Perhaps I was the last one to find out, but I discovered a little gem called “Search Query Reports” in my AdWords reporting interface a week or so ago, and ever since, I’ve been a little giddy. (As giddy as one can get about PPC campaigns. Wow, I'm a nerd.) I know they’ve been pushing the Placement Performance Report lately, but, sadly, I was unaware of the Search Query Report. What this report can tell you is the exact term that a user typed into Google that triggered your ad, the match type between your keyword, and the search query alongside all of the standard AdWords reporting metrics like click through rate, conversion rate, cost per conversion, etc. “So what?” you might say. Or “Who cares?” Or maybe even “Buzz off.” (But hopefully not.) Well, here is how I’ve found this new report to be useful:

• Enhance your negative keyword list. One of my clients shares their company name with a popular island vacation destination. We thought we had covered all the negatives like “hotels,” “beach,” “villas,” etc, but this report revealed we had forgotten one important term that didn’t show up on Google’s Keyword Tool and had actually driven several people to the site: “flights.”
• Strengthen your keyword lists. If there’s a derivative of a keyword that is getting some great results, add it to your list. An exact match with what the user typed in has several benefits (namely, a higher quality score), which can eventually lead to a lower cost per click.
• Check your ad relevance. You can have the report to show you which user queries triggered which ads. Make sure that your ad groups are small enough that the ad makes sense for all of your keywords AND their synonyms, especially if you are using broad match keywords and the {KeyWord:} dynamic insertion function.

Here’s how I plan to use it in the future:

• Run once a month or even weekly for high volume accounts. Search patterns change, and this is a great way to keep your keywords, negative keywords, and ad copy fresh and optimized to what people are actually searching for right now.
• Run daily for new accounts. Setting up a new account for a company or industry you aren’t entirely familiar with is a slightly frightening situation sometimes. But if you run this report to see the exact details of what is working and what isn’t, it gives you some immediate insight into the market to which you’re advertising.

How to run a Google AdWords Search Query Report, straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth.