Keyword Match Types Study Note: Broad Match And Broad Match Modified (Part One)

In the previous post, I mentioned that we need to carefully build keyword lists and to think about the queries that users are like to search for on Google. How to make sure your ad show when people are typing relevant search terms? The answer is match type. Google will match those search terms with your keywords based on the match types and relevancy. 

Match types tell how much "freedom" Google has when pairing your keywords with search queries. It all depends on how strict or loose you define your keywords by using match types. Match types will seriously influence on which search terms will trigger any given keyword.

There are five primary match types: broad, broad match modified, phrase, exact, and negative.

The first four types are different ways of letting Google know how they should treat search terms in relation to those keywords. Negative match type is the keywords that you don't want to use. When people search terms match your negative keywords, your ad won't be shown.

Understanding those match types is very important because your account will perform significantly different. Your cost and click-through rate will be different, and so do your profits.

In this post, I will summarize the first two match types note.

Broad Match

Broad match type is the default match type. It captures the most clicks and impressions. 

Every single ad group should at least have a mixture of broad matched keywords. It's a great way to find new keyword ideas. Negative keywords are an absolute must. In general, the broad match type has the lowest click-through rate, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. 

For example, if your keyword is white sneakers, your ad will show when the search terms are white shoes, running shoes, sneakers, training shoes, black sneakers and etc. As you see, there is a huge range of search terms that can show up for a broad match keyword.

Pros of the broad match:

• spend less time building keyword lists
• quickly collect new keyword ideas
• the strategy could work with a large budget
• used with extensive negative keyword list can be a powerful long term solution
• cheapest cost per click in most cases

Cons of the broad match:

• spend a ton of money very fast on bad clicks
• get a lot of irrelevant clicks and traffic
• low CTR can hurt your quality score
• gain low conversions and less brand awareness

Broad Match Modified

Broad match modified type keywords will use "+" symbol to cut out related terms and synonyms. It still can generate a lot of bad clicks for irrelevant queries. 

When you choose broad match modified type, we are telling Google that these are the keywords we absolutely require being a search term before we are letting you send our budget on showing our ad. 

A query MUST include all your modified terms, but not necessarily in that order with additional terms that are not modified.

For example, if your broad match modified keyword is +white + sneakers, your ad will show when the search terms are white sneakers, sneakers for sale, white shoes, Nike white sneakers and etc. In order for my ad to be eligible to show, the search term has to include these two modified terms. 

Pros of the broad match modified:

• great way to discover new ideas while controlling or total irrelevant queries
• improve CTR over broad match

Cons of the broad match modified:

• must include negative keywords
• can be a challenge to generate a good CTR which can negatively impact your quality score

Overall, both the broad match and broad match modified are good way to generate keyword ideas if you don't worry about your budget. It would be better to experiment with a search with keywords that are partly modified and partly broad.