How Adwords’ “Dynamic Keyword Insertion / DKI” Works

“Dynamic keyword insertion.”

You may have heard about this Adwords trick, also known as “DKI” if you’re a really cool industry insider. Here’s how it works: you insert {keyword} in your headline, and then Google changes your headline on the fly to exactly match the keywords that people search for.

For instance, let’s say you’re selling gingerbread cookies. You put {keyword} in your headline, target the keyword “gingerbread” and let it fly. Someone searches for “gingerbread houses.” Guess what your ad’s headline is? Gingerbread Houses.

What if their search term is longer than 25 characters? What if they searched for “the most awesome gingerbread houses ever”? Unfortunately that’s too long to be your headline. Here’s what you do: instead of just running with {keyword}, you set your headline as {keyword:Best Gingerbread}. Now, if your ad is triggered by a search phrase longer than 25 characters, you have told Google to display your headline as “Best Gingerbread.” Cool, right?

Sort of. DKI is popular because it’s a no-brainer way to make sure that your headline contains your searchers’ keywords. That being said, don’t get married to it…

Dynamic keyword insertion encourages poor market research. I recommend finding the top 10 high traffic keywords that are relevant to your business and getting those “stories” down pat. By getting the story down, I mean writing entire ads (not just headlines) that focus on each specific keyword, then creating landing pages to match each one.

You can’t do this with DKI, because who knows what your headline is going to be?

You’d be better off with an ad all about gingerbread houses that leads to a landing page with some awesome pictures like this:

What is your opinion about dynamic keyword insertion? Has it worked for you in your campaigns? Let me know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. 9 Tips For Writing Irresistibly Click-able AdWords Headlines