• How To Create a Negative Keyword List
• Where Do You Set AdWords Match Types?
• Can You Make Sense Of Match Types?
• You Can't Control the Conversation, But You CAN Change it!

Diana,

Although your list is extensive and important, I think you are missing the most important way to save money with paid ad campaigns:

Use negative keywords

- John W. Ellis

Posted by: John W. Ellis on December 3, 2008

John,

You're absolutely right. I don't know how I missed that one. Thanks for the tip!!

:-)
Diana

Posted by: Diana on December 3, 2008

I'm going to out on a limb here and say #11 is: use negative keywords:)

By the way here is a great post on negatives: 200+ negative keywords for B2B campaigns in case you need some helpful research for your follow up post!

Posted by: Internet Marketing Consultant on December 8, 2008

Yup, I'd seen Andy Komack's 200+ negatives ... have it bookmarked in delicious ...
:-)

Posted by: Diana on December 8, 2008

Hi Diana, I understood that Your concentration is only on negative keywords. May be you can make bid at low cost but what about the sale? You can go for negative keywords which can make you a good sale.

Posted by: Picky Boot on December 11, 2008

Hi Pinky -
The focus on this post as well as the follow up post How To Create A Negative Keyword List, has been on negative keywords. However my focus and concentrated effort is to provide my clients with the best ROI possible for their accounts.

I don't bid or pay for negative keywords, that's not what they do. Negative keywords prevent my ads from displaying when the negative term is used in the search query. In that way, I am not paying for a click for "plastic tableware" when I am advertising "plastic cards."

Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

Posted by: Diana on December 11, 2008

My best way to save money with PPC is using exact matches only. I have more control like that rather that using negative keywords. Or both if necessary but I rarely need to use negative keywords combined with exact match.
Sam

Posted by: Sam Nichols on January 11, 2009

Hi Diana,

You are definitely very clear about the use of negative keywords to help reduce PPC costs, and I agree. One thing I might add to your list as maybe a 10a is to include negatives SITES when advertising on the content network. Running a regular placement performance report can reveal which sites are just yield impressions(hurting CTR) and which sites are sending worthless clicks(usually a ridiculous CTR).

But, still negative at least ... :)

adwords management

Posted by: Will on January 13, 2009

You are very right. Neglect of Negative keywords are what kills many advertiser's ppc campaigns. As a matter of fact, I even go as far to recommend that some advertisers should not use broad match keywords at first. It is simply amazing how much money can be lost if you do not use negative keywords. I agree with Diana, "use negative keywords!"

Posted by: ppc management on June 1, 2009