5 Ways B2B Technology Companies Can Build PPC Negative Keyword Lists

Running a successful PPC campaign for a B2B technology company goes beyond coming up with a robust set of keywords to bid on. With search queries from potential customers changing at such a fast pace in the industry, it is essential to not only determine when an ad should appear, but also when it shouldn’t.

This is where highly targeted negative keyword lists come into play.

Negative keywords are words and phrases that shouldn’t be associated with a company’s products and services. When negative keywords are added to a PPC campaign, ads will not be served if those words are part of the user’s search query. This will save a company money by avoiding being shown on irrelevant search queries.

With Google’s most recent changes to the match types, it is now more important than ever for technology companies to have a fine tuned, carefully vetted, negative keyword list.

In this blog post, we will be discussing five tactics for developing negative keyword lists that need to be considered for B2B technology companies before launching a new PPC campaign.




Specific Industries

It is essential to understand how to align keyword targets to applicable industry verticals. More than likely, companies are not trying to target every paid search campaign to every type of industry. Understanding specific industries of focus will not only impact keyword bidding, ad copy, and landing pages, but also the negative keyword associated with ad visibility.

For example, if a management planning software vendor is focused on the financial industry, the following keywords should be negative to avoid inaccurate placement:

“Real Estate”
“Accounting”
“Marketing”
“Construction”
Current Events

Technology is always changing, especially when it comes to current events. Sudden changes in the news can affect what people are searching for. If the news topic aligns with a company’s keywords, it could lead to a huge jump in impressions, a decrease in CTR, and lots of irrelevant traffic coming to the site.

Geographic Targeting

Not all technology companies can have the widespread reach of Apple or Google. Companies start small and can expand when it’s the right move. In the meantime, it is important that users from non-serviced areas don’t see the ad.

While geographic targeting will help mitigate the amount of traffic from specific states/countries, a comprehensive negative list of states and cities of where a company doesn’t operate is important to implement as well.

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