When starting with Google Ads, it’s really important to understand the types of keywords you can use on your campaigns. A lot of people ask me this question so today I will tell you everything about the keyword match types, my opinion about them, and how I use them in my campaigns.
To begin with, I will tell you there isn’t an exact answer. If someone says “this is the best”, don’t buy it.
What are the Keyword Match Types on Google?
There are three types of keyword match types in Google Ads.
BROAD MATCH
So let’s assume. If I put, for example, the word buy iPhone broadly, without any code, let’s call it that, Google will interpret that, since the iPhone is a phone, it can put other searches similar to “buy iPhone”. In this case, “purchase an iPhone”, “I want an iPhone” or “I want a cell phone”, among others. He will be able to get several words, pulling this one as a source.
As defined by Google, when you use broad match, meaning you don’t apply any special symbols, ads may appear for misspelled searches, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations. As I said in the example above, to buy iPhone, will go out to buy iPhone 7-8, any synonymous or related words.
PHRASE MATCH
When you put it by phrase, writing the keyword in quotes (“buy iPhone”). It is specifying that the search cannot be different from the keyword order and it cannot be changed either. So if you see a word after or before, then you can. For example, if the search is I want to buy an iPhone, your ad will come out. Buying an iPhone 7 will also come out, because that’s exactly what’s there in the quotes, plus something else.
EXACT MATCH
Another match we have here is the exact one. The special character that specifies it are braces. [Buy iPhone]. As the name implies, exact match requires the search to be exactly like the keyword, otherwise your ad won’t appear. If the person types I want to buy an iPhone, your ad will not appear. In this type of match, if the person types the wrong word, for example, your ad doesn’t come out either.
These three are the main ones. If you want to know in even more detail, the “learn more” on the Google page shows you a complete explanation, including a table that exemplifies each case very well.
These are the keyword matches.
What’s the Best Keyword Match on Google?
Which one should I use? This is a very tricky question, because it would be interesting to analyze your Google campaign to come up with a more concrete answer. But, I like to use the wide one.
The broad one is what I use the most and when I see that you are looking for a lot of negative words, then I still use the modified one. But anyway, the wide one is that I like to use the most.
Why James, do you use the broad? Will get related word, bad. Because I like to work with the broad and also put many, many, negative words. And that doesn’t cause me to lose traffic. And that’s the big thing.
So, it doesn’t matter if you have a CPA, cost per acquisition, very low, you are paying very little and selling with a legal value, having a high ROI. If you lose volume. When you put exact and the user puts a variation of the word, for example, for iPhone, the user types in the plural or ends up making a spelling error, it won’t come out, even if the term is closely related to yours. And the phrase happens the same thing. It’s a little wider, but still pretty narrow.
Are these two we talked about good? They are! Just because they don’t bring you new keyword ideas. And then, obviously, you will have that specific audience that is looking for that keyword will show up and obviously it tends to give a better result.
Negative Keywords Are Key
Now, if you put it wide, you will have more search volume and then you will have qualified search volume. Some words that weren’t on your radar will start coming out, you’ll add, and the amount will increase. And you will also identify bad words. By optimizing your campaign, you will negate these words.
So, in my campaigns, I like to use broad and always putting a lot of negative keywords. That’s it. That’s how I do it. Because I don’t lose volume.
But you can tell me: Lucas, I have a very low investment and only three-four words are important to me. Oh, great. You can use the exact or the phrase. But then again, there’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to climb, you’re going to want to do that, and then you have to let go.
In case you need it, I have a special content where I explain how to choose the best keywords. But when I start a campaign on the search network, I go there in the keyword planner and identify as many negative words as I can. So I do a search, I put in about 10 to 20 words wide per ad group and then I look for lots and lots of negative words to make sure my ad doesn’t go out to people I’m not interested in and automatically doesn’t I’m going to restrict so much for other people, for words that weren’t on my radar.
Probably here I’m going to put 40 to 60 negative words. And then I start a campaign without losing traffic and at the same time well optimized for people I won’t leave.
If you do it backwards, don’t put any negative words and just use the exact one, it will only appear for relevant people. However, you won’t get new searches, keyword suggestions, which will keep you restricted. Just those words for life, basically.
And of course you can do this not in the campaign as a whole, but in a few specific words. Let’s assume that you have 5 words and you identified that one in particular is bringing a lot of bad words, even though it is converting, it does not have such a nice conversion. In that case, you can simply modify just that keyword.
For example, I have some broad words like: Buy iPhone, buy iPhone 6, iPhone. Then I identify that the word buy iPhone 6 is at a very high cost and drawing a lot of negative words. In that case, I can only change her. And the rest leave in a broad way.
You can do that too. But overall I don’t usually do it. I tend to include a lot of negative words. So I usually start with a conversion campaign that’s not so good, but it starts off optimized, and it tends to improve results over time. Because every 2 or 3 days, I identify new negative words, I get better and the result tends to increase with volume. And that’s the main thing. In other words, I’m lowering my cost per conversion, so I don’t go out to these bad people, and at the same time I’m increasing sales volume.
If you start out well, with a very good conversion, the tendency is for you to keep it and not be able to
Leaving it wide gives you more traffic and new words coming up. You’ll be tracking exactly how users search and this will give you lots of insights as well.
That’s it! I hope this content has clarified your thoughts on this subject. See you next time.
