Question

Major competitors are driving my campaign out with high CPC prices on broad match keywords - Almost all of them. Should I switch to exact and create a large number of variants in hopes of a lower CPC? It's a campaign for local services with about a 15 mile radius. I've tried in the past but keep getting "low search volume" Edit: The search terms that are triggering my ads are ideal, so I think I have the right negative keywords. Even high-conversion search terms arn't viable with such an extreme CPC. I'm on Bing but it's not enough

Answer 1

The low search volume notification doesn't do any harm to your account. If you see from the search terms report that there is traffic on those keywords, then its fine. If you are only servicing that 15 mile radius, without being an expert in the industry I would say that it sounds weird if there are many competitors all paying the high CPC. Can it be that there is just only 1 and you are battling for rank 1? Maybe switch to manual bidding and test out lower positions? In any case, if a search query works for you, you should add that one in exact.  

Comments

I do manual bidding. Not as seasoned as some people here but I've run the account for 3 years - things went great until the CPC skyrocketed. Keywords with a 7/10 QS that used to cost $4. 00 now cost close to $12 I know why, too. Last year ANGI inc (Homeavdisor/etc) started spending way more on digital ads, and it shows in my auction insights. They literally are paying that much. All of my competitors are massive corporations.  

---

Unfortunately I think they are paying that high. I don't see why else the CPC would show up high for broad match with a 7/10 QS, Would exact match be viable for cheaper cpc?  

---

Yes exact match will typically translate to lower CPCs. However, instead of fully replacing the broad match, you can first add exact in addition to the current keywords. I would suggest replacing all broad match to broad match modifier (with the + sign) if you haven't already. Broad can trigger on very wrong keywords and you dont see them all on search tern report (you only see ones that have clicks). In auction insight report you can validate the theory if its this specific competitor by checking their top of page rate for the periods of low cpc and high cpc.  

---

You should probably also reflect in your ad copy your differentiation from those big corporations. Convince that you are the specialist in that specific region.  

---

@wolsky327 Currently not using broad match or any modifiers, modifiers didn't do much in the past. But ty I'll try exact and phrase

Answer 2

You should almost never use broad match unless you a shit ton of money to spend, like $10k per month would be far too little for broad match.  

Comments

Agreed, currently using phrase.