Search Terms Vs Keywords: Google Ads to Start Hiding Some Search Query Data

While Google offers a number of different services and caters to a wide variety of users and audiences, the company’s number one priority has always been, and will always be, its search engine users.

To ensure an excellent experience for its search engine users, Google routinely updates its services. In the past, the majority of these changes focused on improving the search results and adding more features to connect search users with the most relevant information as quickly as possible.

However, in response to the growing concerns that users have regarding their privacy and personal data, recent changes to the search engine have focused on increasing transparency of how data is used and restricting how much access advertisers and site owners have to said data.

Google’s newest change affects the search terms report that is available to advertisers using the Google Ads platform. Google has removed visibility on roughly 20% of search terms. The update is already stirring a lot of questions and concerns from the advertising community.

This discussion will focus on shedding some light on this latest Google search term update and answering some of these key questions.

Let’s begin.

Search Terms Vs Keywords

Before getting into the meat of the topic, it’s important to first discuss what’s being talked about. More specifically, you need to understand the difference between search terms and keywords in order to appreciate the impact and purpose behind this update.

• Search terms are the exact words and phrases that search users enter into the Google search box.
• Keywords, on the other hand, are the words and phrases that an advertiser chooses to target with their ads.

When an advertiser’s selected keywords align with some or all (depending on the advertiser’s selected keyword match type) of a Google user’s search terms, then the ad will appear on the SERPs. Thus, it is crucial for advertisers to understand what Google users are searching so that they can properly strategize their keyword targets.

This is where the search terms report comes in handy because it displays the actual user searches that have triggered the advertiser’s paid messages. This leads to valuable insight into what exactly people are searching, as well as greater clarity into the relationship between search terms, keywords, and match types.

What Is The Google Ads Update For Google Search Terms?

With the basics out of the way, it’s time to get to the topic at hand: what is this update to Google Search Terms and what does it mean for PPC advertisers and their campaigns?

Google recently sent a notification to advertisers that the search terms report would only reflect terms that had a “significant number of users.” How exactly Google defines “a significant number of users” is uncertain.

Additionally, Google made it clear that the purpose for this change is to further protect search user data and “maintain standards of privacy.”

How Does This Update Affect Advertisers?

Whether or not Google will ever add any clarity to how it determines which terms have a significant number of users or not remains to be seen. What is clear that advertisers are about to lose data on a significant number of search terms. Again, this is, at a minimum, 20% of triggered search terms.

In one case, a company looked at the before and after effect of the change in terms of ad spend and clicks. They discovered that they lost data on search terms using 28% of their budget and causing roughly 20% of their clicks.

To put this in perspective:

• If this company spends $100,000 on their campaigns, they only receive search term data for $72,000 of their spending.
• If this company receives 100,000 clicks, they only receive search term data for roughly 80% of those clicks.

These are some serious numbers and reason enough for any advertiser to be concerned.

Why Is Google Making This Change Now?

This is not exactly a “new” change because Google has been limiting the visibility of search terms for nearly a decade. In 2011, Google caused a stir when they limited data on search terms creating organic traffic. The change upset site owners because this data remained available to advertisers.

The interesting part of this change is that it does impact advertisers. Traditionally, advertisers felt that, because they pay for clicks, they should have access to more data that helps them optimize their results.

So far, Google has been silent on any questions regarding why they’ve decided to push this update now. The most obvious reason would be that this is simply in response to the growing concerns regarding data privacy.

There are more regulations and antitrust concerns for companies dealing with sensitive, personally identifiable information and Google is arguably the company with the most user information in its coffers.

The reason that this is the most likely answer to the “why now” question is that Google’s advertising platform has already been suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite their best efforts to bring more e-commerce businesses to the Google Ads platform, Google experienced a 10% drop in the ad service.

It’s unlikely that they would want to “rock the boat” any further for advertisers unless they had the best interest of its search users at heart or felt pressures from new regulations.

Moving Away From Keywords

Another potential reason for Google’s shift in search terms reports visibility is that Google Ads is moving away from keywords altogether. Historically, keywords have been an advertiser’s bread and butter. That’s why Google Ads was originally known as “Adwords.”

This name-change signaled a larger shift away from keyword targeting and towards audience targeting. Since then, Google has steadily rolled out a number of new features and campaign types that have focused on targeting people, instead of keywords. Thus, this may be a move to nudge advertisers away from keywords and to rely more on algorithms and machine learning.

The biggest issue is that Google needs more advertisers to trust non-keyword focused features. Yet, the proof of how effective these features are lies in the search terms reports!

Wrap Up

The future looks very unsettling for advertisers. With the crucial 4th quarter about to begin and many businesses still feeling the crippling effect of the pandemic, it’s not the best time to suddenly find out that you’re going to have to navigate with less visibility into how effective your PPC campaigns are operating.

That said, the future is still uncertain and there may be more to come regarding search terms vs keywords and this shift towards a new audience-focused advertising approach.