Close Variant Analyzer

Paste your Query/Keyword matching and KPIs (optional)

Paste up to 100.000 Query/Keyword pairs with related KPIs

Delimeter

Use column header names

Analyze how googles close variant matchings perform in your account

FREE ONLINE TOOL for analyzing googles keyword matching
Paste up to 100.000 Query/Keyword combinations together with related KPIs (optional)
Get for each Query/Keyword combination a score for their similarity (how it is done)
Use results for e.g. adding negative keywords or understanding why your performance gets worse

See your results like this – click image to enlarge:

How does the Close Variant Analyzer work?

1) Paste your data

The first 2 Columns should contain keyword and query. You can add some additional metrics if you like. If you only want to focus on close variant matching you have to filter your input data. Of course you also use it for analyzing phrase, broad or modified broad keyword matches.

2) Download File

After some seconds the report should be ready and you can download it. Your provided data will have one new column. This column will have values from 0 to 100 and describes the similarity between the keyword and the matched query. The higher the score the closer the match.

How to use the data for further analysis?

How do the worst matches look like?

This was the first thing I was looking at. What is the worst example of a query to keyword match I can find? You will find it right away when you sort by the matching score in ascending order.

How does the matching change over time?

If you add a time period like month to your input data you can group by that and look at the average matching quality over time. Feel free to weight the matching scores with impression or clicks. This perspective is very interesting for understanding how they force the close variant matches. The end of the exact match keywords seems to be coming.

Matching Quality vs. Conversion Rate

What does the matching similarity means for your conversion rate? To get answers based on big numbers you can group your performance metrics (if you provided them in your data input) by the matching similarity. If you like you can create bigger buckets like 0-10, 11-20, …, 91-100 to get even bigger numbers per bucket.
Based on your performance numbers you can then use the matching score to derive negative keywords. Extra tip: score also the “not significant” queries that are hidden in google ads but still available in google analytics.

Worst Matches of Close Variants

I was quite surprised what google is matching to exact keywords.

Matching Quality over time

Close Variants get more fuzzy over time. Google is forcing this heavily.

Matching Quality vs. Conversion Rate

Poor Close Variant Matches do not convert that well.

How to Clean Close Variant Matches by Using Negative Keywords?

Stefan Neefischer

17 Jan at 8:53 pm

The negative effects of close variant matches on overall performance will lead to more challenges over time. Here is an approach to solve the hidden “not significant” search query problems…

Close Variants Could be the Ultimate Move to Push Smart Bidding into the Market

Stefan Neefischer

11 Jan at 9:49 am

Google seems to have big plans for Smart Bidding. One can expect that they can alter their product in many ways for success. Close variants could be the ultimate move…

Analyzing Close Variant Matches in Google Ads with Python

Stefan Neefischer

8 Jan at 10:13 pm

We have lost exact match keyword and “not significant” queries with the updates in Google Ads. But we can still measure the effects with a smart Python solution. Here’s how.…