finally, what do you hope to see from AdWords reporting in the future?
Calin: It could be great if we could import the Google Analytics metrics in the Keywords tab into the search terms report. Even if a search term doesn’t convert directly, if it leads to visits where one can see a large number of pages per visit or a low bounce rate, it may prove useful. In the absence of those metrics, we can only judge the search queries in terms of conversions.
Moshe: I am a great fan of the
80/20 Pareto principle: “You can draw roughly 80% of the conclusions from 20% of the data.” I have as much data as I need to run effective campaigns. As Calin suggested, a better integration of presenting data from both Analytics and Adwords in a “unified report” could be helpful.
Discuss the new column in the
AdWords Community, or check out the
search terms report article in the AdWords Help Center.
Posted by Cindy Meyers and Virginia Roman, Editors, Online Help 
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