Simply put, keywords are the terms your customers use when searching for your product. Good Keywords are one of the most important elements of a good Google Ads campaign, because they trigger your ad to appear in front of your potential customers, but how do you know that the keyword you’re using to sell your newest range of crystal wine glasses is showing your ads to people are searching online for eye glasses?
You do this with a little thing called “keyword match types”.
Let’s Dive Into Your Options
Broad Match
Broad match settings trigger your ad when a user searches any word in your keyword in any order.
For example, a broad match setting on the keyword “Crystal champagne glasses” might trigger your ad to show when someone searches “hotels in champaign” or “trendy eye glasses”. These match types show your ad to the broadest audience possible, but they might not be YOUR audience, and the majority of traffic coming from them is likely to be irrelevant.
This is the default setting on all keywords in Google Ads, use this setting if you want to reach the widest audience possible. Broad match keywords can help you get loads of info on potential search terms, but the cons outweigh the pros by triggering your ad on many irrelevant search terms, leaving you with an increased bounce rate, lower quality score and you forking the bill for those irrelevant clicks.
Broad Match Modifier
The broad match modifier allows you to reach the audience of a broad match keyword but also allows you to refine it. It only shows your ad when certain terms appear in a search query, in any order, and with words before or after the term. Just add a “+” in front of the word.
For example, if you want to make sure your ad is only triggered in terms with the words “crystal” and “glasses” in the query. If your keyword is “High-Quality +crystal +glasses”, your ad could be served to people searching “best places to buy crystal glasses” “how to clean crystal glasses”.
This setting is great if you’d like to reach a broad but more qualified audience, it can also help you find related search terms you may never have thought of.
Phrase match
Phrase match settings only serve your ad when someone searches for that exact term, in that order, with a few words in front or at the back. If your keyword is “vintage dresses” your ad could be served when people search the terms “beaded vintage dresses” “vintage dresses for sale”, but not for “buy dresses online, vintage”
Simply add quotation marks around your keywords to make them phrase matches.
Exact Match
An exact match keyword will only trigger if a user searches the exact term, nothing more, nothing less. For example, the keyword [vintage dresses] will trigger an ad when someone searches ”vintage dresses” but won’t serve the ad to people searching “vintage dresses for sale”.
This setting targets people who are searching for exactly what you are offering, so your leads are likely to be more qualified, while your audience is drastically smaller.
Take a moment to think about the language your potential audience is using, the context in which your keywords could be used, and your overall campaign goals to determine which match types are right for you.
Take another moment to let us know if this article was helpful to you, and if you’d like to know about anything else on this topic.
