Paid Search Intent Tier Grader
Sort a keyword list into transactional vs. research intent, and where to spend.
| buy crm software | Transactional |
| best project management tool | Commercial |
| hubspot vs salesforce | Commercial |
| what is a fractional cmo | Informational |
| marketing agency near me | Transactional |
| how to reduce cac | Informational |
| enterprise seo pricing | Transactional |
A healthy, bottom-of-funnel-weighted list. Keep transactional terms on exact/phrase match and cap spend on informational modifiers.
A first-pass heuristic, validate borderline terms against real search-term reports and conversion data before cutting them.
About this calculator
Not every keyword in a paid search account deserves the same budget, "buy crm software" and "what is a fractional cmo" are worlds apart in how close they sit to a purchase decision. This tool grades a pasted keyword list into transactional, commercial or informational intent tiers, so you can see at a glance how much budget is funding research queries instead of ready-to-convert searches.
How to use it
- Paste your keyword list into the textarea, one keyword or phrase per line.
- Each keyword is automatically graded as you type, no separate submit step.
- Review the tier counts and the wasted-intent share, the percentage of your list that fell into the informational tier.
- Scan the per-keyword table to see exactly which terms landed in which tier.
Methodology
Each keyword is checked against two word lists: transactional signals (buy, price, demo, trial, coupon, near me, and similar) and commercial signals (best, vs, compare, review, alternative, tool, agency, and similar).
A keyword matching any transactional term is graded transactional; failing that, a match against any commercial term grades it commercial; anything matching neither defaults to informational.
Wasted-intent share is the informational count ÷ total keywords, flagged above 30% as worth reviewing, since informational queries are typically expensive to convert directly on paid search and better served by organic content.
This is a keyword-text heuristic based on word matching, not a machine-learned intent classifier. It will correctly catch obvious signals ("buy," "pricing," "vs") but can misjudge ambiguous or highly specific industry phrasing, always validate borderline terms against your actual search-term report and conversion data.
FAQ
Commercial-intent queries (comparisons, reviews, "best X") show someone is evaluating options but hasn't committed to buying yet, they convert at a real but lower rate than transactional queries and are worth nurturing rather than pushing hard toward an immediate purchase CTA.
Move them off paid search budget entirely and target them with SEO content instead, they rarely convert efficiently on paid because the searcher isn't yet close to a purchase decision. Where you do keep them, cap spend tightly and monitor conversion rate closely.
It matches against fixed word lists rather than understanding full context, so a keyword using unusual phrasing or industry jargon that doesn't contain any of the flagged terms will default to informational even if it's actually high-intent. Treat this as a fast first pass, not a final verdict.
A common approach is exact or phrase match on transactional terms to control spend tightly, and broader match with careful monitoring on commercial terms where you're still learning which specific phrasings convert.