Do You Know What Keyword Match Types Are?

Knowing your match types is absolutely critical to success as it is using these correctly that determines which keywords your ads show up for.

Match types are Google’s way of allowing you to control a keyword’s reach. In other words, you get to decide whether you want to advertise under specific terms only, such as “purple nike trainers” or more general terms, such as “trainers”.

Here’s how Google describes match-types:

1. Broad match: keyword
   Allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations
2. Phrase match: “keyword”
   Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase
3. Exact match: [keyword]
   Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively
4. Negative match: -keyword
   Ensures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term

When we create campaigns, we usually start by only using phrase and exact matches of the keywords that our research suggests we bid for.

Using the broad match can be very dangerous but it can also be very rewarding, as it offers you the chance to find new ‘niche’ keywords that your research hasn’t picked up. When we turn on broad matches, we usually advise doing so in a separate campaign in order to protect the daily budget of your phrase and exact matches.

Once you know which broad match keywords work, you can then move them into your ‘main’ campaign.