Using DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) the Right Way

DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) has continued to become more popular among people who set up PPC campaign. Some marketers have considered it their most prized secret, while others consider it common knowledge. Regardless, just like any tool, if you don't understand how to use it correctly, then it will cause more harm than good. Here is a quick look at what exactly DKI is, how to use it, and some tips to using it effectively.

What Is DKI?

DKI is a technique in which the keyword in your PPC ads will change based upon what search phrase is entered. For example, if the search phrase is “pretty red widgets”, then the keyword in the title of your ad will be “pretty red widgets”. This technique is often used by people and companies that have a large number of ads running simultaneously. If you are only running 10 ads, then it might be just as easy to set each ad up separately so that you can do individual testing on each ad.

How to Use DKI?

DKI requires a tiny bit of code in your headline. With most PPC platforms, it is {keyword:Default Text}. The keyword represents the entered search phrase and the default keyword is the word that will be used in case the dynamically created keyword is too long to fit into the allowed ad space or if the entered query does not match any of the keywords you bid on, but the ad is still displayed, based on a broad or a phrase match. For example, if the search phrase was “Where can I find the best price on red widgets”, then the default text would be used because the search phrase is definitely too long to fit into the available ad space.

Note on Capitalization:

• {keyword} = lower case keyword ex. red widgets
• {KeyWord}= capitalized all keywords e.g. Red Widgets
• {Keyword}= only first word is capitalized e.g. Red widgets
• {KEYword} = first word all caps e.g. RED widgets
• {KEYWord} = first word all caps and first letter of second word upper case e.g. RED Widgets
• {KEYWORD} = all caps e.g. RED WIDGETS

Benefits of Using DKI

There are a variety of potential benefits to using DKI, however some of these benefits are more commonly reported than others. Here is quick look at some of the most popular advantages that you can gain.

• The first benefit, and the most common benefit, is that it can increase your click thru rate on your ads. This is because people are looking for ads that have their specific keyword. Additionally, increasing your click thru rate can also increase your quality score, which will decrease your price per click.
• The second benefit of using DKI is that you only have to create a single ad, yet have keyword specific ads for every product in your store. It has become fairly common for websites with a store to create a single ad such as “Buy {keyword} Here” and then ad a keyword for every product in their store. This save a lot of time, especially if you were going to use the same ad format anyways.

Quick Tips to Avoid Bad Ads

One of the risks of using DKI is that your ads can end up looking fairly bizarre. It is extremely important to manage your ads very closely and pay attention to what they are actually going to say. Here are some common mistakes that are made and how to avoid them.

1.Misspelled Titles

Remember that if you are using DKI and bidding on misspelled words, which is a fairly common practice, then your ad titles will be misspelled as well. This will make your ads look unprofessional and decrease your credibility with searchers. The easiest way to avoid this is to simply create ads for misspelled words manually instead of using DKI.

2.Your Ad Makes No Sense

It is surprisingly easy to end up with an ad that makes no sense using DKI. The key is to double check and make sure that each keyword within an ad group can appear as your text and make sense. This most often becomes a problem when using DKI with a broad matched keyword. Keep in mind that the ad will not display an exact match to the phrase entered in the search unless it is a keyword in your ad group. Ebay has been known for some of the worst ads because they simply bid on millions of words and combinations without any regard to the ad groups.

3.Looking to Generic

It is important to ad some text around your keyword. If someone searches for “widgets” then you don't want your ad title to simply be “Widgets” because it look generic. However, you can add some surrounding text to make the ad look more credible for example if your entire ad title looked this this “Save on {KeyWord} Here!”, then you ad title would look like this “Save on Red Widgets Here!”, which looks much better and is much more compelling to potential customers.

Affiliate Tracking Through Destination URLs

If you're driving visitors from PPC ads to your own site, it's not hard to know which keyword produced desired action. But if you are an affiliate marketer linking your Adwords ads directly to the merchant's website, it is important to still be able to track which keyword actually produced the sale. It can make the difference between a successful campaign and a failed one. While this takes a little effort, it doesn't have to be overly complicated. The key is to take advantages of Sub ID methods. While this is most often done on the ad level, you can also enter it based upon the matches as well.

Examples (with Commission Junction's SID Parameter):

• Broad Keyword = http://example.com/example-path.html?sid=broad-{keyword}
• Phrase Keyword = http://example.com/example-path.html?sid=phrase-{keyword}
• Exact Keyword = http://example.com/example-path.html?sid=exact-{keyword}

Other affiliate networks also have their Sub ID parameters, so if you're linking, for example, to ShareASale merchants in the lines above you'll have to replace "sid" with "afftrack".

If you find yourself needing to edit the URLs of a large amount of keywords at once, using the Adwords editor desktop application is usually the best choice. You simply navigate to the keywords tab, sort by match type and select all the keywords with the same match type. Once you have done this, you can edit all of the keywords at once. If you decide to do this online, then you need to keep an eye on pagination because only 100 keywords can be shown and edited at once.

As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to using DKI as long as you do so correctly. It is not only important to know how to set ads up, but also how to make sure that they look professional, credible, and can be effectively tracked.

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