Running successful Google Ads campaigns begins with one key element: effective keyword research. Without the right keywords, your ads may not appear when potential customers search for products like yours. This is where Google Ads Keyword Planner comes in.
Google Ads Keyword Planner is an essential tool for optimizing search campaigns. It helps you discover new keywords, evaluate their search volume, and assess the cost of targeting them.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to use Google Ads Keyword Planner, from setting up your account to creating a well-organized keyword plan, ensuring that your campaigns are on track for maximum performance.
What is Google Ads Keyword Planner?
Google Ads Keyword Planner is a free tool provided by Google Ads that helps businesses research keywords for their search campaigns. It's designed to assist you in discovering relevant keywords, estimating their search volume, and understanding the cost of targeting them. This tool is an essential part of your Google Ads toolkit and can significantly improve the performance of your search campaigns.
Purpose
The primary purpose of Google Ads Keyword Planner is to help you identify and select the keywords most likely to drive traffic and conversions. By researching relevant keywords, you can create a targeted campaign that meets the needs of your audience and optimizes your advertising spend.
Benefits of Using Google Ads Keyword Planner
Google Ads Keyword Planner offers several advantages to help you build effective and cost-efficient campaigns. Here are the key benefits:
Discover New Keywords: Find relevant keywords related to your business or products. This is especially useful when expanding into new areas or targeting a broader audience.
Estimate Monthly Searches: Gain insights into how often people search for specific keywords each month. This can help you prioritize which keywords to target based on their search volume.
Determine Cost: Estimate the cost of targeting a particular keyword. Keyword Planner provides average cost-per-click (CPC) estimates, helping you manage your budget more effectively.
Organize Keywords: Categorize your keywords into relevant groups based on your business offerings. This helps create ad groups that align with specific products, making your campaigns more focused and targeted.
Create New Campaigns: Use the keyword plan to create campaigns with well-researched keywords. This ensures that your campaigns are rooted in data-driven decisions, increasing their chances of success.
Now that you understand the basics of Google Ads Keyword Planner, let’s dive deeper into effectively using the tool to enhance your campaign performance.
How to Use Google Ads Keyword Planner
Google Ads Keyword Planner is essential for keyword research, campaign optimization, and budget management. This section will guide you through the tool's key steps, from accessing the platform to refining your keyword list for maximum campaign success.
Step 1: Access Google Ads Keyword Planner
To get started with Google Ads Keyword Planner, you must ensure that your Google Ads account is properly set up and that billing information is added. Once you're ready, follow these steps to access the tool:
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Set Up Your Google Ads Account: Ensure that your Google Ads account is fully set up and that you've entered your billing information. This is required to access basic features, including Keyword Planner.
Accessing the Keyword Planner:
In your Google Ads account, click on the Tools icon in the top menu (usually represented by a wrench symbol).
Under the Planning section, select Keyword Planner from the drop-down options.
Expert Mode: To unlock the full set of features and tools in Keyword Planner, make sure you’re in Expert Mode. This mode gives you access to all the functions of Keyword Planner, unlike the default Smart Mode, which has more limitations.
Choose Your Option: Once you have accessed Keyword Planner, you can choose between two options:
Discover new keywords: Use this option to find new keyword ideas by entering relevant words or a website.
Get search volume and forecasts: Use this option if you have a list of existing keywords and want their search volume and performance forecasts.
Once you're set up and comfortable navigating the tool, you'll be ready to research keywords and plan your campaigns.
Step 2: Creating a Keyword Plan Using Google Ads Keyword Planner
Google Ads Keyword Planner provides a straightforward process to help you discover relevant keywords and build a solid keyword plan for your campaigns. Here's how to get started:
Option 1: Discover New Keywords
To generate new keyword ideas, you can use two main methods:
Start with Keywords:
Type in words related to your business or products. These can be broad terms or more specific phrases describing your offer. For example, if you sell “running shoes,” entering that term will generate related keywords, such as "athletic footwear" or "best running shoes."
Start with a Website:
Enter a URL—either from your site or a competitor's site—and Google will pull keywords related to that website’s content. This method can provide fresh keyword ideas based on the existing content from the specified website. It’s especially useful when you want to explore a competitor's keywords in your market.
Option 2: Get Search Volume and Forecasts
If you already have a list of keywords, you can upload them directly into Keyword Planner to get detailed performance estimates. These include data on:
Clicks
Impressions
Conversions
Suggested bids for each keyword
This helps you assess which keywords are worth targeting and how they’ll likely perform based on your campaign’s budget and bidding strategy.
Adding Keywords to Your Plan
Once you've generated your keyword ideas, follow these steps to organize and add them to your plan:
Select Relevant Keywords: Go through the list of suggestions and select the keywords most relevant to your business. Click the checkbox next to each keyword you want to include.
Save Keywords to Your Plan: After selecting the keywords, you can save them to your plan. You can either:
Add them to existing ad groups within your campaigns.
Or, save them as “Saved Keywords” for future use and organization.
This data helps you decide which keywords to prioritize in your campaigns, ensuring you target the right terms for optimal results.
Step 3: Editing and Refining Your Keyword List
Once you’ve generated a list of keyword ideas, it’s time to refine and organize them for maximum effectiveness in your campaigns. Refining your keyword list ensures that you’re targeting the most relevant and high-performing terms, helping to optimize your ad spend.
Refining Keyword Ideas
Google Ads Keyword Planner provides several tools to help you narrow down and refine your keyword list:
Filters: Use filters to fine-tune your results based on specific criteria, such as:
Competition: Filter keywords based on their level of competition (low, medium, or high). This allows you to find keywords within your budget and offers a good chance of ranking.
