As many of you know I get up on my soapbox and tell anyone that will listen, it is critical that pharma companies use vendors that specialize in pharma. In my world that means SEM vendors that specialize in pharma, like Catalyst online (unabashed plug!) are a must because the space is highly targeted, regulated, and conservative. As pharma search marketers, we have to zig every time the search engines zag to make sure that our campaigns don’t suffer and our clients’ marketing goals remain on target.
Take for instance Google’s broad match. Google’s paid search broad match allows marketers to buy a keyphrase like “osteoporosis.†Basically, any time that keyword is searched your ad appears. If not well thought out, broad match is a dangerous buy for the pharma industry. For example, both Actonel and Reclast (not yet approved) are indicated for post-menopausal osteoporosis. However with Google’s broad match option, these drug ads would appear for “men’s osteoporosisâ€, “children’s osteoporosisâ€, results, etc. and this is not the approved indication (not too mention a waste of marketing dollars).
Expanded broad match takes this concept one step further. As defined by the GoogleAdWordsHelpCenter, “With expanded matching, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on highly relevant keywords, including synonyms, related phrases, and plurals, even if they aren’t in your keyword lists.” The bottom line is: There is a benefit to testing terms with broad match, just make sure you or your agency has created an expansive “negative keyphrase list†in order to ensure litigation avoidance.
