With regards to keywords, AdWords users have several tools at their disposal. Broad Match, Broad Match Modifier, Phrase Match, Exact Match and Negative Keywords are all ways that advertisers can more specifically reach their target market. Reaching potential customers who are searching for the products and services your business offers is especially important for niche markets or any business using AdWords and seeking to spend their budget wisely.
Aside from the big five (Broad, Broad Modifier, Phrase, Exact and Negative), there is an advanced feature – Dynamic Keyword Insertion (or DKI, for short) that more novice/intermediate advertisers may not be aware of.
What Does It Do?
In a nutshell, Dynamic Keyword Insertion allows advertisers to insert a short line of code into the headline of an ad that serves to match what the user is searching. To use Google’s example, the DKI Code “{KeyWord:Chocolate}” will insert a keyword from the chocolate ad group to better match the searcher’s query. Thus, if advertiser wants to target searchers who input the query, “dark chocolate bar”, he or she would write the headline as: Buy {KeyWord:Chocolate}, which will effectively change to “Buy Dark Chocolate.”
Are There Any Limitations?
Yes. Sometimes the requested search term is too long to fit in the headline. In this case, the term following the KeyWord: prefix will be used in the ad’s headline. To borrow Google’s example again, the search term, “gourmet chocolate truffles” is too long to augment the “Buy” prefix, so instead, the ad headline gets reduced to simply “Buy Chocolate.”
What Else Should I Know?
First, that Dynamic Keyword Insertion is very useful, but should not be used by everyone. Only advanced users who are comfortable inputting code into their ad’s headline should use DKI. Misusing this feature could negatively impact the performance of you campaign(s). Also, it’s important to point out the capitalization in KeyWord.
Google uses the capital K, capital W format by default, and your DKI code should always be contained within brackets {} not parenthesis (). There are a few more options to adjust the capitalization of your headline, which is beyond the scope of this post, but is explained in depth here. Executed properly, DKI can help advertisers save time, energy and provide searchers with more relevant ads.