3 Different Keyword Match Types in Google Ads

4 months ago

3 Different Keyword Match Types in Google Ads

In case you didn’t know yet, there are three different match types that you need to be aware of when running a Google search campaign. I just did a really quick Google search for Google keyword match types. And I found this help article, which is really helpful in illustrating and explaining the differences between these three different match types.

So firstly, the three different match types are exact match, phrase match, and broad match as shown below in the table.

Google uses an example of the base keyword lawn mowing service, and shows what your ad will possibly show for with the different match types. So there’s a massive misconception that people don’t realize that the keyword that they’re bidding on is actually different for what their ad is going to show for. And depending on the match type that you choose, will kind of depend what your ad will show for.

All right. So for example, as shown in this help article, for the keyword lawn mowing service, if you choose the exact match, match type keyword, so you put square brackets [ ] around your keyword for lawn mowing service, then your ad will show for, obviously, lawn mowing service, but also grass cutting service. So it’s really really tightly themed.

And, and the search terms are going to be really closely related to your base keyword. The consequence of this is that you’re going to get limited search variation, and therefore limited impressions, etc.

Okay, so the next way to expand upon a particular keyword and show up for more search terms, is to use the match type called phrase match denoted by the inverted commas “”.

So for the keyword, lawn mowing service, you would put lawn mowing service in inverted commas, like like, it’s kind of showing here, which would result in your ad showing for keywords like lawn mowing service near me, hire company to mow lawn landscaping service to cut grass, okay, so really, the purpose is purpose of this is to eliminate the need for you to think of every possible variation of keyword, Google understands it’s sort of inconceivable, or a really difficult task to think of every possible keyword.

So with the match types, it just allows for that search term variation, as long as it’s still tightly related to what you want. Phrase match is my preferred option to use for a match type for a keyword because it’s still closely enough related that the search terms are relevant, but loosely enough related that it’s going to show up for things that I possibly hadn’t thought of, for example, you know, landscaping service to cut grass, like, wouldn’t have thought of that. Okay.

The last match type is broad match, which is denoted with no syntax at all. So no square brackets, no inverted commas.

And it’s actually a really common trap for people when they’re creating their campaigns. And they’re not aware that the concept of match types for keywords exists. So they don’t know to put syntax around the keywords and they just write their keywords.

And therefore that opens the door to way more search terms, and they possibly want. So in this example, for the keyword of lawn mowing service, Google gives the example that your ads gonna show for lawn aeration prices. Even I don’t know what lawn aeration is.

So if you do run broad match types, and look, they do have their place in the world. But make sure you have a look at your search terms, and add lots of negative keywords because chances are your ads are going to show up for lots of things that you don’t want, which could result in a really bad click through rate wasted ad spend and all sorts of really negative results that will happen with your account as a result of that.

I’ll show you real quick in a live Google Ad Account, here we are in a live account, you can see that we’ve got the match type column here, and that’s phrase match denoted by the inverted commas.

Not sure if you can see with blurring, and you can easily change the match type based by clicking on that here and those you can see the three different match types there as well.

Alrighty, so there you have it. Those are the three different match types you need to be aware of in your Google Ads account. Hope you found this article helpful.