Should You Switch to Broad Match Keyword?
We have all been there. Going through our campaign recommendations and being told once again to change all our phrase and exact match keywords to broad match. Moving people to Broad Match Keywords seems to be one of google’s biggest goals as of late.
Don’t worry, you are not the only one receiving this recommendation again and again. In fact, we manage a number of accounts and about 90% of them receive this recommendation repeatedly.
But is changing your keywords to broad match always the best move?
Our short answer is no, switching all your keywords to broad match without analyzing them is not the best move, and here is why.
Match Types Looking Different Nowadays
If you’ve not managed the day-to-day of a campaign in a few years you may be out of the game and may have missed the memo that keyword match types are not what they were five years ago. In fact they are not even what they were a year ago.
Google still has the core match types: broad match, phrase match, and exact match. However, their definitions have changed in the past few years and google completely went away with broad match modifiers in July 2021. We would argue that the new definitions for the match types have actually blurred the lines between them.
Let’s take a look at the new definitions for each match type and what that means for the search terms google pulls.
KEYWORD MATCH TYPE DEFINITIONS
This is how google now defines each term:
Broad Match Keywords: The search term has to be related to the keyword but does not need to have the same meaning.
Phrase Match Keywords: The Search Term has to include the same meaning as the keyword.
Exact Match Keywords: The search term has to have the same meaning as the keyword.
SOME EXAMPLES
| Keyword: Auto Shop | ||
| Broad Match | Phrase Match | Exact Match |
| Car Towing company Purchase a Ford | Custom Auto Shopauto shop labor rates by state | Auto Shop |
These rules make sense and are pretty straight forward, but here is where the waters get really muddied. Google has also introduced “close variants”. What does close variant mean? Well, it means that exact match keywords are no longer just exact match and phrase match Keywords are no longer just phrase match. Close variants are not a setting like phrase or exact match, rather if you set a keyword to exact match google might show search terms that are exact match “close variant”. Same goes for phrase match. Here are some examples of close variants for the same keyword “Auto Shop”.
| Keyword: Auto Shop | ||
| Phrase Match “close variant” | Exact Match “close variant” | |
| car accessory shop exhaust shop near me bmw performance shop | auto store car shops auto places |
As you can see some of the phrase match “close variant” examples start to look similar to the broad match search terms. We have even seen the same search term appear as both a phrase match “close variant” and an exact match “close variant” for the same keyword.
Right about now is when you might be asking the same question that we were asking: Can you turn close variant matches off? Nope. Truly there is no off switch. There have been a handful of articles written about stopping google ads from showing close variants, but these articles all include tips on negative matching and account organization. Sadly none of them include a magic answer about where a hidden off switch button is. That being said, if you are interested in these other tactics Browser Media goes into detail on close variants and ways to prevent them.
What Keyword Match Type Is Best For You?
Now that we have looked at the match type definitions, let’s get into what this looks like in practice and assess if changing your exact match keywords to broad or phrase match is the best fit for your company.
Our biggest observation that companies need to look out for is the difference in search terms when using exact match vs phrase match for general industry keywords, like “automotive shop” or “Restaurants in Chicago”. The difference being that exact match will get you search terms with the same meaning as your keywords but phrase match will get you names of other companies.
Let’s use “Restaurants in Chicago” as our example. Some exact match search terms would be “best chicago restaurants”, “chicago restaurant” and “must try restaurants in chicago”. Whereas, Phrase match search terms that include competitor names would include “portillos in chicago” and “cooper hawks Chicago”.
If your company doesn’t want to bid on competitor search terms, you will need to monitor the search terms closely and frequently negative match when using phrase match. If you don’t have the bandwidth for negative matching, then using more specific keywords or sticking to exact match keywords is the way to go.
Don’t get us wrong, phrase match keywords will bring in non-competitor search terms as well which may in fact be helpful for your company, but you will need to be thorough in your negative keyword build-out.
So those are observations on the actual search terms that appear but what about numbers? How do the match types perform compared to one another?
Our campaigns, that span across industries, show consistently that exact match keywords out perform broad match and phrase match keywords in terms of CTR and Conversion rate. However exact match keywords also have a higher Cost Per Click.
Thus if your goal is number of ad impressions and brand awareness, broad match is the way to go. However, most of the time companies value conversions over impressions in which case the exact match keywords are your friend.
Our Recommendation
Our biggest recommendation is to not switch all your keywords to broad match at once without doing your research and being prepared that your metrics might take a turn. Understand that making the switch from exact match to phrase match or phrase match to broad match is going to bring in search terms that your campaigns haven’t seen yet.
One option we recommend is to take it slow and try a few keywords at a time to see if you like the results of broad match keywords. From there, you can make the call if your other keywords should follow suit.
That being said, here are some questions to ask yourself before making the switch:
Do I have the time to sort through search terms and build out negative keyword lists?
What are my KPIs? Do I value conversion rates or impressions?
Do I want to bid on competitor terms?
Do I have the time to do deep dives into individual keyword performances?
Final Take Away
Don’t be pressured by Google recommendations to change all your keywords to broad match without understanding what that is going to do to your campaigns. Remember, you know your account. You know your keywords and your metrics. You can make the best decision for your campaigns, whether it is taking Google’s recommendation or once again hitting that pesky dismiss button and keeping your exact match keywords.