The objective of search engine marketing is to target the users based on their intention & show them relevant ads. Search ads are the backbone of any search engine marketing.
With search ads, advertisers target the users when they are searching for any query on search engine(s). Thus, when the query matches with the previously defined keywords in SEM platform, the user sees a search ad relevant to that query.
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Since the evolution of SEM, digital marketing world have observed various platforms. However, the stronghold of Google’s platform i.e. Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) cannot be breached.
Google Ads is now at the zenith of its service. With users query stored in its database, Google allows advertisers to research and select the specific keywords based on their needs.
Google Ads provide a tool for keyword research which is known as ‘Google Keyword Planner’. Keyword Planner is a free tool for building new search campaigns.
You can use Keyword Planner to get relevant keywords around seed keywords and see how they would perform. With keyword planner, you can decide competitive bids and budgets for your campaigns.
Google keyword planner can help you-
Find the search volume of any keyword
Get relevant keywords around seed keyword
Get ad group ideas
Add keywords directly into account/campaign
Get keyword trends
New Features
1. More seed keywords
In Google Ads Keyword Planner, it’s the keyword that generates many other suggestions or ideas.
For example, let’s say you are interested in learning more about what related potential phrases could be or important to targeting “buy shirt.”
You would insert your “seed keyword” buy shirt and see that there are numerous keyword ideas around that seed keyword.
Image: Seed keywords
You can now enter up to 10 seed keywords when searching for new ideas.
2. Keyword trends
Within the interface of Google keyword planner is a powerful tool for finding trending keywords. Keyword Planner shows you the actual number of monthly searches for a term over the last 24 months.
Through a custom setting, you can go back as far as 48 months. This tool is useful to see if external factors affect a particular keyword or group keywords.
Image: Keyword trends
In the new keyword planner, you can see trends for individual keyword ideas. Hover over the chart in the ideas table, or download trends directly. Let’s take a look at the results of our term buy shirt:
Image: Search result in keyword planner
3. Grouped ideas
Keyword grouping is an overlooked part of the Google Ads workflow. Many people fail to realize that having tighter, better organized ad groups in your Google Ads account can surely have a big positive effect on overall account performance.
That’s because well-organized keyword groups improve account’s relevance, which raises Quality Score and reduces cost per click.
Productively grouping and organizing keywords improve your PPC strategies by allowing you to create:
More Quality–Score-friendly ad groups
And more relevant search ads
More effective & converting landing pages
In keyword planner, you don’t need to manually group keywords. Google keyword planner takes care of this tedious task.
Image: Keyword ideas
Use Grouped Ideas to manage multiple keyword ideas. View keywords by theme or add the entire set as an ad group in your plan.
Image: Grouping keywords by relevance
4. Save an idea to an existing campaign
From keyword planner itself, you can add keywords directly into an existing campaign or make a new plan. Similarly, you can insert the keyword to an existing ad group or create a new one.
Image: Saving an idea to existing campaign
Moreover, you can select the keyword match type as per strategy.
5. Suggested budget
In ‘Get search volume & forecasts’ section, you can see search volume and other historical metrics for keywords added into a plan. Additionally, you may be able to forecast how they will perform in the future.
Google keyword planner also suggests a daily budget based on the max CPC bid and forecasted cost.
Image: Budget suggestion
With this information, you can easily plan your budgets prior to the campaign start.
6. Competition value column
Google added a new feature in its keyword planner called “Competition (indexed value)”. Competition (indexed value) shows how competitive ad placement is for any keyword. It considers location and search network targeting while reviewing ad placement slot.
The competition level from 0-100 is calculated by the number of ad slots filled divided by the total number of ad slots available. If not enough data is available, you’ll see a dash (-).
Image: Competition value column
How to search for new keywords
1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. In the upper right corner, click the tools icon . Then go to “Planning” & click Keyword Planner.
3. Type or paste one or more keywords or URL in “Find new keywords” search box and press “Enter”.
Image: Finding new keywords
4. Click Get started to get new keyword ideas and historical statistics, like average monthly searches, ad impression share, top of page bid etc.
How to get forecasts and historical metrics for your keywords
1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. In the upper right corner, click the tools icon . Then go to “Planning” & click Keyword Planner.
3. In the “Get metrics and forecasts for your keywords” search box, enter or paste a list of keywords. Make sure to separate them by commas or line breaks.
Image: Getting search volume and forecasts
4. Click Get started to see your forecasts.
5. To see your historical statistics, like average monthly searches or ad impression share, click Historical metrics at the top of the page.
