Choose keywords and budget
Choose keywords and budget is the second step of the campaign wizard on Search and Search retargeting. On Performance Max, the second step is Choose themes and budget. On Demand Gen, it is Choose your audience and budget. Demand Gen retargeting has no second step.
After the Choose what to target step, Hero Marketer gets related terms for your search term from Google Keyword Planner. Then it groups the terms into keyword clusters. A keyword cluster is a tight group of keywords that share the same search intent. You get 1 to 3 clusters of up to 10 keywords each. Each campaign targets one cluster. Pick the cluster that matches the customer you want to reach. Then archive the keywords that do not fit, and check the monthly budget at the top of the step.
Most of this article is about Search. For Performance Max and Demand Gen, see Search themes and searches on Performance Max and Demand Gen. For why clusters beat a flat keyword list, see What is a keyword cluster.
What the step shows
On Search and Search retargeting, the step has three parts, from top to bottom:
- Monthly budget. A bar with the monthly budget of the campaign. On a Search campaign, it starts at the recommended budget of the selected cluster. On Performance Max and Demand Gen, it starts at a recommendation that does not come from the keywords. On Search retargeting, it starts empty. See Set your monthly budget.
- Choose a keyword group. One card for each keyword cluster. The wizard calls a keyword cluster a keyword group.
- Keywords. The keywords of the selected cluster, in a table. Below the recommended budget, a Search campaign can also have an Over budget list. After you archive a keyword, the Archive list also shows.
What each keyword cluster card shows
Each card under Choose a keyword group shows:
- Its theme. A short phrase that summarizes the intent of the keywords in the cluster.
- A Suggested tag on the cluster that the AI rates best. Hero Marketer selects this cluster for you.
- Its size. The number of keywords and the monthly searches of all of its keywords, for example 10 keywords · 2,900 searches a month.
The cards do not show a budget or clicks. On a Search campaign, the budget bar at the top shows the budget and the expected clicks of the selected cluster.
To pick a different cluster, click its card. On a Search campaign, the monthly budget then changes to the recommended budget of that cluster. On Search retargeting, Performance Max, and Demand Gen, the budget that you typed stays.
Pick the cluster that matches your customer
All clusters are high intent. Hero Marketer keeps only bottom-of-funnel terms, for example terms with pricing, alternative, vs, software, or tool. It removes research queries. So the choice is between themes, not between funnel stages. Weigh these points:
- Competition versus volume. A high volume, high competition cluster uses up budget fast. A lower volume, lower competition cluster may convert better per dollar spent.
- Your offer. If your product is better than a specific competitor, "alternative to X" clusters are especially valuable. If you are a category leader, broad category clusters work.
Pick one cluster per campaign. To target more than one cluster, build separate campaigns. Each campaign then gets its own budget, ad copy, and reporting. For a Search campaign, Hero Marketer adds the keywords that run at your monthly budget as Exact match. For a Search retargeting campaign, it adds all of the keywords as Broad match. For a Performance Max campaign, each keyword becomes a search theme. For a Demand Gen campaign, the keywords define the people who search for them, who are always in its audience. Demand Gen retargeting has no second step.
Competitor names in the keywords
In a Competitor search campaign, Hero Marketer keeps the name of a competitor only in a keyword with a buying word. The buying words are pricing, alternative, vs, review, demo, and free trial. For example, it keeps "[competitor] pricing" and "[competitor] alternative". It leaves out the bare name with no buying word, for example "[competitor]", "[competitor] app", or "[competitor] login". These searches come mostly from the users of the competitor, who look for their own product. They click your ad and leave.
Keyword research in Hero AI follows the same rule. It keeps the bare name of a competitor only when you ask for it. See Research keywords in chat.
Search themes and searches on Performance Max and Demand Gen
On Performance Max and Demand Gen, the second step has no keyword table and no prices, because neither type buys a keyword. The cards and the keywords show differently:
- Performance Max. The step is Choose themes and budget. The cards are under Choose a theme. Each card shows 10 search themes. The keywords show as chips under Search themes · 11 of 25.
- Demand Gen. The step is Choose your audience and budget. The cards are under Choose who sees your ad. Each card shows People who search Google for this. The keywords show as chips under Searches behind this audience · 11 of 25.
