In February Dan from Seofaststart.com wrote on the new Google Adwords Automatic Matching feature that is now in beta. While Dan firmly disapproves of this new feature, I find it difficult to form an opinion until I try it for myself. I do however agree with Dan on the issue that Google could be advertising for keywords that would not drive the most targeted traffic to your site, even though they say they will show your ads on, “identified queries where the ad is likely to perform well.” (Adwords).
Here is a basic run down of what the new feature is: Adwords has selected a limited number of advertisers to try out this new feature that automatically opts you in as soon as it’s available to you. It’s called automatic matching and it scans your landing page, ads and current keyword lists to allow your ads to show for ‘relevant search queries’ that are not triggered by your current keyword list. While it maintains your average cost-per-click and click-through rate it uses only the extra money left over in your campaign daily budget. If you’re already exceeding your budget, automatic matching will have a minor effect on your account.
According to my Google rep, if you have been selected for this particular beta test you will be notified in the Adwords user interface and will be automatically opted in. In order to opt out you will have to uncheck the box on the ‘Edit Campaign Settings’ page for each active campaign under the advanced bidding options.
While Dan speaks loud and clear that this is not a good idea, I find myself split between he and Google. I think this is one of those features that may work wonders for some, while it could add a significant amount of unqualified clicks to your site for others. It does sound like a boardroom of people over at Google sat down and said, if these people have this much to spend, we need to make sure they’re spending it!
My tip, don’t set your campaign daily budget higher than you can afford! However, if you find that on a daily basis you’re having trouble spending your campaign budget then this could really help increase traffic to your site. The good part of this new feature is that you will be able to find the keywords your ads were triggered for if you run a search query report, where all keywords from this beta will be listed with the match type of ‘automatic.’
Be sure to keep an eye out for this beta in your account since they are automatically opting people in. Once the beta becomes available for one of my accounts, I’ll be sure to write a post on the results!
