In the dynamic world of digital marketing, Google Ads is continuously at the forefront, pioneering advancements in automation and machine learning. These innovations are rapidly transforming the way keyword matching operates, signalling a future where traditional match types could very well become a thing of the past. As artificial intelligence increasingly takes centre stage, the focus is shifting towards a more nuanced approach—one that emphasises intent-based matching and broader, more sophisticated targeting.
For advertisers, this evolution presents both challenges and opportunities. The traditional, rigid keyword strategies that once dictated campaign success are giving way to AI-driven models that are more adaptable and intuitive. These changes require marketers to not only rethink their approach but to also embrace a new paradigm where understanding user intent is paramount, and where broader targeting can lead to more precise and impactful ad placements.
In this blog, we will delve into the evolving landscape of Google Ads match types, examining how AI is reshaping them and what these changes mean for marketers striving to stay ahead in a competitive marketplace. Whether you are a seasoned advertiser or just starting, understanding these developments is crucial to ensuring your campaigns remain effective and aligned with the future of digital advertising.
What is Keyword Match Type?
Keywords are words or phrases used to match ads with the terms that people are searching for. The keyword match types dictate how closely the keyword must align with the user’s search query for the ad to be considered in the auction. For example, you could use broad match to serve your ad on a wider range of user searches, or you could use exact match to target specific user searches.
Each match type has its own set of advantages and disadvantages within your Google Ads account. It is important to note that as time progresses, particularly with the introduction of automated bidding, the boundaries between match types have become increasingly blurred.
As a result, it may be necessary to complement your chosen match type with negative keywords to ensure optimal keyword selection for the search queries entered into Google, as well as employ both online conversion tracking and offline conversion tracking. This approach allows you to further refine your targeting and lead quality optimisation..
The Evolution of Keyword Match Types in the Age of AI
In the era before artificial intelligence became integral to Google Ads, keyword match types were a cornerstone of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. They acted as precise controls, allowing advertisers to dictate how closely a user’s search term needed to match the selected keywords in order for their ads to appear. By carefully choosing the right match type—be it exact, phrase, or broad—marketers could finely tune their targeting to ensure that their ads reached the most relevant audiences, balancing the quality and quantity of leads generated.
Today, however, the landscape of keyword match types has evolved dramatically, driven by the advent of AI and machine learning. In this new age, the role of match types has shifted from a manual control tool to a more fluid, AI-enhanced system that prioritises intent over exact keyword matching. Here’s how keyword match types function now:
The New Reality of Keyword Match Types
Exact Match: No Longer ‘Exact’: Once the gold standard for precision, exact match is no longer strictly tied to an identical match of search terms. AI now interprets the intent behind a search, allowing ads to be triggered by close variations, synonyms, and related phrases, even if they don’t match the keyword exactly. This shift means that while exact match still offers a degree of control, it is now broader and more flexible, aligning with Google’s AI-driven understanding of user intent.
Phrase Match: Expanded Reach: Phrase match, which used to ensure that search terms contained the exact keyword phrase in the correct order, has also been widened. AI now interprets the context in which the phrases appear, enabling ads to show for a broader array of related searches. This change reflects Google’s move towards understanding the broader intent behind search queries, rather than relying on rigid keyword structures.
Broad Match: The Default: Broad match has undergone the most significant transformation. Traditionally, it was used to cast a wide net, matching ads to a wide range of searches that included synonyms, related terms, and variations. Now, with AI enhancements, broad match has become the default recommendation by Google. The AI processes vast amounts of data, including user behaviour, search history, and contextual signals, to match ads with searches that it deems relevant, even if the search terms do not directly align with the keyword. This AI-driven broad match offers expansive reach, potentially uncovering valuable opportunities that might have been missed with more restrictive match types.
The Shift to Intent-Based Matching:
Why use Still Use Match Type At All?
In the age of AI-driven advertising, where Google’s algorithms are increasingly sophisticated in understanding user intent, the question arises: why should advertisers still use match types at all? After all, with AI handling much of the heavy lifting, one might assume that the traditional role of match types is becoming obsolete. However, there are several compelling reasons why match types remain a valuable tool in the modern marketer’s arsenal.
Retain Some Control: While AI offers incredible precision and efficiency, match types still provide advertisers with a layer of strategic control that can be crucial for certain campaigns. For example, when launching a new product or targeting a niche market, advertisers may want to use more restrictive match types like exact or phrase match to ensure their ads are shown to a highly relevant audience. This level of control can be essential for managing budget allocation and ensuring that ads are reaching the right people, especially in the initial stages of a campaign.
Budget Management: Match types allow advertisers to control their spend more effectively. Broad match types, while useful for casting a wide net, can sometimes lead to a higher volume of irrelevant clicks, which can drain budgets quickly. By using more specific match types, advertisers can focus their budgets on the most relevant searches, ensuring that their spend is concentrated on keywords that are more likely to convert, thereby improving overall return on investment (ROI).
Granular Insights: Even with AI’s broad capabilities, match types can still offer valuable insights into how different audiences are interacting with your ads. By analysing the performance of different match types, advertisers can gain a deeper understanding of which search terms are driving conversions and which are not. This granular data can inform future strategies, helping advertisers refine their keyword choices and ad messaging.
Complementing AI with Human Insight: While AI is excellent at processing and analysing data at scale, it still benefits from human insight and strategy. Match types allow advertisers to apply their understanding of their market and audience in a way that complements the AI’s capabilities. For instance, an advertiser might use exact match to ensure that their ad appears only for the most precise queries that closely align with their brand messaging, or they might use phrase match to target specific phrases that resonate with their audience.
Testing and Optimisation: Match types remain essential for testing and optimisation. By experimenting with different match types, advertisers can see how various approaches affect performance. This kind of A/B testing is vital for refining campaigns and ensuring that they are as effective as possible. For example, an advertiser might test the effectiveness of a broad match keyword against a phrase match keyword to see which one drives more qualified traffic.
Adapting to Specific Campaign Goals: Different campaigns have different objectives, and match types can be tailored to meet those goals. For campaigns focused on brand awareness, broad match may be ideal for reaching a wide audience. Conversely, for campaigns aimed at driving specific actions, such as purchases or sign-ups, more restrictive match types may be preferable to ensure that ads are shown to users with a clear intent to convert.
While AI has undoubtedly transformed the landscape of digital advertising, match types still play a crucial role in providing advertisers with control, insights, and the ability to align campaigns with specific business objectives. By using match types strategically, advertisers can complement AI-driven automation with targeted human input, ensuring that their campaigns are not only efficient but also effective in achieving their goals.
The Increasing Importance of Using Both Online and Offline Tracking
As Google Ads continues to advance its use of broad match types, the integration of both online and offline tracking has become more vital than ever. Broad match, now enhanced by sophisticated AI and machine learning, enables ads to connect with a wider audience by aligning with a broad range of search queries, including those that may only loosely correspond to the original keywords. While this expanded reach presents new opportunities, it also brings the challenge of ensuring that the traffic generated is not just wide, but also of high quality, leading to meaningful business outcomes.
In today’s Google Ads environment, where broad match types are increasingly driven by AI and designed to engage users at all stages of the search funnel, the importance of combining online and offline tracking cannot be overstated. This integrated approach allows advertisers to fully capture and understand the value of their campaigns, ensuring that every conversion—whether occurring online or offline—is accurately tracked and attributed. By feeding this comprehensive data back into Google’s AI systems, advertisers can refine and optimise their wider match targeting and bidding strategies to enhance lead quality.
For example, when testing new keywords or wider match type, the quality of traffic can be determined not by cost per lead, but by cost per customer – or revenue per customer.
This, in turn, leads to more effective, efficient, and ultimately profitable advertising campaigns.
Here’s why the combination of Google Ads online conversion tracking and Google Ads offline conversion tracking is essential in the context of today’s broad match type functionality:
Comprehensive Understanding of the Customer Journey
In today’s digital landscape, the customer journey often spans both online and offline interactions. A user might click on an ad online, browse through the website, and then complete a purchase in-store or over the phone. By using both online and offline tracking, advertisers can capture a full picture of this journey. This comprehensive view is particularly important when using broad match, as the wider reach could drive traffic from various stages of the funnel – or even unqualified leads. Without offline tracking, the true impact of these interactions might be underestimated, leading to skewed performance assessments.
Optimising AI-Driven Broad Match Targeting
Broad match keywords, enhanced by AI, have the potential to connect with a much larger pool of search queries. While this can increase visibility and reach, it also increases the likelihood of attracting irrelevant traffic if not properly managed. Offline tracking provides critical data that feeds back into Google’s AI, helping it refine its understanding of which broad match queries are most likely to lead to actual conversions, both online or offline. This feedback loop is essential for optimising broad match targeting to ensure that it not only drives an increase of leads leads but also leads to valuable business outcomes.
What you want to avoid is just relying on online conversion tracking, and optimising for a target CPA and potentially training Google’s Ai to get lots of low quality leads due to wider match type. If you inform Google of lead quality by integrating your CRM sales cycle stages, Google will optimise for leads most likely to become qualified and converted leads. Want to learn more, see our blog post: Making Google Ads AI Work for You.
Accurate Attribution Across Channels
One of the challenges with broad match is that it can attract a wide range of traffic, some of which may not immediately convert online. By integrating offline conversion tracking, advertisers can ensure that conversions happening outside of the digital environment—such as in physical stores or via phone orders—are accurately attributed to the correct online interactions. This level of accurate attribution is crucial in assessing the true ROI of broad match campaigns and making informed decisions about where to allocate budget and resources.
Refining Campaign Strategies Based on Holistic Data
When relying solely on online tracking, the effectiveness of broad match keywords might be misjudged if conversions are happening offline. For example, a keyword might generate a lot of traffic that doesn’t convert online but results in substantial offline sales. Without offline tracking, this keyword might be incorrectly deemed ineffective. By using both online and offline tracking, advertisers can gather holistic data that better informs their strategy, ensuring that effective broad match keywords are identified and optimised rather than prematurely discarded.
Enhancing Smart Bidding Strategies
Google’s Smart Bidding strategies, which automatically adjust bids to maximise outcomes like conversions or ROAS, rely heavily on conversion data. With broad match driving a wider range of traffic, integrating offline conversion tracking becomes essential to feed the AI with accurate data. This ensures that the Smart Bidding algorithms are optimising bids based on the full spectrum of conversions, not just those that occur online. The result is a more efficient use of budget and higher-quality traffic, as bids are adjusted based on the true value of each broad match keyword.
Improving Overall Campaign Performance
Finally, the integration of both online and offline tracking helps advertisers maximise the potential of broad match by improving overall campaign performance. By understanding the complete impact of their ads—across both digital and physical touchpoints—advertisers can refine their targeting, messaging, and bidding strategies to drive better results. This holistic approach ensures that broad match campaigns are not just broad in reach, but also finely tuned to generate high-quality, conversion-ready traffic.
How to Decide on Match Type Ratio
Consider starting with an 80/20 approach, allocating 80% of your focus on broader match types like broad or phrase match, and reserving 20% for more precise match types like exact match. However, the optimal ratio may vary depending on your specific campaign and target audience. Here are some considerations to help guide your decision-making process:
Define Campaign Objectives:
Clearly define your campaign objectives. Are you aiming for maximum visibility, precise targeting, or a balance between the two? Understanding your goals will guide your choice of match types.
Analyse Search Volume and Competition:
Consider the search volume and level of competition for your keywords. Broad match may be suitable for high-volume, competitive keywords, while more precise match types like phrase or exact match might be preferable for specific, niche terms.
Test and Monitor Performance:
Conduct tests using different match types to evaluate their impact on performance metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-acquisition. Continuously monitor and analyse the data to identify which match types are yielding the best results for your campaign objectives.
Refine with Search Term Analysis:
Regularly review the search term analysis report to identify search queries that triggered your ads. Add relevant terms as new keywords and exclude irrelevant ones as negative keywords. This iterative process helps refine your match types and improve targeting precision.
Consider Automation and Machine Learning:
Leverage automation and machine learning capabilities within platforms like Google Ads to optimise your match types. Automated bidding strategies like target CPA or target ROAS can help align your bids with your campaign objectives and maximise performance.
In conclusion, deciding on match types and their ratios requires a combination of understanding your campaign goals, analysing search volume and competition, testing, and monitoring performance. Continuously refine your match types based on data-driven insights to optimise your targeting precision, reach, and overall campaign performance.
Tips for Using Keyword Match Type Tips
Here are some keyword match-type tips to help you optimise your ad campaigns:
Start new campaigns with Phrase and Exact Match for precision: If you’re aiming for specific targeting, begin with phrase match or exact match. This ensures that your ads are shown to users who search for your keywords with a higher level of specificity.
Only use Broad Match with Certain Bid Strategies: Match type targeting effectiveness varies based on campaign objectives and bid optimisation strategy. Target CPA and Target ROAS are suitable for broad match, while maximising clicks, target impression share, and manual CPC may not be ideal. Align your goals with the right match type for optimal campaign performance.
Balance Precision and Reach: Consider the balance between precision and reach when selecting match types. Broad match provides wider reach, while phrase match and exact match offer more precise targeting. Choose the match type that aligns with your campaign goals.
Monitor the Search Terms report of Broad match: This report provides valuable insights into the specific search terms that triggered your ads. By regularly reviewing and analysing this data, you can identify any irrelevant or low-performing search terms and add them as negative keywords. This allows you to refine your targeting, improve campaign efficiency, and ensure your ads are shown to the most relevant audience.
Use Negative Keywords: Utilise negative keywords to exclude irrelevant searches and improve targeting accuracy. Regularly review search query reports to identify irrelevant terms and add them as negative keywords to prevent your ads from appearing in unrelated searches.
Monitor Performance and Refine: Keep a close eye on your campaign performance metrics, including click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-click. Continuously monitor and analyse data to identify opportunities for improvement and make adjustments accordingly. Stay proactive by reviewing and refining your keyword list. Add new keywords based on search query insights, remove underperforming keywords, and optimise your match types as needed
Consider Match Type Combinations: Don’t limit yourself to a single match type. Experiment with different combinations of match types for different keywords to find the optimal balance between precision and reach for your specific campaign.
Consider the Buyer Journey: Align your match types with the different stages of the buyer journey. Use broader match types in the awareness stage to reach a wider audience, and shift towards more precise match types in the consideration and decision stages to target users with higher intent.
Remember, optimising match types is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and adjustments. By implementing these tips, you can refine your targeting, improve ad performance, and maximise the effectiveness of your keyword match types.
Using Negative Keywords for Matching
Negative keywords play a crucial role in ensuring that your ads are displayed to your target audience. They offer a valuable means to prevent your ads from appearing in irrelevant searches that are similar to your keywords but lack the desired relevance. By implementing negative keywords, you can enhance the precision of your keyword choices and ensure that your ads reach the right audience.
Negative keywords serve as a way to exclude specific words or phrases from triggering your ads. This allows you to avoid paying for ad placements in front of people who are unlikely to be interested in what you’re advertising. It’s a strategic approach to optimise your ad spend and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.
By identifying and adding negative keywords, you can refine your targeting and ensure that your ads are displayed to the most relevant audience. This process involves analysing search queries and identifying patterns of irrelevant or low-converting terms that you want to exclude from triggering your ads.
In conclusion, integrating negative keywords into your advertising strategy is a recommended practice to improve the precision and effectiveness of your ad targeting. By carefully selecting and excluding specific words or phrases, you can avoid irrelevant impressions and focus your ad budget on reaching the most relevant and interested audience. Make use of negative keywords as part of your ongoing optimisation efforts to continually refine your campaigns and achieve better results.
To learn more check out our Advanced Negative Keyword Guide.
The Search Terms Report & Match Type
The choice of match types directly impacts the success of your Google Ads account. Match types determine the search queries for which your ads will appear. Several factors should be considered when selecting the appropriate match types for your keywords. Here are key considerations to keep in mind:
Utilise the “Match type” Column: The “Match type” column in your account provides valuable insights into how closely the search terms that triggered your ads are related to your keywords. This information helps determine which match types to use for each keyword. Use this data to optimise your match types accordingly.
Identify High-Potential Search Terms: Regularly review the search terms report to identify new search terms with high potential. These terms can be added as new keywords to expand your reach and target relevant audiences. By incorporating these high-potential search terms, you can maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Exclude Irrelevant Search Terms: Similarly, identify search terms that are irrelevant to your offerings. These terms can be added as negative keywords, ensuring that your ads do not appear for searches that are not relevant to your business. By adding negative keywords, you refine your targeting and improve the overall performance of your campaigns.
Leverage Search Terms Report: Once broader match types have gathered impressions and clicks, regularly monitor the search terms report. This report provides insights into which keyword variations triggered your ads and resulted in conversions. Analyse this data to optimise your keyword strategy and refine your match types for better performance.
By actively monitoring and optimising your match types based on the search terms report, you can enhance the relevancy of your ads, attract more qualified traffic, and increase the likelihood of conversions.
In conclusion, selecting the appropriate match types and leveraging the search terms report are crucial for account success in Google Ads. By using the available data to refine your match types, adding high-potential search terms, and excluding irrelevant ones, you can optimise your targeting and achieve better results. Continually analyse and adapt your match types based on performance data to ensure the ongoing success of your Google Ads account.
The Future of Match Types
As Google continues to refine its AI and machine learning algorithms, we can expect further evolution in how ads are matched to user queries. Traditional match types may eventually be phased out entirely in favour of more sophisticated, intent-based systems. While these changes may seem daunting, they also present opportunities for advertisers who are willing to adapt. By embracing AI-driven targeting and focusing on user intent, marketers can potentially reach more relevant audiences and improve overall campaign performance.
The key to success in this new era of Google Ads will be flexibility, continuous learning, and a willingness to work alongside AI to create more effective and efficient advertising campaigns. As the landscape continues to evolve, those who can harness the power of AI-driven targeting while maintaining strategic oversight will be best positioned to succeed in the ever-changing world of digital advertising.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding and leveraging keyword match types are vital for successful Google Ads campaigns. By selecting the appropriate match types based on your campaign objectives and target audience, you can refine your targeting precision and maximise results. Regular monitoring of performance metrics, such as the search terms report, allows for the optimisation of match types by adding relevant keywords and excluding irrelevant ones. Adaptation to changes in match-type behaviour and considering different campaign types are crucial for achieving optimal performance. By utilising match types strategically, advertisers can enhance ad visibility, attract relevant traffic, and drive successful outcomes in their Google Ads campaigns.
