If you want to find out what search terms Google is hiding from you, this is the episode for you.
If you've been running Google Ads for some time, or maybe even just a short time, you've probably seen something on your search terms report called other search terms.
Although you can see a lot of the search terms, those searches that people typed into Google that you advertised on because they match to your keywords or your keywordless targeting, not all of your search terms will be visible to you. Depending on the kind of targeting you're using, sometimes as many as 90% of the searches you bought, you can't even see.
Now, to be very clear and set expectations, I don't have a secret trick to magically take away user privacy and show you the exact searches, but I do have something I've been trying recently that's been really helpful to get an idea of what those hidden searches are. So, that's what I'm here to share with you today.
I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google and now I work for you.
This is Inside Google Ads, Episode 144: Other Search Terms.
Here's what I want you to do. First, go to your search terms report. Look at the last 30 days or comparable time frame. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see total search terms and total other search terms.
Total search terms means if you were to look at all of your visible search terms, what would their impressions, cost, CPC, conversions, etc. be? And then the other search terms are all the other stuff you advertised on that you can't see.
So it's not a problem to have other search terms, to be clear. It's just the nature of doing business. But if your other search terms don't perform as well as your visible ones or maybe even they perform better, but you just want to understand what's in there, here's what you're going to do.
Get out of Google Ads and head on over to Google Search Console. This is one of the key tools that SEOs use and it can be really helpful for Google Ads as well.
Now, when you're in Search Console, you can look at the last 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, whatever you like. And you're going to add a filter for “page.” Enter the URL of the landing page that you want to analyze.
Because remember, in every ad group in Google Ads, you should have just one final URL, one landing page. So, put that landing page into Search Console so that it filters to all the organic queries that were triggered by that page.
Next, you're going to export this report to a spreadsheet. I like to use Google Sheets. You can use Excel, Numbers, whatever you like.
And then once you've done that, you want to add a column to this report for character length. Stay with me here. The formula you want to use is =LEN(A2) or wherever the search terms are. So, basically, we're using a formula to tell us how many characters are in each of the search terms.
And the reason you want to do that is because once you've done that formula and filled it down, you can now sort your spreadsheet of all these organic search terms descending by character length so that the longest queries are at the top. And guess what? The longer your query, the more unique it tends to be and the less likely it is to be visible to you in Google Ads.
However, many of those same queries that you can't see in Google Ads, you can see in Google Search Console. And so as you look through, you'll see a lot of really long, specific queries. You'll also see queries that likely surfaced in AI mode, which is really cool. Search Console gives us visibility into AI mode queries; Google Ads, for the most part, does not, at least not yet.
And so now, while I can't say for certain that these are the exact same searches that you're advertising on, they're probably highly related because these are the organic queries being triggered by that landing page. So, especially if you're using something like Broad Match or Maximize Conversions in Google Ads, these are the queries that you’re showing up on.
Okay, now that we've got this visibility into some of those other search terms, what do you actually do with this?
The first thing you might want to do is revisit your negatives. Take a look at the negative keywords you have and then do Ctrl+F or the equivalent on your computer to find where those might be in these queries. You may find that you're unintentionally negativing out some queries that you might want to advertise on.
And then conversely, you might notice a trend through a lot of these unique queries that you don't want. For example, when I ran this on my own Google Ads coaching page, I saw that a lot of the queries coming up included the word "official." Like people were searching for really specific Google Ads things and they were adding the word "official" because they want the official Google Ads Help Center.
I'm not advertising right now, but if I wanted to, I could decide, "You know what? If they're looking for the official help center, I don't want to show ads," so I could add "official" as a negative. Or conversely, I might say, "Even though I'm not the official Google Ads Help Center, someone who knows to look for that is my exact target audience. Maybe I do want to show them an ad." The point is that having this increased visibility can help you make those decisions from a negative perspective.
Another way this can be helpful is with your ad copy and your landing page copy. Maybe there are some things in there that, although you are showing up for, you didn't realize you were targeting at all. And so you may want to edit your existing ads or landing pages or create new ones to better match this intent.
Whether you choose to use this data in optimization or not, I hope this tip helps you get some better visibility into just what's hiding in those other search terms.
Before we sign off for today, three quick things for you.
1. First, eagle-eyed video observers may notice something new on my bookshelf over here. This is the Japanese edition of my bestselling book, Inside Google Ads. It is also an Amazon bestseller in Japan. So, a big thank you to Dario Zannoni and the Ayudante team for translating my book. Isn't that cool? So, you'll see that there from now on.
2. Second, you may notice I'm wearing my Toronto sweatshirt. Today is the first ever Inside Google Ads Live conference in Toronto. By the time you're watching or listening, it's too late. The conference is already underway.
3. And last, but not least, today is Anu Adegbola's birthday. You definitely know Anu from her work at Search Engine Land, on the It's New podcast, and of course her PPC Live events. So I wanted to wish Anu an extra special birthday today. Happy birthday, Anu!
Thanks for joining me for this quick tactical episode of Inside Google Ads.
I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time inside Google Ads.