Every Pay Per Click advertiser is aware of the need to be creative when compiling a list of positive keywords essential to drive a PPC campaign; however some of the most experienced operators have only limited knowledge of the negative keyword facility.
Strangely many more choose not to investigate the benefits that creating negatives provides.
Why is that the case? The answer is apathy, simply a reluctance to commit time and effort.
The Negative keyword facility exists to enable PPC advertisers to restrict keywords deemed irrelevant to their business.
Simple isn't it? A negative keyword provides a benefit for a business, just like a positive keyword does.
For some companies who are generating traffic at strong levels, there is a view that taking the time out to create negative keywords is considered unimportant and unnecessary.
Their traffic will undoubtedly provide productive enquiries but nevertheless will also contain volumes of enquiries that are completely irrelevant to their business.
Estimates vary about how many enquiries turn out to be irrelevant to a business.
Agencies indicate that a conservative level of 20% result in unwanted enquiries, it is obvious that applying negative keywords is beneficial to secure a sizable cost saving.
Irrespective of the marketing spend a company invests in Pay Per Click, a healthy saving can be made by any size of operator.
That should be sufficient motivation to ensure every PPC campaign contains a set of negative keywords.
Alternatively as these unwanted enquiries are contained within a PPC campaign spending cap, removing them will release more of the cap to pursue productive enquiries.
Every unwanted or irrelevant enquiry going through to a business via a Pay Per Click campaign costs the same money as a good positive enquiry.
Why would any business wish to continue to receive irrelevant leads, which have incurred a cost and wasted money? Eliminating unwanted enquiries enables the advertiser to make a financial saving or alternatively maintain spend levels much more focused on positive enquiries.
It is critical to make every keyword count in a positive manner for a PPC campaign, a key set of positive keywords will drive through good enquiries but just as important is the compilation of a negative set to filter and block out time wasting enquiries.
Having deflected unwanted enquiries the net result is improved customer targeting and a flow of potential customers.
Is it expensive to set up a negative keyword list? In financial terms, there is no cost involved, merely time.
This eliminates cost as a reason to be indifferent towards negative keywords.
Is it difficult to set up a negative list? Yes and no, some focused thought is required, however it has to be acknowledged that considerable concentrated time and effort is required.
The compilation of a negative set does demand extensive time and manual input.
To start the process companies use knowledge of their own business to set out some obvious keywords, supplemented by obtaining generic terms from one of the many keyword tools available on the market.
A Pay Per Click campaign must include negative keywords, this is a principal requirement to stop unwanted enquiries to achieve a successful and profitable campaign.
Businesses can create their own negative keyword set or assess the benefits that an automated keyword capture system can bring.
These systems eradicate the guesswork and remove hard graft from the task.
One such product is KeywordTerminator.
There can be only one conclusion.
Find the time to prepare a set of negative keywords to complement positive keywords.
The resultant well balanced PPC campaign will secure the financial and marketing benefits available.