The Report That Shows What People Actually Type

A Window Into Real Words

Customers rarely use the words businesses use. A clinic might say consultation, and the customer types something closer to a worry. A plumber might say pipe repair, and the customer types the name of the street where the water is coming through.

Reading these phrases is a curious kind of eavesdropping. You begin to hear your customers in their own voices, and that is useful far beyond advertising. It can improve your website, your phone script and your own sense of what people want.

What Wasted Spend Looks Like

Somewhere in that list are phrases that should never have triggered an ad. Perhaps people looking for a job, or a free version, or a service you do not provide. Each click on one of these costs real money and brings nothing back.

A good team reads the list often, spots these phrases and blocks them. A weak one never looks. The difference can be large, and you can see it with your own eyes in about ten minutes.

Counting the Right Conversions

An ad account can only improve towards whatever it is told to count. If it counts the wrong thing, it will happily chase the wrong thing. Ask what is being tracked as a result.

• Phone calls from the ads, ideally ones that last long enough to be real conversations.
• Enquiry forms that were completed, not just opened.
• Bookings or purchases, where your business can record them.
• Not page views, and not clicks on their own.

If the only thing counted is clicks, the account will be very good at producing clicks.

Who Owns the Account

This question is small and consequential. The advertising account, with its history and learning, should be yours, with the agency given access to run it. If you ever leave, you take that history with you.

How Often to Look

A search terms list changes every week, because people keep typing new things. A monthly glance is better than none, and a weekly look is better still. Ask how often your agency reviews it, and what they did the last time they did.

Reading Twenty Lines

Here is a decision rule that takes ten minutes. Ask to see last month's search terms, and read twenty lines. How many are people you would be glad to hear from? How many are strangers to your business? What did the team do about the strangers?

Ask, too, how the team decides which phrases to add. A thoughtful provider will describe a loop: add a phrase, watch the result, keep it or drop it. A less thoughtful one will describe a list that never changes. Over a year, the loop tends to serve you better.

You will learn more from those twenty lines than from a long presentation. The words people type are blunt, and they have no reason to flatter anyone. That is what makes them so valuable.