Article

Lucinda Martin
Lucinda Martin 1 February 2021

PPC: Weird Search Queries We Wish Were Real Display Ads

Did you know, 15% of Google searches are brand new things that have never been searched before? That means there's a lot of really odd things being searched for. Sometimes they're obvious typos but sometimes... It's a lot harder to see what the goal was. Still, we tried our best and spent an afternoon mocking up adverts for our favourite searches.

Only Google truly knows the full range of horrors contained within the 3.5 billion queries it processes daily, but in the marvellous world of PPC account management, we do get a small glimpse.

One of the main jobs as a PPC Account Manager is to make sure that client ads are being shown to people who will actually be interested in the product or service. Every click costs money and no one wants a client out of pocket with nothing to show for it! This is why being able to find out what people are actually searching for via Search Query Reports, proves invaluable when delivering cost-effective paid advertising.

Trawling through endless Search Query Reports can be a time-consuming process with some repetition. The vast majority of people looking for a loft conversion, for example, will enter the words ‘loft’ and ‘conversion’. We can follow this logic, but ... Then there's the 15% of searches Google estimates have never been searched before. 

That's where we at Boom Online had a little fun making adverts for some of the more unusual online requests.

Search Query: "Steak Out"

Night-Meat-(1).jpg

We're pretty sure we know what they meant but we still prefer our version.

Search Query: "Hat Crime Solicitors"

Hat-Crime-Solicitor.jpg

How many hat-based crimes do you need to be apart of before you start looking for legal advice? We need to know.

Search Query: Stag Weekend for One Person

Lone-Stag.jpg

A stag do is a tradition, but sometimes it's a tradition you'd rather take part in on your own. 

Search Query: Welding Machine for Hair

Hair-Welder.jpg

They say beauty is pain, and apparently power tools.

Search Query: First Aid Kits for Fish

Fish-First-Aid.jpg

What we're not clear on here is if they're looking to administer first-aid to a fish, or if there is a fish with big dreams of being a medic and just needs the right-sized kit.

We've obviously taken quite a light-hearted look at some of the more unique searches out there but it raises some interesting points for marketing professionals. Clear communication is key, what we say and how our customers interpret that can be miles apart so really think about who you're speaking to. Also when you're looking at search terms, it doesn't hurt to involve a few misspellings because we've all been guilty of searching for steak-out tools at least once. 

You can find more examples of strange search terms and some useful statistics on our full blog.

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