{"id":117094,"date":"2014-04-10T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T06:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/google-will-now-withhold-keyword-data-from-paid-clicks-is-the-clock-ticking-on-the-keyword-as-a-marketing-tool\/"},"modified":"2024-12-19T16:40:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T21:40:01","slug":"google-will-now-withhold-keyword-data-from-paid-clicks-is-the-clock-ticking-on-the-keyword-as-a-marketing-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-ca\/insights\/blog\/analytics\/google-will-now-withhold-keyword-data-from-paid-clicks-is-the-clock-ticking-on-the-keyword-as-a-marketing-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyword Data \u201cnot provided\u201d for Paid Clicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citing ongoing privacy and security concerns, Google <\/a>announced today that it will withhold search term data from paid clicks<\/a> in much the same way it has from non-paid search traffic<\/a> since the end of 2011. This means that the “not provided” bucket that has haunted search marketers on the organic side will now apply to paid clicks as well.<\/p>\n

\"google-update\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In many ways, this announcement is not surprising. First of all, Google’s search chief Amit Singhal dropped a major hint<\/a> in his keynote at SMX West last month when he said:<\/p>\n

“Over a period of time, we [Google’s search and ad sides] have been looking at this issue\u2026. we\u2019re also hearing from our users that they would want their searches to be secure \u2026 it\u2019s really important to the users. We really like the way things have gone on the organic side of search.”<\/p>\n

That seems like a pretty strong bit of foreshadowing in retrospect. Google also \u00a0took a lot of heat when it yanked away the search term data from the organic side, leaving in place that data for paying AdWords customers. If it was a legitimate privacy concern to pass this data over the open web for non-paid search clicks, then why was it still OK to do the same thing for paid traffic. Google never really had much of an answer for that argument, and this move takes that question off the table.<\/p>\n

So What Does This Mean?<\/h2>\n

Essentially what this means is that paid search data in Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst and any other web analytics<\/a> tool will show a great big bucket called “not provided” when you look at the keyword-level reporting. \u00a0Anyone who’s spent any time looking at web analytics data over the past few years will be well-acquainted with that phrase, as it’s been eating up a larger and larger portion of non-paid traffic. At DAC these days, we generally see “not provided” take up more than 60% of our clients’ non paid search traffic (essentially everything from Google).<\/p>\n

Something that’s really important to remember here is that this data will still be available to marketers through AdWords. Search term data will continue to be available in abundance through tools like search query reports, which can even be pulled through the Google API. Conversion tracking and optimization down to the keyword\/search term level will still be possible. This data can even be pulled into Google Analytics by linking AdWords accounts. In that sense, this change doesn’t loom nearly as large as the one made on the organic search side, where much of the data has become unavailable to marketers entirely. This paid search data is still there; it will just likely need to be cobbled together from different sources.<\/p>\n

Life, though, may get more complicated for third parties who have relied on the search term data that was passed in the URL to pull reporting or provide marketing solutions. This could include bid management platforms, dynamic landing page technologies, call tracking providers and a whole bunch of others. The full implications of this change on solutions like this won’t be clear for some time.<\/p>\n

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