The Search Query Performance report was introduced to Google AdWords show the performance data for the queries that triggered your keywords. In this blog post we will talk about what it can show you and how best to use this for your pay per click campaign.

In July 2007, Google introduced the Search Query Report as a way to show Google AdWords users which keywords people were typing into the search engine to trigger their Ads. Whilst basic at the start, this has grown into one of the most important reports in an AdWords account.

For the first time, users could understand more than what keywords have been clicked and how much it cost them. It allows them to understand the words and phrases that were actually typed into Google rather than just the keywords that were triggered. This will help you find keyword which you should be bidding on and also of great value to the keywords that you should not be bidding on.

For example. Imagine that you sell Mobile Phones and bid on the broad term for mobile phones (probably best not to do that by the way), by looking in the search query report, you can see that people entered your site using the following phrases:

• best mobile phones
• cheap mobile phones
• compare mobile phones
• free mobile phones
• cheapest mobile phones
• mobile phones deals
• contract mobile phones
• mobile phones contracts
• 2nd hand mobile phones
• Chinese mobile phones
• ebay mobile phones
• mobile contract phones

You can see that some of these phrases apply to your business, but some that don’t. You can then split these keywords into 2, positive and negative keywords:

You can then control the CPC of the positive keywords by creating their own ads and increasing the quality score or you can stop your ads from showing whenever the keywords are typed in by adding them in as negatives.

Whilst we have taken a small sample, imagine if this was set over a whole month, with thousands of keywords this can mean some massive savings for your Google AdWords account.