To remove a keyword, click the X on its chip. Hero Marketer archives the keyword and shows a message with Undo.
To add your own keyword, type it in the Add a search theme field (Performance Max) or the Add a search field (Demand Gen). Hero Marketer adds it in lowercase, with single spaces. A keyword can have up to 80 characters and up to 10 words. If you type more than 10 words, the field shows Use 10 words or fewer., and Add stays unavailable. A cluster takes up to 25 keywords. At 25, the step shows You have 25, the most this campaign sends. Remove one to add another. The wizard sends up to 25 keywords for one campaign. A keyword that you add has no searches or price, so it changes no recommended budget.
To return the keywords that you removed from this cluster, click Add back in the line under the chips. For example, the line shows 2 removed: product analytics tool, event tracking software. Add back. Add back returns as many keywords as still fit in 25. When you remove or add a keyword, Hero Marketer drops the ad copy of the cluster, the same as on Search.
When you remove every keyword of the cluster, the chips show None left. Add your own below, or add back the ones you removed.
When you click Find keywords again with the same product, country, and search term, the wizard loads the clusters that it saved before. The saved clusters do not record which cluster each removed keyword came from. So the removed line under the chips of every cluster lists all of the removed keywords, and Add back moves them into the cluster that you have open.
The Audience signal of Performance Max, the Your lists · optional box of Demand Gen, and the Your lists box of a retargeting campaign are not on this step. They are on the Extras tab of the Check your ad step. See Create a Performance Max campaign and Create a Demand Gen campaign.
The three lists of the keyword table
The keyword table shows on Search and Search retargeting only. The Keywords table puts each keyword in one of three lists. Each list has an icon, a title, and the number of its keywords. The Over budget and Archive lists also have one line that tells what the list means:
- Running, with a green check. The keywords that run at your monthly budget.
- Over budget, in amber. The keywords that your monthly budget cannot cover, for example $500 a month can't show these for 80% of their searches. This list shows only for a Search campaign below the recommended budget.
- Archive, in grey. The keywords that you archive, with the line Kept out of every group. Add one to this group to run it.
The three lists use the same columns. When a list has no keywords, it does not show. The Running list always shows. On a phone, the table scrolls from side to side, and the title of each list stays in view.
What the keyword table shows
The Running list shows each keyword of the selected cluster that runs at your monthly budget, with these columns:
- Searches per month. Google's average monthly searches for the keyword.
- Clicks per month. The clicks that Hero Marketer expects for the keyword at your monthly budget.
- Cost per click. Hero Marketer's estimate: the middle of Google's low and high top of page bids.
- Cost per month. The estimated spend on the keyword at your monthly budget. A bar after the cost shows its share of the spend, against the keyword that costs the most.
A keyword that is the same search as a keyword above it shows Same search as, then the name of that keyword, for example Same search as seo software for agencies. The row shows dashes, because Google counts the two keywords as one search. The keyword runs only when the other keyword runs.
When Google has no price for a keyword, its cost per click has an asterisk (*). A note under the table gives the price that these keywords use: the middle price of the keywords in your search that have a Google price.
The Total row adds up the keywords that run. Sum shows before the total searches, clicks, and cost per month. Avg shows before the average cost per click of the cluster. The total clicks match the Expected clicks in the budget bar. The total cost is what the keywords that run can spend in a month. It stops at 1.25 times their cost at 80% of their searches, because more budget can only buy the other 20% of the searches. So when your monthly budget is more than that, the total cost is less than the monthly budget, and the keywords cannot spend the rest. Clicks and cost are Hero Marketer's estimates, not a Google forecast.
On a Search retargeting campaign, the table shows no money, because only people on your lists see the ad. Its columns are the keyword and All searches a month, the searches of all people. The total row adds up the searches only, and the table has no asterisk (*) note.
Keywords in the Over budget list
The Over budget list shows the keywords that your monthly budget cannot cover. It shows only for a Search campaign, and only when the monthly budget is below the recommended budget. The title of the list shows the number of its keywords.