Keyword Text: Filter keywords based on specific words or phrases critical to your business. This helps to ensure that you are targeting exactly what’s relevant.
Impression Share: Filter keywords based on their impression share, which shows how often an ad is shown for the keyword in relation to the total number of times it could have been shown.
These filters help you focus on your campaigns' most valuable keywords, allowing for better targeting and a higher return on investment (ROI).
Refining by Category
Keyword Planner lets you categorize keywords based on themes or products. This categorization helps you organize your keywords to align with your business offerings. For example:
Product Categories: If you sell shoes, you can organize keywords into categories like “running shoes,” “athletic shoes,” and “women’s shoes.”
This method makes it easier to create highly targeted ad groups and campaigns, ensuring relevance to your audience.
Organizing into Ad Groups
Once you’ve refined your keyword list, it’s time to organize your keywords into ad groups for effective targeting. Here are the best practices for organizing your keywords:
Group Similar Keywords Together: Place closely related keywords under the same ad group. For instance, if you’re selling shoes, an ad group for “running shoes” would only contain keywords related to running, such as “best running shoes,” “running shoes for women,” and “running sneakers.”
Keep Ad Groups Focused: Avoid creating overly broad ad groups. A focused ad group with tightly related keywords will improve your Quality Score, leading to better Ad Rank and lower costs.
Avoid Keyword Cannibalization: Ensure that your ad groups don’t overlap with keywords targeting similar terms. Having competing keywords within the same campaign could negatively impact the performance of your ads.
Organizing your keywords into relevant ad groups ensures that your ads are shown to the right audience at the right time, with a higher likelihood of conversion.
Step 4: Analyzing Keyword Performance Forecasts
Once you've selected your keywords, it's essential to forecast how well they will perform in your campaigns. Google Ads Keyword Planner provides valuable insights into how keywords will perform based on your chosen budget and bidding strategy.
Understanding Keyword Forecasts
Keyword forecasts show you important metrics, such as clicks, impressions, and conversions for your selected keywords. These estimates are based on the projected spend, which helps you gauge the potential of each keyword in your campaign.
Forecast Performance: Displays estimated clicks, impressions, and conversions that could be generated based on your budget.
Adjust Your Budget and Bids: Fine-tune your daily budget and bidding strategy to optimize keyword performance based on forecast data.
Example: For instance, you might forecast the performance of a set of keywords with a $50 daily budget. The forecast will estimate how many clicks and conversions you could expect within that budget.
Detailed Keyword Forecasting
Once you have your forecasts, it’s essential to interpret these estimates to determine the best-performing keywords. Understanding these forecasts helps you optimize your keyword list by focusing on high-potential keywords.
Optimize Keywords: Use the forecast data to identify which keywords will likely generate the best ad spend results.
Maximize Conversions: Focus on keywords with a higher estimated conversion rate to maximize your ROAS.
With this insight into forecasting, you're now prepared to organize your keywords and prepare for a successful campaign.
Let’s look at the best practices for using the Google Ads keyword planner.
Best Practices for Using Google Ads Keyword Planner
To get the most out of Google Ads Keyword Planner, applying a few best practices can significantly improve your keyword strategy and ensure that your campaigns are efficient and effective.
Use Quality Keywords Over Quantity
Rather than focusing on a large volume of keywords, prioritize quality over quantity. Choose highly relevant keywords to your business or products. Quality keywords will lead to more targeted traffic and a better return on ad spend (ROAS).
Targeted Approach: Select keywords that align closely with your offerings.
Better Results: Quality keywords often lead to higher conversion rates and more relevant clicks.
Think Like Your Customers
When doing keyword research, always put yourself in the shoes of your target customers. Think about how they would search for products similar to yours and use those insights to guide your keyword selection.
Customer-Centric Keywords: Identify keywords that match user intent.
Search Behavior: Consider what phrases or questions customers might type when looking for your products.
Use Filters for Location and Language
Google Ads Keyword Planner allows you to filter keyword ideas based on specific geographic locations or languages. This can be extremely helpful, especially for businesses that want to target particular markets or regional areas.
Geographic Targeting: Customize keywords based on the geographic location of your audience to ensure relevance.
Language Targeting: Adjust keyword targeting based on the language preferences of your target market.
Consider Keyword Competition
Keyword competition can have a big impact on your bidding strategy. Filter keywords by their competition level (low, medium, high) to help you find keywords that fit within your budget and have the potential to perform well in your campaign.
Low Competition Keywords: These can often be more cost-effective, allowing you to capture traffic without overspending.
High-Competition Keywords: While they can drive more traffic, they may also come with higher costs, so it’s important to balance them with more affordable keywords.
As you implement these best practices in Google Ads Keyword Planner, you'll be well-equipped to build effective keyword strategies and improve your campaign performance.
Now that we've covered the essential steps and tips for using this powerful tool, let's wrap up with a quick overview of how it all ties together for your ad campaigns.
Conclusion
We’ve covered everything you need to know about Google Ads Keyword Planner—from discovering and refining keywords to understanding performance forecasts. With the right approach, this tool becomes your go-to resource for building campaigns that attract the right audience and drive results.
For businesses that want to turn keyword insights into high-performing campaigns, having the right partner can make all the difference. GoMarble combines expert marketers with powerful AI tools to help brands build profitable, conversion-focused campaigns around them.
Want smarter keyword strategies and better results from Google Ads? Book a call with GoMarble and let’s get started.