Google AdWords Session Based Broad Match?
Google are now including a 4th match type in their search query reports: “Broad Match (Session Based)”. I think it is great to have some reporting about the search history issue so I quickly got to work to see how this match type performed.
A Broad Toad by Pixieslayer on Flickr
I ran a search query report for one of our accounts and then I compared “Broad Match” with “Broad Match (Session Based). Here are my results:
- Just under 2% of all broad match queries were session based. As speculated in my last post I think this number will depend a lot on your vertical and how much you bid per click.
- Click through rates for session based broad match are ridiculously high. For the account I tested the average CTR is 64%! This illustrates the importance of having an advert that is different from the competition.
- The average cost per click is about 10% higher. I think this will be another thing that varies quite a lot depending on the account. For the account I checked the average CPC is normally very close to the CPC bid; I think the cost per click for Session Based Broad Match would be propotionally higher if you have a larger gap between average CPC and max CPC.
- The conversion rate is 14% lower. O’ dear. And I was going to say that things weren’t as bad as I thought.
- Because of the higher CPC and the lower conversion rate the cost per conversion is nearly 30% higher. Cost per conversion is a major KPI for this account. For standard broad match keywords it is just under the target figure. For session based broad match it is well over.
Hello, Google? Richard Fergie here. Can I have my account back?
June 26th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
A precision to explain why the CTR is so high: most of the session-based queries have a very low impression volume, and in the Search Query report, only the queries that have generated at least one click are included. This implies that the CTR seems artificially high – because this is in fact the *CTR of queries that have generated a click*, not the overall CTR, which should take into account impressions gathered on clickless queries. By the way, this same phenomenon explains the ridiculously high CTR that have always been witnessed on “Other Unique Queries” of the same report.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Would you believe “Puppies for Sale” can result from a simple auto search query?
Perhaps my favorite was “South African Tree Forts” registering a click for, again, a car related search query.
(Solution…Negative Keywords? Eliminate Broad Match? Depends on your situation).
June 29th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
True. I am not able to locate the farthest of relations between my keyword & the query that triggered it !
August 31st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Hey Richard, thanks for the post! I followed up with more data like this here: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/adwords-broad-session-based-match-type/12891/
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 am
It’s an outrage they don’t provide an option to turn off this broad session based query. It actually costs money and we didn’t ask Google to use those keywords.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Please help I’m seeing session based search for keywords that have been broad negitive matched. How is this possible? I have partners thinking I’m bidding on trademarks when I not. In fact I have taken the extra setup of adding the Trademarks as neg- matched as extact and broad. They show up under Search Monitor whom performs search’s for those TM every 15 minutes and I believe causing the trigging of our ads. Help!!!
September 9th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Yowch, you’re going to have to call Google on that one. I’ll ask my reps if it’s possible. Try calling 866-2-GOOGLE.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Brain, do you know when session based search went live? Two, do you have any clients getting tagged by “Search Monitor”? These guys claim to identify TM infringement. We know for a fact we are not bidding on TM of partners and have added all neg-KW as requested yet we continue to come up on Google, Yahoo. We are one of the larger players in our space., and think its because Search Monitor search’s every 15 min. This cause’s the Search Engines to use session-match to pull our ads based on other kW in the search query than the TM KW.
This will continue so you may want to keep your eye on it, for your own clients.
September 9th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Wow, this post has certainly started to liven up!
@BrianCarter Thanks for mentioning me on Search Engine Journal.
@bkv Sounds like you have a bit of a problem. As far a I’m aware negative keywords should override session based broad match so I don’t see how your ads are appearing. Can you replicate Search Monitor’s results? Can you ask them to send a screen shot of your adverts against a trademarked term?
September 9th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Brain, here’s the deal it’s not the negative KW that triggered the ad’s it’s the other kw used as modifiers that are triggering the ad’s. So, in short Adding neg-kw won’t stop it. Ex: someone types in “amazon gifts and gold”. Lets say “amazon” is neg-board matched, after some number of searches by one of these so called fraud detection systems (Search Monitor), every 15 minutes, what happens is the “session-match” kicks in and use’s the “gifts” and/or “gold” which are not neg kw and shows your ad’s. Then you are tagged as bididng on the TM “amazon” which you are not.
Interesting!! but accutually happens only because the Fraud detection software cause’s it to happen!! If you and your clients are not experincing this yet, you soon will as every advertiser moves to protect their TM since Google announced they no longer will.
The short is with the Session-match and these faulty TM detection systems we are all going to feel the pain if others are not educated!
Thanks for the forum!!
B