Can You Achieve PPC Greatness With Weird Search Queries?

Writing by Pay Per Click Journal on Saturday, April 11, 2009 Comments (2)

This is no joke. Or if it is, the joke is on us, not you. But Rob Garner at MediaPost wrote a stunningly funny post about weird search queries people type into their search browsers. Some of the weird searches people make online include:

Where did I put my car keys (no kidding!)

Where did I put my glasses?

Have you seen my stapler

What is the number for 911

What is my religion

What is my name?

Why am I hot

Why am I so broke

Who stole my mojo?

The list goes on. People search for weird sht.

Garner got me thinking (I’m sad to say). Can you create pay per click campaigns around these weird search queries and actually get click throughs? I was dying to find out, so here’s what I did.

I went to Google. Signed out of my personalized search – because I didn’t want Google in on my weirdness. And started searching for some of these phrases to see what came up (Oh God! Now I’m a statistic.) Know what I found? Yes, PPC ads.

For the following search queries:

Where did I put my car keys

Where did I put my glasses

What is the number for 911

What is my name? (yes, for real)

Why am I hot

Evidently, other people were thinking the same thing I was. Weren’t they? No, not really. Upon closer examination, it appears that most of the ads that popped up for these search queries were keyed to show for a specific single word within the phrase that I used or there are actually products that have the name of that search query. For example, “Why am I so hot” returned two ads. One where the title was “How Hot Are You?” and the other where none of the search phrase was used in the ad at all. But from all appearances that ad looks to point to a dating site.

“What is my name?” returned one ad for Ask.com. The ad’s title was “What Is My Name?” Now that’s weird.

There is actually a book titled “What Is The Number For 911?” The sole ad for that search query leads to Amazon books. Ditto for “Where did I put my glasses?”

And what about “Where did I put my car keys?” The key phrase is “car keys” and there were two ads.*

So what’s the lesson to be learned here?

If you’re going to target long tail key phrases that have an element of weirdness to them then be sure that

Perform a search to see what comes up and use the negative keyword filter if necessary to prevent your ad from returning for search queries that will cost you money with no promise of return

If your search phrase is truly weird, make sure that you have a product with that title specifically and optimize your landing page for it

If your weird phrase uses a common key phrase that people will search for, decide whether you want your ad to show for that key phrase and if so use the appropriate match type in your keyword targeting for that ad campaign

Go to great pains to make your ad relevant to search queries and don’t be afraid to think outside of the box

Bottom line: It’s OK to be weird. Just do it on purpose and target your keywords effectively.

Comments (2) Category: PPC Opportunities

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2 Comments

Comment by Rob Garner

Made Saturday, 11 of April , 2009 at 12:48 pm

Nick,

Thanks for the kind words. But why so sad to say?

No joke though – these searches turned up in the Google keyword tool (that is, unless Google has a really good sense of humor, and is faking the terms). I still wish they would rig up the Monty Python search with a “did you mean African, or European”?

It does seem that these type of phrases could be used very creatively for the right campaign.

Rob Garner

Comment by Leo Vidal

Made Wednesday, 15 of April , 2009 at 7:51 am

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of really weird searches going on every day, but many are not fit for a family audience. This goes to the deeper point of what searches — the words used — tell us about the psychological state of the searcher. Marketing means getting into the head of the buyer which is a matter of psychographics instead of demographics. That’s why what you call weird may actually be the norm in come cases. People often write whatever comes out of their head without filtering, and that is more interesting. Like using search engine word-phrasing as a type of Rorschach test. Maybe it gets to deeper motivations that can predict consumer behavior. Weird is both interesting and useful, IMHO.

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