Keyword Planning

Keyword Planning is a process for getting keyword metrics and forecasts as well as searching for new keywords to add to campaigns.

Keyword Plans can be created and then modified at a later time, though only the person who created the plan can query or modify it.

A Keyword Plan is structured similarly to a standard serving campaign:

• KeywordPlan contains a
• KeywordPlanCampaign which contains several
• KeywordPlanAdGroup objects which contains many
• KeywordPlanCampaignKeyword or KeywordPlanAdGroupKeyword objects.

The full set of Keyword Plan entities needs to be created in order to get Forecasted Metrics or Historical Metrics (search volume data).

Workflow

Here's a common workflow when using Keyword Planning.

1. Create a manageable list of ideas. You can use historical search volume and CPC to reduce the list of keywords to be included in forecasts.
2. Generate forecast metrics for keywords in order to get traffic for keywords in the plan.
3. Create a new campaign with the new keywords.
4. Adjust the keywords and estimation parameters to find a setup which delivers your marketing goals using the keywords and CPC bids which you selected above.
5. Leave the campaign for the duration of the KeywordPlan.forecastPeriod attribute. Forecasts are based on your campaign running unmodified for the duration of the forecast period. Changing the campaign including the bids and targeting prior to then will change performance, since daily and seasonal trends are also considered.

Keyword Planning in the API can:

• Generate keyword ideas
• Generate ad group themes
• Generate historical metrics
• Generate forecast metrics