I got the following question from one of my customers. I think it addresses something I may not have been clear on.
... Now I am going to go work on my ad creation in the campaign creation tool. My question relates to the Display url. What url do I use for display so it does not conflict with with my destination url since my destination url will vary depending on the keywords I choose?
Thanks a lot. Also, is it best to use all keyword matches or just limit it to exact and phrase?
First, Your display url doesn't have to match the destination url. In fact, the display url in Google Adwords has severe size limitations, so you probably can't use the destination url.
The only requirement Google Adwords imposes is that the dispay url domain must match the destination url domain.
What I would do is use only the domain in the display url. For example, if your keyword is "college football", your destination url is something like...
http://www.mydomain.com/college-football.php
then I would make the display url simply...
mydomain.com
But, there is an addition tip you can use to get the keyword in the ad one more time. Both Google Adwords and your potential customers will like seeing the keyword as many times as possible. That makes it worthwhile to use this tip.
The tip is to but the keyword in the display url. Again, Google Adwords only makes the domains match, so once you have that you can do anything you want. So you could make your display url this...
mydomain.com/go-away
So, use the display url to get the keyword out there one more time...
mydomain.com/college-football
And if you exceed the maximum characters for the display url, so can always use a partial keyword...
mydomain.com/football
All of this can be done inside the campaign creator using the "keyword"/"dash" tokens. We'll use the "dash" token since spaces are invalid in urls. Make your display url in the campaign creator look like this...
mydomain.com/[Dash:football]
Which means try to replace the "Dash" with the dash replaced keyword. Then, if the total display url exceeds the character limits, just use the word football instead. This is just like the way Google Adwords Dynamic Keyword Instertion works.
I recommend only using the exact and phrase matches. Broad match will generate impressions and clicks on unrelated searches. Unrelated searches are unlikely to buy from you. By using only exact and phrase matches, you are screening out some of these unrelated searches.