Client: University of San Francisco

When I started working at the University of San Francisco as their first in-house paid media manager, one of my first assignments was to audit the Google Ads account that was previously set up by a vendor that specialized in higher-education marketing. Looking at the account through my expert lens, having already amassed quite a resumé in paid search, along with requisite Google certifications, I was amazed at the level of keyword neglect that I found. Neglect that was ultimately eating up around $40k in search budget per year. 

How did this go unnoticed you might ask? Well, the ads were still generating leads and that $40k in leakage was spread out over a 12-month period, so it didn’t immediately show up on many reports except in the form of a slightly higher cost-per-lead that was still more or less within acceptable margins. 

While I can’t give away all my learnings here, after all that’s part of what makes my work approach unique, I will say this: match types are still extremely important, along with other qualifier words related to the intent of your target audience. How you categorize keyword groupings is also extremely important in how you measure performance and optimize budget.

-Pete Sahaidachny