New Changes to the Keyword Planner Tool: Conversion Estimates

Google’s Keyword Planner is an essential resource for any PPC analyst, especially when coming up with a proposal for a current or prospective client. The tool allows you to create keyword and ad group ideas based on particular words or phrases, a website URL, a relevant category, or a combination of the above. The information drawn from this tool provides many insights, in particular:

• Potential impressions and clicks
• Projected daily/weekly/monthly costs
• Projected click-through rate (CTR)
• Projected cost per click (CPC)

Keyword Planner also allows you to narrow your targeting based on location, language, whether you want to include Google Partners or not, and it even allows you to add negative keywords to your projected keyword basket.

The Next Step for Keyword Planner

Google is taking things a step further: now Keyword Planner has the ability to project the number of conversions an account can potentially obtain. How it determines this is relatively simple – it only requires two additional projected metrics (which the user inputs):

• Expected conversion rate
• Expected conversion value

Based on this, the number of conversions is determined by multiplying the number of projected clicks by the expected conversion rate. Also, using the expected conversion value, Keyword Planner can determine the potential Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).

How It Looks on the Screen

To give an example on how Keyword Planner now works, this is the projected performance based on a sample set of keywords related to “dodge ram 1500,” targeting the Edmonton location, English-speaking users, and including Google Search Partners:

Inputting a $6 max CPC bid, daily budget of $500, and a projected conversion rate of 2%, the keywords are projected to generate 104 to 127 clicks and at least two conversions per week.

What Does This Mean to a Car Dealer Who Wants to Invest in PPC?

With these new features, information that the Keyword Planner currently generates can beef up a PPC proposal with plenty of numbers that give a potential client a clear and realistic  picture of what they can expect from running pay-per-click campaigns, based on a budget amount and a real keyword basket. This is also effective in demonstrating to an existing client the lucrative opportunities they are possibly missing out on by sticking to a more limited budget, convincing them to invest (and take in) more money. That’s never a bad thing in our world!