I’ve written previously about how I like to use Google’s Ad Preview tool to monitor search engine results pages (SERPs) in different countries and regions. Checking in on the different SERPs gives me insight on how my paid search (PPC) campaigns are appearing to people in those regions. I also like to see what organic results are coming up on top outside of the US.

Well, Google’s tool hasn’t worked well lately and, to be honest, it wasn’t the easiest to use in the first place. That’s why I was excited to get an email from Dave Davis of Red Fly Marketing. His team has developed a Firefox extension that does the same thing – only it’s built right into your browser.

Stop by Dave’s site for the download and tutorial. It’s a must if you’re advertising with Google Adwords outside of your own country.

I’ve been using Google Adwords’ Search Query Report quite a bit lately. If you’re not familiar with this reporting tool, the search query report tells you what search queries prompted impressions and clicks for your ads. In many cases, I’ve been able to isolate keywords – not relevant to my ads or landing page – pulling an impression and a click on one of my ads. On the flip side – as with any good analytics report – I’ve been able to see some new terms being used by my target audience (great market research).

If you’re using any broad match keywords, running this report is a must. Remember, with broad match your word(s) can be used in any way and with any other combination of words. This report will help you find combinations that you don’t want.

Let’s take a look at where to find this valuable report. In your Adwords admin panel, click on the Reports tab.

Click on Create New Report and you’ll be taken to the Create Report page. On this page and under Report Type you can see where the Search Query Performance option resides.

Next, you’ll select your settings for the report. I prefer running the report at the Ad Group level of detail. My reason for doing this is that I like to add negative keywords at the Ad Group level. This report always isolates a few of those negative keywords for me. I also recommend using one to three month spans of time for the report. I don’t think shorter time frames give you enough trending information.

The rest of the options are to your preference and fairly similar to other reports. Now, let’s point out some of the finer points with regards to the Search Query report:

• The Search Query Performance report DOES NOT show every single query. Google lumps all queries that don’t meet their privacy and volume requirements into an ‘All other queries’ row. They assure you that queries lumped into these categories are largely insignificant to your campaign efforts.

• The Search Query Match Type column in the report is important. This column shows how close a user’s search query was (in terms of match type) to a keyword in your account.
• If the column shows “exact match” for a query, this means you already have that query in your account as an exact, phrase, or broad match keyword.
• If the column shows “broad match” or “phrase match” for a query, this means you don’t have that exact query in your account. Instead, a broad or phrase match keyword in your account is enabling your ad to be shown for this query.

Its that second option in the match type column that I think is the most important. These are some of the terms that you haven’t planned on for getting your ad an impression.

If you like the term, add it as a keyword in your ad group. I’ve found some nice long-tail keywords which I’ve put a phrase match on and been able to get clicks at a much lower cost-per-click (CPC).

If you don’t like the term and feel it is not relevant, make sure you add it as a negative keyword. Thus ensuring that you won’t get non-relevant clicks on your ads.

Here are some other posts from other blogs on the Search Query Report and related topics:

• AdWords Search Query Performance Report (New)
  
• Four Recent AdWords Changes You May Have Missed
• Google AdWords’ Search Query Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
• AdWords Search Query Reports and More
• How to Lower Your AdWords Minimum Bid (Brad’s post doesn’t focus on this report, but gives you some good reasons why you should be using it)