Speak their language

Ever wonder what people are searching for when your ad is triggered?

For example, let’s say your organization offers food assistance and one of your keywords is “food stamps.” It would be great to know exactly what people are typing into Google when looking for food stamps. Maybe they are searching for ‘apply for food stamps online.’ If that were the case, then we could add a link to the landing page where people could apply online. We could also create a new ad group dedicated to applying for food stamps online to take advantage of the traffic. We could get more traffic to the site and help more people get needed food stamps.

Well, you can find that information in a Search Query Performance report. It is a helpful report highlighted recently in one of our Advanced Webinars. However, there is an even easier way to get that information without having to run a separate report. You can view that information in the ‘See Search Terms’ button on the keyword tab of your AdWords account.


The report will provide all kinds of interesting information. Let’s take a look at an example and how the information can help you.


A few action items:

• Add the two search terms ‘food stamps nyc’ and ‘food stamps ny’ as keywords to your account to make sure they continue to trigger your ads. You can do that by clicking on the check box to the left of the search terms, then clicking on the ‘Add as keyword’ button in the upper left corner.
• You could also create a new ad referencing foods stamps in NYC. The ad would be more specific, and should therefore bring more traffic to your site and increase your account’s CTR.
• Another idea is creating a new page on your website about applying for food stamps. You could include information about criteria for food stamps and how to apply online or in person. The two search terms ‘food stamps eligibility’ and ‘apply for food stamps online’ could be put in their own ad group along with other keywords and direct people to the new website page.

Next time you’re in your account, check out the ‘See Search Terms’ button and try making a few additions to your campaigns to take advantage of this helpful optimization tool.

Posted by Will Ponkowski, AdWords Team