Lots of people write about trimming your keywords in order to reduce spending and increase profit. As good and easy as that sounds, I haven't read many methodologies on how to do it. E-books I've read and I'm sure you've read mention "trimming the fat" or "tweaking your campaign," but rarely have I seen a detailed description.I know of a few myself, which I'll talk about here but what I'm more interested in is hearing about how other people trim their keywords and what has worked the best for them. So as I find new methods that people use, I'll post them here.

Method #1 - Deleting Keywords

Each time I talk to people about how they trim their keywords, they usually don't think twice before saying they just delete the ones that don't convert or those that generate a low CTR (Click-Through Ratio) after about a week to a month. While this might work initially, it does two things:

1. Removes the chance to see whether those deleted keywords will convert in the future or with some adjusting.
2. Sets your profit-bearing keywords in stone and they might not convert forever.

This is bad for anyone who wants to scale their business in the future. The logic is sound -- better CTR leads to lower bids and more clicks and therefore, more profit. But an alternative method is to create a different ad group to hold those keywords that you would've deleted. We'll talk more about that in the next method.

Method #2 - Creating Ad Groups For Failing Keywords

Right off the bat, this system makes more sense. This way, you aren't removing your potential for profit-generating keywords. Instead, you can place your keywords with a low CTR or those that don't convert well into one or more separate ad groups where you can try different ad copies and bid amounts to test whether the keywords work.

The drawback to this method is that you might end up keeping keywords that will eat your profit up and never convert. Additionally, keeping keywords that generate a lower CTR will decrease the overall CTR of your campaign and therefore, decrease your QS (quality scores). On Google AdWords, the QS of one ad group in a campaign apparently affects those ad groups in the same campaign (so I've read, correct me if I'm wrong). A solution to this might be placing those keywords in another ad group in another campaign and decreasing their bids down to the minimums. You might also put a lower spending limit on that campaign in order to prevent it from eating up your profits.

Method #3 - Keyword Graduation

So far, this is the best method I've heard of and used. It involves some work in order to maintain properly but the idea is simple and effective.

1. Create three campaigns (Level 1, Level 2, Level 3)
2. Start all ad groups off on Level 1 with your bids set large enough to generate clicks but not big enough to lead to profit consumption
3. As keywords begin to convert, copy their ad groups (just the ads) to Level 2 and move those keywords that convert. In those ad groups, set the maximum bids to a few more cents than you had them set for at Level 1.
4. As Level 2 keywords continue to convert, monitor their CTR. As CTR stays above 1%, begin duplicating the process for Level 3 (so that your top converting keywords with the highest CTR end up at the top): copy the ad groups (just the ads) to Level 3 and move those keywords that continue to convert with a high CTR as well.
5. As time passes, you'll monitor all three groups for these changes. Keywords from Level 3 might begin to drag the CTR of their ad groups down and you'll want to move these into Level 2 for adjustment. Keywords from Level 2 might begin to generate a higher CTR and you'll want to move them up to Level 3. Those keywords that stop converting altogether, you'll want to move down to Level 1 and start the process all over again.
6. Additionally, you can maximize profit by putting a step-system on campaign budgets for all three levels. For example, you might make the daily budget for the Level 1 Campaign set to $100, Level 2 to $1000 and Level 3 to no budget at all. This way, your Level 1 keywords will never get out of hand on a daily basis, your Level 2 will have room to generate profits but won't get out of hand if things go south and Level 3 has as much room to grow as it needs.

As you can see, it does require some seriously involved work but you'll end up with an amazingly efficient Level 3 group and an official process for "trimming the fat" and "tweaking" your keywords and ad copies.

Conclusion

Although I'm sure there are many other methods that work, these are the methods I've heard of/read about and had the chance to test on my own. As I mentioned, if I hear about additional methods, I will place them here so check back every now and then if you're interested in maximizing your profit.

Here's to millions.

Scott

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, How-To, Keyword Trimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.