Insights

Wasteful Wednesday with Wil Reynolds #3 – Keyword of the Week: “Names” Part I

Watch Episode 3 on "Names" Part I:

← Watch Episode 2 on "LLC"   Watch Episode 4 on "Competitor Names" 

Read the Transcript of Episode 3 on "Names" Part I:

Hi, my name is, Wil, your name is Joe. 

There are times where people search for “joe” and some company and you show up because that company is either your company or you're bidding on that company's brand name when somebody is looking for an employee. 

I just looked at the top 10 names in the data set that I have access to and there's $5K spent on people's names and ~ 2 conversions.


Keyword of the Week: “Names”

First things first before I give you those goods. 

Query: "joe the plumber"

“joe the plumber” -- the guy that was all about the presidential campaign (we remember this guy unfortunately) -- and here's somebody bidding on a word related to plumber and they're showing up for that term.

You don't want those clicks and the sad part is [if] you're a small business, every one of those clicks cost you money and you need to make sure you spend it well.

Ex. GoPuff

Query: “Larry Waddell GoPuff”

I took our Head of Digital, Larry Waddelland I dropped in my local friends right down the street, Go Puff. People might be searching for their employees names, founder's names, CFO's names, different employees in the company, etc.

And when people are doing research on people in your company, you probably don't want to be showing up for those clicks, my friends -- this is why you negate names. 

Finance Industry: Names in Quizzes

Query: “savings account usually offer ____ interest rates than checking accounts”

Another dead giveaway that we caught for our banking clients especially-- people that spend money in banking, we started finding for our clients a year ago that people would type in homework questions. For example: “savings account usually offer ____ interest rates than checking accounts”.

We started seeing people's names over a year ago, showing up for homework questions. 

When you combine your PPC and SEO data, you start finding stuff like this and what it is is you start being like, this is a damn exam question: Quizlet, Brainly, Answer Trivia, all show up before NerdWallet

If you're TD Bank, top 10 or anyone bidding on the word “savings accounts”, you need to find the homework questions at scale so you can negate them. 

ICYMI: Watch Wasteful Wednesday Episode 6: "Names" Part II for more insights!

You do NOT want to be spending money on 13 year olds cheating on their exams, [they are] are not usually good credit risks. 

That's my Wasteful Wednesday tip of the week. 

💡 Recommended Action: Go Google lists of names, put them all into your negatives, save yourself some money and reinvest those dollars in something a little bit better. 

Key Takeaways

  • Use your SEO and PPC data together to identify whether or not your PPC ads matching to names and quizzes
  • Gather a list of common names and add them to your negatives list to rescue wasted spend from your paid campaigns


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Wil Reynolds
Wil Reynolds
CEO & Vice President