Image: Checking historical metrics in keyword planner
Summary
The New Google Keyword Planner tool supports various workflows for creating ad groups and ad campaigns either starting from scratch or based on your existing keyword list. It provides a more productive user experience than previous AdWords’ keyword tools.
It integrates the keyword selection, keyword grouping, keyword analysis, forecasting, ad slot based competition and filtering aspects of the keyword selection workflow.
Watch: New Google Keyword Planner Replacing the Old Version Explained
For Curious Minds
A seed keyword is the foundational term or phrase you input to generate a wider list of related keyword ideas. The recent update allowing up to 10 seed keywords is a significant enhancement because it helps you build a more robust and thematically diverse campaign foundation from the outset. A single seed provides a narrow view, but multiple seeds uncover overlapping and distinct user search patterns, preventing you from missing valuable long-tail opportunities. By starting with a broader base, you can more effectively map your ad groups to the full spectrum of customer intent. This initial step is vital for improving relevance and coverage, which directly impacts your ability to connect with potential customers at different stages of their journey. A deeper understanding of this process is key to maximizing your campaign's reach.
The automated "Grouped Ideas" feature in Google Keyword Planner directly boosts your Quality Score by creating tightly themed ad groups. This automation ensures that the keywords within a group are semantically related, which allows you to write highly specific ad copy and direct users to relevant landing pages. This alignment between keyword, ad, and landing page is the core of ad relevance, a primary component of Quality Score. A higher score means Google views your ads as more valuable to users, rewarding you with lower costs-per-click and better ad positions. The strategic value is immense, as it removes the tedious and error-prone task of manual grouping, allowing you to focus on strategy instead of administration. Explore how this simple feature can systematically lower your campaign costs.
The Google Keyword Planner transcends simple keyword generation by providing critical forecasting data. It acts as a strategic planning tool by showing estimated top-of-page bid ranges for each keyword, giving you a realistic idea of what it will cost to compete for valuable ad placements. This allows you to model potential campaign costs and performance before committing a budget. You can build a "Plan" within the tool, add your selected keywords, and the planner will forecast key metrics like clicks, impressions, and average cost per click based on your proposed budget. This forecasting capability is invaluable for:
Setting realistic budget expectations.
Prioritizing keywords based on cost-effectiveness.
Making an evidence-based case for marketing spend to stakeholders.
It transforms keyword research from a guessing game into a data-driven financial projection. See how to use these forecasts to build a more profitable campaign.
Advertisers should use both historical data and recent trends in tandem for the most effective budget allocation. Historical search volume provides a baseline understanding of a keyword's general popularity, while trend data reveals its current trajectory and seasonality. For a seasonal product, relying only on average monthly searches could lead to overspending in the off-season. The key is to weigh them differently based on your goal.
Historical Volume: Use the 24-month average to establish a foundational budget and identify consistently performing terms.
Keyword Trends: Analyze the trend graph to pinpoint the exact months when search interest peaks and troughs. This allows you to allocate budget aggressively during high-demand periods and pull back when interest wanes.
By combining these two perspectives from the Google Keyword Planner, you create a dynamic bidding strategy that mirrors consumer behavior. Discover how to interpret these data points to forecast demand accurately.
The trend analysis tool in Google Keyword Planner is crucial for visualizing seasonality and optimizing ad spend. For a query like "buy shirt," the monthly search data, available for the past 24 to 48 months, would likely show distinct peaks during holiday seasons or back-to-school periods. By observing these patterns, an advertiser can anticipate when user intent to purchase is highest. For instance, you might see a spike in November and a dip in February. This evidence-based approach allows you to pre-emptively increase budgets and bids before the peak season begins to capture maximum traffic. Conversely, you can reduce spending during troughs to avoid showing ads when users are browsing without intent to buy, preserving your budget for high-conversion periods. Mastering this feature turns your campaign from a static expense into a responsive marketing asset.
The "Grouped Ideas" feature in Google Keyword Planner improves relevance by automatically clustering keywords based on semantic themes. Instead of manually sorting a large list, the tool organizes terms like "men's cotton shirts" and "buy men's shirts online" into one group, while "women's formal shirts" would go into another. This structure enables the creation of hyper-relevant ad copy and landing pages for each specific theme. For example, the ad for the "men's cotton shirts" group can speak directly to that product. This tight alignment is rewarded by Google's algorithm, leading to tangible business outcomes such as a higher Quality Score. A higher score directly translates to a lower average cost per click (CPC) and improved ad rankings, meaning you pay less for better visibility. Learn how to apply this feature to drive down costs in your own account.
