Woohoo! On September 9, 2021, Google announced they will be adding more keyword data to the Search Terms report!
Why should you care?
Well, back in the good ol’ days Google used to show every single search that triggered your ads in the Search Terms report. That meant you could comb through the list to find additional keyword opportunities and more importantly, find irrelevant or non-converting keywords to add as negatives in your campaigns. Adding negatives to campaigns can easily save you thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars in wasted ad budget each year.
Then Google abruptly removed a large chunk of the keywords in this report in an attempt to protect user privacy.
Less keyword data meant advertisers were flying blind. Well, maybe not totally blind, but we could now only read the first row on an eye test chart…
As I mentioned above, reviewing the Search terms report and adding negatives was a critical part of Google Ads management that could save a lot of money each year. Fewer keywords in the report effectively meant more wasted ad spend.
The good news is that as of September 9, Google is now unveiling more of the hidden keywords in their Search Terms report. More keyword data means less wasted money!
So if you’re advertising in Google Ads, head on over to the Search Terms report and see if you can find irrelevant or non-converting searches that should be added as negative keywords in your account. Do it now while it’s fresh in your mind!
And while you’re there, I recommend you download all of your historical search terms data. In that same announcement, Google announced, “historical query data in your account that was collected prior to September 1, 2020 and doesn’t meet the current thresholds for the search terms report will be available in your reporting until February 1, 2022.” In other words, after February 1, you will no longer be able to access the historical keyword data that doesn’t meet their privacy thresholds.
