Google could block paid search keyword data in Adwords

Google-adwords-logo-not-provided-350

We learn from various sources that Google could block paid search keyword data in Adwords. It’s a tsunami in the SEM/PPC marketing world.

The news seems to have first been released by  A.J. Ghergich on his site. Keyword data from paid search could go the way of organic search and becoming ‘not provided.’

“not provided”

“not provided” is the term you can see in Google Analytics since 2013 when Google started encryption in https. The SEO world was shaken by this news. But Adwords still provide the search keyword data.

Search terms queries are very important in SEO/SEM in order to understand why users are coming on your website, and precisely which queries they type to find us. It’s the base of an account optimization in Adwords. It’s an unvaluable resources to make a better Adwords campaign.

It’s a bit weird as it goes against all the Google best practises to optimze an Adwords account. To learn more about what want and do your visitors is your priority. It’s the base of the coherency of the triptych “Keyword – Ads – Landing pages”. It’s the most effective point to enhance the conversion funnel of your campaign.

Search terms queries still available in Adwords

According to sources, we will still be able to see the precise keyword from our visitors in Adwords. The change will only affect 3rd parties which were using these data. That’s a good news if confirmed.

Reports within Adwords will stay unchanged. But Google Analytics reports (for example) will now show “not provided” in place of the precise search terms.

We can question the benefit to link Analytics and Adwords if Google starts to limit the data exchange between the two tools.

Conclusion

For the moment, it’s urgent to wait for the google official annoucement. This could affect a large part of the Adwords ecosystem and could change the way we all work.

EDIT 10/04/2014

Google communicates today with a post to clarify the situation about the access to search term reports in Adwords and the 3rd parties. It’s confirmed that search terms reports, previously know as “search query performance report” will still be available in Adwords.

The AdWords search terms report (previously known as the search query performance report) lets you see search queries that generated ad clicks along with key performance data. And the Search Queries report available in Google Webmaster Tools provides aggregate information about the top 2000 queries, each day, that generated organic clicks.

http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.fr/2014/04/security-enhancements-for-search-users.html

They add a best practice for optimizing the landing page: to use the keyword that generated the ad click rather than the query itself.

Read more at http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-protect-paid-search-keyword-data-making-provided/99277/#ubRC9E2LQeuMUcgS.99

Best advices for growth hacking

growth hacking curve

At SunnyReports, we are like any other bootstrapped start-up : we are two founders with a lot of people giving us their best advice and some of their time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wives, our friends and also all those people we barely know.

We soon found out (as you most surely already did) that one of the most difficult challenge of our start-up adventure is to promote our amazing product. We already have users, subscribers, but we need more, actually a lot more: we need to go growth hacking.

Growth hacking

A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth. Is positioning important? Only if a case can be made that it is important for driving sustainable growth.
Source: Sean Ellis’ blog

There is so much content (articles, posts, videos) for growth hacking and marketing that you could spend your whole days on it doing nothing else while you have a lot of other things to do. Efficiency is the way to success. Don’t forget: execution matters. Read More