skill-120-close-variant-match-expansion-monitoring

Skill 120: Close Variant Match Expansion Monitoring

Purpose

Monitor search queries triggered by close variants and "same meaning" expansions. Google's match type expansions can trigger irrelevant queries that waste budget despite using exact or phrase match.

Data Requirements

Data Source: Standard

Standard Data:

• data/account/campaigns/*/*/keywords.md - Keywords with match types
• data/performance/campaigns/*/*/search_terms_metrics_30_days.md - Search term reports

Reference GAQL:

SELECT
  search_term_view.search_term,
  segments.keyword.info.text,
  segments.keyword.info.match_type,
  metrics.impressions,
  metrics.clicks,
  metrics.cost_micros,
  metrics.conversions
FROM search_term_view
WHERE segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS
  AND metrics.clicks > 0
ORDER BY metrics.cost_micros DESC
LIMIT 5000

Use /google-ads:get-custom for expanded analysis.

Analysis Steps

1. Map Keywords to Search Terms: Create keyword-to-search-term mappings
2. Identify Close Variants: Find search terms that don't exactly match keywords
3. Categorize Variant Quality: Good (misspellings), questionable (reordering), bad (different meaning)
4. Calculate Variant Impact: Compare exact query vs. variant conversion rates

Thresholds

Condition	Severity
Zero-conversion variants with >$50 spend	Critical
"Same meaning" variants with different intent	Warning
Variant conversion rate <50% of exact match	Warning
>50% of clicks from variants (exact match keywords)	Info

Output

Short (default):

## Close Variant Expansion Analysis
**Account:** [name] | **Keywords:** [count] | **Search Terms:** [count]

### Match Analysis
| Type | Conv Rate | CPA |
|------|-----------|-----|
| Exact query match | [%] | $[amount] |
| Close variants | [%] | $[amount] |

### Problematic Variants
| Keyword | Search Term Triggered | Issue | Spend |
|---------|----------------------|-------|-------|
| [keyword] | [query] | Same meaning mismatch | $[amount] |

### Recommendations
1. Add [count] problematic variants as exact match negatives
2. Move high-value keywords to exact match
3. Build proactive negative list for common mismatches