The Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate Guide to Keyword Match Types.
Everybody says their guide is the ‘ultimate’. Now that we have your attention, how about a simple, straightforward guide to what you need to know about Keyword Match Types?
Keyword Match Types give you control over how and when your ads appear. And, for many, the control you are given through Google Ads is one of the biggest benefits.
Keywords are the bread and butter of your Google Ad Campaigns, but it doesn’t stop there. Once you know which keywords to target, you’ll need to decide the match type for each keyword.
There are four main kinds of match type (and one that no longer exists): broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match. The one that is no longer supported is ‘broad match modified’. Instead of this match, Google has claimed their engine is better at understanding synonyms and user intent, so they deprecated it.
This image shows the different match types, along with how to denote each match type, a brief explainer, and an example of the searches your ad may appear for.
Broad Match
Broad match is the default type for Google Ads. As the name suggests, it’s the broadest of the three match types. This is when your ads show in search results for queries that relate to the meaning of your keyword, but don’t precisely match it.
It might match with:
Synonyms
Misspellings
Singular or plural forms
Related searches.
These keywords are denoted by nothing – just the word. In Google Ads, you would see the keyword on its own.
An example:
Target keywords: women’s hats
Searches your ad may show for:
Buy ladies hats
Women’s clothing
Women’s scarves
Pros:
Broad match reaches a large audience, so it can be great for brand awareness.
Find new keyword opportunities — if you have maxed out the viability of phrase and exact matches, then using broad match keywords can help find new keywords. Maybe you suddenly get a whole lot of sales from a keyword you haven’t considered before — then you target that keyword with a phrase or exact match campaign.
Cons:
Great way to waste budget and money on searches that don’t match your intent. Using the above example, we might only sell women’s hats, so what is the point of our ad showing for women’s scarves?
If the searcher’s intent doesn’t match the ad copy, then it is more likely to drive down the CTR, drive up the CPC and negatively affect quality score.
How to use them:
There are two strategies to use in conjunction with broad match keywords that will make them a better option than they are already.
Negative Keywords are the best friend of broad match keywords — keep on top of the search-term report and make sure you are negativing the f#%^ out of anything that doesn’t match your business, ad copy or landing page.
Target long-tail keywords indicate a searcher who is closer to purchase, s they can help filter out the people who aren’t interested in your product or service — or you can use them to stay top of mind if you have a huge budget.
Phrase Match
Phrase match is more restrictive than broad match but less than exact. They are middle of the road. Your ads will show for searches that contain your phrase in its entirety — words can be put in front or behind, but not in between.
To indicate phrase match keywords, we put quote marks about the keywords. If the keywords we want to target are coffee mug, then we would indicate it like this: “coffee mug”.
For example:
Target keywords: “women’s hats”
Searches your ad may show for:
Best Women’s hats for summer
Red women’s hat
Women’s hats near me
We’re going to combine the pros and cons into a single statement. Phrase match is good for gaining more traffic than exact match, with ads that are closer to the searcher’s intent than broad match – it’s very middle of the road.
The main con is the same as broad match. Your ads can appear for searches that don’t match intent. That’s why it’s important to keep a robust negative keyword list up to date.
It’s the best option for most advertisers — they give you a certain amount of control with a decent amount of search volume.
Exact Match
Exact match is the most restrictive type of keyword match type. Your ads will only show for queries that have the exact meaning or intent of the keywords.
It’s not exactly exact — your ads can still show for:
Singular and plural versions of your keyword
Misspellings
Abbreviations
To make keywords an exact match, we put square brackets around them. Again, using women’s hats as the example, it would be indicated like this [women’s hats].
For example:
Target keywords: [women’s hats]
Searches your ad may show for:
Women’s hats
Women hats.
The pros are that, with this match type, searchers are a lot closer to the purchase point. This means that your CPA will likely be lower than with the other types. Plus, you can match your ad copy to the search term with a high degree of relevancy.
A con is that this also means your reach is low — like really low.
We recommend using Exact Match Keywords if you have a lower budget and your aim is conversions.
Negative Keywords
We’ve written about negative keywords, so we won’t spend too much time on them.
Negative keywords are a way to limit your ad groups by removing keywords from the search parameters.
For example, if I had a target keyword of couches and a negative keyword of red, my ad could show for blue couches but not red couches.
We denote a negative keyword with the minus symbol.
A broad negative keyword: -red
A phrase negative: -“red”
An exact negative: -[red]
Using Keywords to Organise your Campaigns
A single keyword ad group (commonly called a SKAG) is an ad group that only has one keyword inside it. This is a good way to separate your ad groups – it allows huge relevancy with your ad copy and keeps the data of keywords very clean.
However, in general, a SKAG needs a lot of time to maintain, especially if you want to target a lot of keywords.
Our preferred method is to target keywords based on themes, especially since Google has become better at understanding synonyms of words.
For example, if you target sushi delivery, your keyword group might look like:
Sushi delivery
Sushi delivery near me
Sushi delivery Brisbane
Uber Eats Sushi.
We hope that gives you a clearer idea of how Keyword Match Types operate. If not, drop in to the Edison office in West End and ask for some help with yours.