11 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
11 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Is Adwords keyword tool usually this far out?

by sentient
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Adwords keyword tool gave me an exact match total of 18,500 per month for a specific keyword.

I wanted to confirm this, so ran an ad for 24 hours pointing to Wikipedia.

It got over 1500 impressions.

Based on a 30 day month, this works out at 39,000 searches per month, more than double the adwords estimate.

Even based on a 20 day month (i.e. taking out weekends as there are less searches then) this works out at 26,500 searches per month.

I know I only ran over 24 hours, and the searches could fluctuate, but this seems to be well out.

If it's true, I'm obviously delighted!
#adwords #keyword #tool
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    You have to understand what you are looking at. The AdWords tool is giving you the average monthly search volume for the past 12 months. If it is a new product, nich, hot news item, etc., there might have been 50,000 searches for it last month, but 8 months ago there might have been 200. That is going to screw with the numbers.

    Also, you only ran a test for 24 hours. Search volume is going to fluctuate a bit month to month, and definitely day to day.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8152477].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author sentient
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      You have to understand what you are looking at. The AdWords tool is giving you the average monthly search volume for the past 12 months. If it is a new product, nich, hot news item, etc., there might have been 50,000 searches for it last month, but 8 months ago there might have been 200. That is going to screw with the numbers.

      Also, you only ran a test for 24 hours. Search volume is going to fluctuate a bit month to month, and definitely day to day.

      Yeah, that's what I thought, but the google trends, or insight or whatever it's called now showed a fairly level search history over the past year. I can't see any reason why it should be getting such an increase now, as it's not a specific product, trend etc.

      It possibly is down to the short time I did the test, although that has made me confident enough to know that there is a very good chance it is getting at least the 18,500 that the keyword tool stated.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8152646].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author schleckel
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      You have to understand what you are looking at. The AdWords tool is giving you the average monthly search volume for the past 12 months.
      Actually the Adwords tool only provides statistics for the last 3 months...
      Signature

      Find a danish plumber here: håndværker københavn

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8152753].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by schleckel View Post

        Actually the Adwords tool only provides statistics for the last 3 months...
        No it's 12 months. Straight from the tool itself...

        Local monthly searches show the number of searches for a keyword that meet your criteria.

        About the number: We average the number of searches over 12 months for each keyword in the locations and devices that you selected.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8153426].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Isn't 1500 for 30 days like um....45,000?

    Doesn't anybody realize that exact match search is kind of useless for
    overall ad shows?

    Why on earth would anyone waste some ad on wikipedia....unless I
    read that wrong...

    Someone needs to do some research on using adwords.

    Paul
    Signature

    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8153371].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author sentient
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      Isn't 1500 for 30 days like um....45,000?

      Doesn't anybody realize that exact match search is kind of useless for
      overall ad shows?

      Why on earth would anyone waste some ad on wikipedia....unless I
      read that wrong...

      Someone needs to do some research on using adwords.

      Paul
      Ha, yes, my maths was a little out there.

      Care to explain why exact match is useless for overall ad shows? No one else seems to have picked up on this fact yet.

      Reason I sent it to Wikipedia is because I don't have a landing page of my own, and wanted to run a quick test to see how many searches/impressions I got in 24 hours. Reason I sent it to Wikipedia is because I had to send it somewhere.

      This wasn't a test for adwords, this was a test to find out true search results.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8153711].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author thecableguy
    Yeah the 12 month average skews the numbers you see in your browser. For evergreen keywords it's not that big of a deal, but for fads or hot trends it can make a major difference.

    For instance when it's rising the numbers you see will be lower than the actual numbers. Which isn't a bad thing because you can spot it before others become aware. But when it's declining the numbers in your browser will be higher, sometimes significantly which often leads to targeting the wrong keywords.

    To view the actual monthly search numbers you'll probably have to enable it manually prior to downloading the csv file. Click on "Columns" and make sure "Local Search Trends" is checked. Then try using something like "superbowl tickets 2013" and you'll see the browser numbers and actual monthly searches are REALLY skewed.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8153882].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi sentient,

    Your post did not provide enough information to pinpoint the exact reason you are seeing a difference, however I will try to provide answers that help clarify the data and improve your testing methods.

    First, I did not see where you mentioned certain specifics in how you setup the AdWords ad test:
    • What keyword match type did you use for the keyword in your ad group? The keyword match type determines which keyword, or group of keywords, will trigger ad impressions. I assume you used exact match only, but did not see that indicated in your post.
    • Did you turn off the AdWords stemming feature (close variants) in the advanced settings of the campaign? If you failed to perform this step then your ad will trigger impressions for a group of keywords, not just the keyword you were targeting, even if you had included a single exact match keyword. This would, in part, account for a higher level of impressions than you had expected to receive.
    • Was your campaign budget unlimited? If not, that may have reduced impressions.
    • Did you bid high enough to have a first page listing for every possible impression? If your average ad position was not at or near 1.0 then the actual potential impressions may have been greater than what was recorded for your ad. Check the impression share stats to confirm that it was 100%.


    Now, lets talk about the AdWords Keyword Tool. This tool reports actual data, not an estimate as you seem to have implied. As always, past performance does not reliably predict future performance.

    As others on this thread have pointed out, a 24 hour test cannot give you enough data to extrapolate an accurate estimate of monthly traffic. Most keyword traffic will vary a great deal based on the day of the week, and sometime the day of the month. Anything less than a 2 week test would be highly unreliable.

    Hopefully this may give some clues as to why your test had a greater than expected variance for the data reported by the AdWords Keyword Tool.
    Signature

    * Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management |
    *     Don Burk Advertising & Marketing - www.donburk.com

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8154009].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sentient
    Hi dburk

    That's really helpful thank you.

    I used exact match, didn't turn off variant ( I didn't realise this was necessary if I'd used exact match, useful lesson!), not unlimited but didn't get close to the budget I set each day and I think average position was 1.1 (there are not a lot of ads appearing for this).

    Completely agree that 24 hours is not enough for a full test, I was just wanting to confirm that the google keyword tool was relatively accurate, as it is a very low competition keyword. Doesn't harm to double check.

    But the points you make certainly explain the discrepancies.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8154220].message }}

Trending Topics