For a new product launch, a structured approach with the Google Keyword Planner is essential for success. This process ensures you build a well-organized campaign from the ground up.
Start with Multiple Seed Keywords: Begin by entering up to 10 core terms that describe your new product line. For example, "organic cotton baby clothes," "newborn onesies," and "eco-friendly baby apparel."
Analyze Keyword Ideas: Review the suggestions generated by the planner. Pay attention to search volume, competition, and top-of-page bid estimates to identify valuable opportunities.
Utilize Grouped Ideas: Switch to the "Grouped Ideas" view. This will automatically categorize the keywords into potential ad groups based on themes, such as "onesies," "pajamas," or "gift sets."
Select and Add to Plan: Check the boxes next to the relevant keyword groups or individual keywords you want to target.
Create a New Plan and Campaign: Add your selections to a new plan. From there, you can create a new campaign and specify a new ad group, saving the keywords directly into your account structure.
This methodical workflow ensures your new campaign is relevant and organized from day one. The full article provides more detail on refining this initial setup.
The Google Keyword Planner offers a streamlined workflow for integrating new keywords into your account. The most efficient method depends on whether you are expanding a current theme or launching a new one. For adding keywords to an existing campaign, the process is direct and avoids creating unnecessary plans. After selecting your desired keywords from the "Keyword ideas" list, you can click the option to "Add keywords." A dialog will appear, allowing you to choose an existing campaign from a dropdown menu. You can then either select an existing ad group within that campaign or create a new ad group on the spot. This is perfect for incrementally growing a campaign. Creating a new plan is better suited for building a large, multi-ad-group campaign from scratch before pushing it live. The full guide details when to use each path for optimal account management.
Experienced PPC managers must shift their strategy from static keyword lists to a dynamic, trend-responsive approach. The evolution of Google Keyword Planner signals a move away from one-off research toward continuous market analysis. Instead of just building an initial keyword set, managers should now schedule regular reviews to capitalize on emerging trends and seasonality revealed by the tool's 24-month data visualizations. The ability to use up to 10 seed keywords means research should start with a much broader scope to uncover new niches and user language. This requires treating keyword research not as a setup task but as an ongoing strategic function to inform budget allocation, ad copy updates, and even product development. Adapting to this more fluid process is what will separate high-performing accounts from the rest.
The increasing automation within tools like the Google Keyword Planner suggests the future of SEM management is less about manual execution and more about high-level strategy. Features like "Grouped Ideas" handle the tedious organizational tasks that once consumed significant time. This frees the specialist to focus on more strategic responsibilities. The role is evolving from a campaign builder to a data interpreter and business strategist. Future success will depend on the ability to:
Analyze trend data to forecast market shifts.
Translate keyword insights into broader marketing and product strategies.
Oversee and guide automated systems rather than manually implementing every detail.
Specialists who embrace these higher-order skills will provide greater value, while those who remain focused on manual tasks may find their roles diminished. Understanding this shift is critical for career growth in the digital marketing space.
The "Grouped Ideas" feature is a direct solution to the widespread problem of poorly structured ad groups. Many advertisers create large, unfocused ad groups with loosely related keywords, which results in generic ad copy and a low Quality Score. This mismatch between user query and ad message leads to higher costs and lower click-through rates. The Google Keyword Planner solves this by automatically analyzing your generated keyword list and clustering terms based on semantic relevance. For example, it separates "digital marketing courses" from "social media marketing jobs." This pre-organized structure provides a clear blueprint for creating highly specific ad groups, allowing you to write targeted ads for each theme and dramatically improve relevance, which in turn boosts your Quality Score and lowers your cost per click.
Relying only on average monthly search volume is a frequent error that leads to misguided keyword selection. A term might have a high average volume, but the trend data in Google Keyword Planner could reveal that its popularity is rapidly declining. This context is crucial for avoiding investment in keywords with diminishing returns. The trend graph, which displays search interest over the last 24 months, solves this problem by providing a dynamic view of a keyword's health. For example, a keyword might have a 10,000 monthly search average, but the trend line shows it's been falling for six consecutive months. Seeing this, an advertiser can wisely choose a different keyword with a lower average volume but a strong upward trend, indicating growing user interest. This feature helps you invest in future growth, not past glory.
Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.
Growth Strategy and Planning
