Nobody has time to run their business AND pay attention to all the changes in digital marketing. There are so many factors that go into optimizing your digital ads and there is so much to think about with search ads. When you create a search ad on Google you need to think about targeting, headlines, descriptions, and most importantly keywords. These are what trigger your ad to show when people search for certain terms or words. For example, Hexcode would use “marketing agency” in our search ad. But, did you know there are different match types for keywords? Yes, competition, relevance to your industry, and traffic for certain keywords are important, and you ALWAYS want to check your search terms, but using broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords are important to your ads, especially if you have a new Google ad account. The different match types for keywords will help your ads show up in the most relevant search results for what you offer. How do you know what keyword to use? Good thing we’re here to answer that question. Keep reading to find out the best way to use each keyword.
We’re going to start with the broadest match type, broad match. (See what we did there…)
Broad Match keywords are best used when you’re using smart bidding with Google, and unless you specify otherwise, this is the default match type Google will use. This match type is great to drive lots of clicks, but won’t always provide a customer that is 100% going to convert from your ad. A good example of a broad match keyword would be office furniture. With this keyword as a broad match, your ad could show up for searches like:
- Best chairs for a home office
- Modern workspace decor
- Desk setup ideas
- Office organization
Broad match takes into consideration your ad content, landing page, other keywords in your ad group, user’s location, and even the user’s recent search activities to better understand the intent of your keyword. Your ad will appear whenever a user’s search includes any word in your phrase, in any order, as well as words that relate to your keyword. Broad match doesn’t have anything around the word when you put it into your keywords in your search ad, and you want to use good high-quality negative keywords when relying solely on broad match. If you put “free” as a negative keyword, when someone searches for free office furniture, your ad won’t show because they used the word free and that’s a negative keyword for you. If you’re using only broad match keywords make sure your ads are optimized and you’re only using smart bidding in Google or you’ll pay for irrelevant traffic to your site that doesn’t drive conversions.
Next, we’ll look at phrase match. This match type keeps the search results broad but gives more control on when your ad appears. To note that you want to use phrase match you need to use quotations around your keyword. This tells Google to show your ad when queries include the meaning of your keyword (of course determined by Google). If we look at our office furniture ad, if we use “office furniture” as a keyword, then our ad is most likely to show for searches like:
- Affordable office furniture
- Office furniture for small spaces
- Modern office furniture sets
- Where to buy office furniture
Phrase match, while still keeping the search intent broad, will help your ad not show for irrelevant searches like bedroom furniture. Using broad match, your ad for office furniture would show for that search term since it has furniture, but with phrase match, it wouldn’t show since it doesn’t have the word office in the search. When using phrase match your ad can reach more searches with a higher conversion intent. If you’re running a brand or competitor campaign you’d want to use phrase match so your ad will appear with queries that refer to your brand or your competition’s brand.
Our final match type is exact match. This will give you users who are most likely to convert from your ad. It’s also the most restrictive keyword match type you can use. You use brackets to tell Google that’s the match type you want to use. So for an exact match of [office furniture] your ad will ONLY show when someone searches for:
- Office furniture
- Furniture for an office
- Best office furniture
You want to use this match type for specific search terms. If you’re selling a specific type of desk you might use that as an exact match keyword, i.e. [ergonomic stand up desk] to help your ad trigger for people searching for that specific term and drive them to your website and buy your desk. Although exact match is the most restrictive type of match, Google will still let your ad show if a search query contains synonyms, plurals, or other variations of your keyword like misspellings or abbreviations. So [ergonomic stand up desk] will also show for:
- Ergonomic stand up desks
- Ergonmic standup desk
- Ergo standup deks
- Ergonomic standup desk
Exact Match has fewer views, but a higher conversion rate when users see your ad based on their search intent.
So, what’s the moral of this blog? Keyword match types in Google Search ads aren’t as cut and dry as you might think. You need to understand your goals, know how your ideal customers are searching for what you offer, and pay attention to what words and search terms your ad is showing for and adapt accordingly with your keywords. You also need to set up negative keywords accordingly, and yes, you can set them up for broad, “phrase” and [exact] match as well.
If you need help with your digital ad campaigns, give Hexcode a call! We have experts in every corner ready to take your CTR and conversions to new heights.