Now is the time to start preparing your Google Ads accounts for voice search.
As a society, our relationship with our smart devices continues to evolve and many of us now rely on them as our personal assistants, almost viewing them as if they were human! Stats show that in by 2020, 50% of searches will be made by voice command .
Smartphones continue to get smarter, continually adapting to our way of life and making us increasingly dependent on them. Last year, it was stated that Googles’ recognition accuracy hit a whopping 95%, putting it on par with human accuracy—it’s scary just how far our smart devices have come in such a short period of time right!
But enough about smart devices, what I really want to talk about is how voice search is impacting Google Ads.
We’ve been doing some pretty intensive keyword research to get a better grasp on how many searches are being performed using voice commands. What we’ve found is that while search volumes in Australia are still lower than they are in countries like the US, we are continuing to see month-on-month growth for search queries including: “Ok Google”, “Hey Siri”, “Alexa” and “Hey Cortana”.
It’s evident voice search is here to stay and is likely to continue to grow in popularity, so we’ve decided to get ahead of the game. Here’s an overview of what we’ve rolled out across some of our major accounts in anticipation of a surge in voice controlled searches that you may also want to consider doing:
- Check for search volumes: Download the search term data from your PPC accounts and filter out for the voice commands like “Ok Google”, “Hey Siri”, “Alexa” and “Hey Cortana”. What we’ve found (and what you’ll probably find) is that any search query with a voice command is generally 5 or 6 keywords long and more conversational.
- Review negative keyword lists: You’ve probably invested a lot of time building out a negative list full of terms like “why”, “how”, “when” and “can I”. Our data shows that most of these words are part of the conversational search query string often connected to a voice commanded search, so it’s time to review your negative keyword lists!
- Build out separate voices for voice activated search. At Synq, we advocate a Single Keyword Ad Group (SKAG) approach. We feel this method provides a lot more control over an entire account (as proven by our results), which suggests it’s a smart move to build out separate campaigns for voice commanded search activity.
- Try and answer the voice command in your ad copy for all voice commanded search campaigns. You’re answering the query in real time. It’s more relevant and will typically drive a higher CTR.
‘OK Google, where do I find spare parts for my Jayco caravan?
With Google Home and Alexa becoming more accessible and prevalent in everyday life, our homes, cars and even our caravans are getting in on the latest advancements in search (our client Jayco recently launched its new 2019 Silverline caravan which is an absolute ripper by the way – check it out here if you’re keen).
Google are investing millions (if not billions) trying to perfect AI and voice commands, so it’s no real surprise that Googles’ voice search has improved its accuracy by a staggering 20% since 2013. Voice search is definitely here to stay and will no doubt continue to evolve and become an increasingly essential component of our day-to-day, so now is the time to get on board!