Below the recommended budget, the wizard keeps only the keywords that the budget can show your ad for on 80% of their searches. The biggest keywords get the budget first: the wizard starts with the keyword that has the most searches, and skips a keyword that no longer fits. For all of the rules, see Set your monthly budget.
The wizard applies these rules again each time that you change the budget or the keywords. When you lower the budget, keywords move to Over budget. When you raise the budget, they come back to the table.
For each keyword in Over budget, the clicks and cost are the estimates for 80% of its searches. The cost is what the keyword needs to run. The cost bar of the keyword is striped: it shows what the keyword would cost, not what it spends.
- To run all of the keywords again, click the button of the list, for example Cover all 10 for $500. When the list has one keyword, the button says Cover it for $500. The monthly budget changes back to the recommended budget.
- To archive a keyword, click its archive button. The keyword leaves the cluster and moves to the Archive.
The keywords in Over budget do not go to Google Ads.
Why Performance Max, Demand Gen, and retargeting have no Over budget list
A Performance Max campaign keeps all of its keywords at any monthly budget. Its keywords are search themes. Search themes are signals, and Google bids for the campaign as a whole, not for each keyword. So below the recommended budget, no keyword moves to Over budget, and the Cover all button does not show. See Create a Performance Max campaign.
A Demand Gen campaign also keeps all of its keywords: its audience always includes the people who search for them. Performance Max and Demand Gen have no keyword table at all. A Search retargeting campaign keeps all of its keywords too, because only people on your lists see the ads, so search volume cannot size its budget. See Create a Demand Gen campaign and Create a retargeting campaign.
Archive keywords that do not fit
To archive a keyword, click the archive button at the end of its row. The wizard moves the keyword to the Archive list. The wizard also shows a message, for example Archived “product analytics tool”. To put the keyword back in its cluster at once, click Undo in that message.
On a Search campaign, when you archive a keyword, the recommended budget of the cluster gets smaller. If you did not change the monthly budget, the monthly budget follows the recommended budget. If you typed a budget, the wizard keeps your budget.
The Archive holds only the keywords that you archive. The budget never moves a keyword to the Archive. On a Search campaign, the budget uses the Over budget list. The keywords in the Archive do not go to Google Ads.
If you already wrote ad copy for the cluster, archiving a keyword drops that ad copy and your edits. Adding a keyword from the Archive to the cluster also drops it. Undo and Add all back put the keyword back, but they do not bring back the ad copy. The next Write ad copy writes new copy and uses credits.
What the Archive shows
The Archive is one list for all of the keyword clusters. A keyword that you archive from one cluster also shows in the Archive when you select a different cluster.
For each keyword, the Archive shows the clicks and the cost for 80% of its searches. These estimates show what the keyword adds if it joins the selected cluster. The keywords in the Archive have no cost bar, because they do not run.
Under a keyword that you archived from a different cluster, the Archive shows the name of that cluster, for example From Product analytics software. A keyword with no cluster name comes from the selected cluster, or it has no known cluster.
A keyword has no known cluster when the wizard loads saved clusters. For example, you click Find keywords again with the same product, country, search term, and search type. The wizard then loads the clusters and the Archive that it saved before.
Add a keyword from the Archive
To add a keyword to the selected cluster, click Add to group at the end of its row in the Archive. The keyword leaves the Archive and joins the selected cluster. You can add a keyword from any cluster.
To add more than one keyword at a time, click Add all back. Add all back adds these keywords to the selected cluster:
- The keywords that you archived from the selected cluster.
- The keywords with no known cluster.
Add all back does not add the keywords from other clusters. When the Archive has only keywords from other clusters, Add all back does not show.
When you add a keyword, the recommended budget of the cluster includes that keyword. A budget that you typed stays the same. On a Search campaign, if that budget is below the new recommended budget, the wizard checks again which keywords the budget covers.
Move a keyword to a different cluster
On Search and Search retargeting, to move a keyword from one cluster to a different cluster, use the Archive:
- Select the cluster that has the keyword.
- Click the archive button of the keyword.
- Under Choose a keyword group, select the other cluster.
- In the Archive, click Add to group on the row of the keyword.
The keyword is now in the other cluster, and the recommended budget of that cluster includes it. A cluster can then have more than 10 keywords.
