Ultimate Guide To Google Keyword Insertion

So recently I was tasked with setting up keyword insertion for Google Search campaigns in my day job as a marketer. Honestly, it’s something that we rarely do because it’s quite tedious and you have to be careful when using it. Hence, I thought it’s a good time to explain more about it.

Here are some do’s and don’ts that you have to bear in mind when adding keyword insertion into your Google Search campaigns.

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What Is Keyword Insertion?

As its name suggests, keyword insertion is where your ad copy will automatically include keywords in your ad group that caused your ads to show and thus, improve your ads’ relevance.

To set this up, you simply add the keyword insertion code within your ad’s headline, description lines or URL fields.

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Keyword Insertion: How It Works

First, let’s imagine that you have a products ad group with the following keywords

• dark chocolates
• sugar free chocolates
• gourmet chocolate truffles

You could, for example, add the keyword insertion code within your ad’s headline like this. Note that this will be your default text.

• Buy {KeyWord:Gourmet Chocolates}

When a person searches for “dark chocolate bar” which is similar to your “dark chocolates” keyword. Your ad’s headline will appear like this

• Buy Dark Chocolates

If a person searches for “assorted gourmet chocolate truffles” which is similar to your “gourmet chocolate truffles” keyword. Your ad’s headline will appear like this. The default text is used in this case because the keyword “gourmet chocolate truffles” is too long.

• Buy Gourmet Chocolates

1. Ensure Syntax Is Correct & You’re Okay With It

Notice how “KeyWord” is capitalized in the keyword insertion code?

This is where you tell Google how you want your keywords to be capitalized. In this case, “KeyWord” is a title case where the first letter of all words are capitalized. There is sentence case too like “Keyword” where only the first letter of the first word is capitalized. Do look through all options of the keyword syntax and choose one that suits your needs. Bear in mind that Google offers very limited choices of keyword syntax.

Hence, you need to ask yourself whether you’re okay with the keyword syntax.

If your brand, product or service name has weird capitalization like NcW eBooks, I strongly recommend that you ask yourself whether you’re okay with “Ncw Ebooks”, “NCW Ebooks” or “ncw ebooks”.

If you’re not okay with the syntax, keyword insertion might not be suitable. You’re better off using normal text where you can customize the capitalization and not be bound by the limited syntax of keyword insertion.

2. Check For Grammatical Errors

If you examine my chocolates example closely, you’ll probably notice that they’re all plural nouns. This is intentionally done.

When you’re using keyword insertion, do be careful of grammatical errors. Your entire ad copy should be grammatically correct whether it includes the default text or keywords in your ad group.

There are proofreading tools like ProWritingAid to help check and correct your grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.

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3. Create Tightly-Themed Ad Groups

As seen in the above example, the keywords in your ad group will appear on your ad. Therefore, it’s important that your ad groups are tightly-themed where all keywords are relevant to the ad.

Let’s say that you mix brand and competitor keywords in the same ad group. Your ad’s description includes the keyword insertion formula of “Get the Best Chocolates from {KeyWord:Your Brand Name}: 25 Flavors To Choose From, Free Delivery”. But because you included competitor keywords in the ad group, your ad will now help promote your competitors instead with a description of “Get the Best Chocolates from Your Competitor’s Name: 25 Flavors To Choose From, Free Delivery”.

Here are some tightly-themed ad groups you can consider creating:

a. Location

You can add countries, cities and neighborhoods keywords in one ad group.

Here are examples of how your ad might look like with the keyword insertion code:

• Candy Store In {KeyWord:New York City}
• Best Candy Store In {KeyWord:New York City}

Or you can use location insertion instead where you customize ad text to your users’ locations.

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b. Products & Services

Another tightly-themed ad group will be including products and services keywords such as candies, sweets, chocolates, lollipops, gummies, jelly beans, dark chocolates.

Here’s how your ads might appear

• {KeyWord:Sweets} To Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth
• {KeyWord:Sweets} For Your Sweet Tooth
• Craving {KeyWord:Sweets}?

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c. Generic

So this isn’t really recommended because it’s much broader than the abovementioned.

But you can use generic keywords like candy store, candy store in united states, candy store near me, best candy store. Since keywords are generic, you’ll probably only use the keyword insertion code by itself.

• {KeyWord:Your No. 1 Candy Store}

Thus, your keyword is basically the copy. The good thing is that it’s relevant. But the bad thing is that it might not be creative.

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4. Ask Yourself: What’s The Purpose Behind Keyword Insertion?

So there’s probably a reason why you want to add keyword insertion into your ads.

Depending on your goals and priorities, how you run keyword insertion will be different.

I strongly encourage that you always go back to the beginning—Why are you running keyword insertion?

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Now It’s Your Turn

Now that you know more about keyword insertion, you’re probably more confident to test it out. Do share your experience of implementing this and any tips for success~