On Search and Search retargeting, you can add only the keywords that Hero Marketer found for your search term. You cannot type a new keyword. On Performance Max and Demand Gen, you can type your own keyword in the field under the chips. To add keywords to a Search campaign after you publish, ask Hero AI.
If no keywords are left in the selected cluster and the Archive is empty, the step shows No keywords left in this group. Pick another group, or add some from the archive. Select a different cluster.
Rules of thumb for the keywords
A few rules of thumb when you refine the list:
- In a Category search or Brand search campaign, archive the keywords that name a competitor. They belong in a Competitor search campaign.
- Archive the terms where the searcher's likely intent does not match what your product does. For Linear, "personal task manager" looks related, but the intent is off.
- The wizard does not add negative keywords. After two weeks of data, look at the Search terms tab of the campaign. Ask Hero AI to add the negative keywords. Or turn on the Block wasting search terms automation to add them for you. See Recommended automations.
Continue to the ad
Click Write ad copy. Hero Marketer writes the ad for the selected cluster, and the Check your ad step opens. This uses credits. A typical run costs about 0.2 credits. See Check your ad.
The button says Continue only when your draft still holds the ad copy of the selected cluster. Then the ad copy opens again, with your edits, and uses no credits.
Your draft holds the ad copy of one cluster at a time. When you write ad copy for another cluster, that copy replaces the copy of the first cluster. When you select the first cluster again, the button says Write ad copy:
- On Search and Performance Max, Write ad copy loads the saved copy of that cluster, with your edits. This uses no credits.
- On Demand Gen, the earlier copy and your edits are gone. Write ad copy writes new copy, which uses credits.
While Write ad copy or Continue works, you cannot change the cluster cards. If you change the cluster, edit the keywords, or click a step tab during that wait, Hero Marketer stops and starts no paid run.
When you archive a keyword of the cluster, or add a keyword to it, Hero Marketer drops the ad copy of the cluster at once, also when you click Undo. The button then says Write ad copy. Hero Marketer writes new copy, which uses credits.
Hero Marketer writes the ad copy for all of the keywords of the cluster, also the keywords in Over budget. A change to the monthly budget never writes new ad copy.
If the monthly budget is empty, the wizard shows Set a monthly budget. Type a budget in the bar at the top. Then click Write ad copy again.
On a Search campaign, if the budget covers no keyword, the wizard shows This budget covers no keyword at 80% of its searches. Raise it to continue. Raise the budget in the bar at the top. Then click Write ad copy again.
Go back to the first step without losing your clusters
When you click Back on this step, or click another step tab, this step stays open. Its tab shows a check mark. Click the tab to open the step again with your clusters, your monthly budget, and your Archive. You do not have to click Find keywords again.
When you change the product, the country, or the search type on the Choose what to target step, this step closes again. Click Find keywords to open it. A new search term takes effect only when you click Find keywords. Until then, this step keeps the clusters of the earlier search term.
If you click Find keywords again with the same product, country, search type, and search term, Hero Marketer loads the saved clusters. This uses no credits. The ad copy in your draft stays, with your edits, if the keywords of its cluster did not change. When that cluster is selected, the button then says Continue. A monthly budget that you typed for the selected cluster also stays.
Open the Check your ad step from the step tabs
When the selected cluster has ad copy, the Check your ad tab at the top of the wizard opens from this step. It also opens from the Choose what to target step. The Check your ad step then shows the ad as you left it, with your edits.
The tab does not write new ad copy. When the selected cluster has no ad copy, the Check your ad tab stays closed. This is true before the first ad copy, and after you archive or add a keyword, which drops the ad copy. Click Write ad copy.
What to do if no cluster looks right
If no keyword cluster matches, the search term was probably the wrong starting point. Go back to the Choose what to target step and try:
- A more specific search term. "Project management" is too broad. "Project management for software teams" is sharper.
- A search term in customer language. "Track engineering work" might match your customer better than "agile project tracking".
- An "alternative to" search term if there is a clear competitor.
You can try different search terms, one at a time, and compare the clusters that each one produces. If clusters are repeatedly thin or empty, see No keyword clusters found.