?? Google is finally changing its tone of voice (Phrase/BMM)

Phrase match and broad match modifier (BMM) keyword types serve as a balance between exact match and broad match types, which are used to target for precision and reach respectively.

What’s the current difference between Phrase and BMM?

?? Broad Match Modifiers are signified with a (+) symbol before each term and match to searches which include the same words or close variants, in any order.

?? Phrase Match keywords are identified in quotation marks (“ ”) and match to searches including the same phrase and phrases of close variants. Extended phrases with words before or after the keyword may match too.

??? What’s going to change under the update?

Google has finally recognised that Phrase Match and BMM keywords serve very similar purposes and use cases. As a consequence, BMM is going to be progressively phased out in favour of Phrase Match keywords by July 2021. The Phrase Match will incorporate both the BMM behaviours and the original Phrase Match behaviours.

Before the change

After the change

Why is Google implementing this change?

"To simplify the keyword portfolio and help advertisers reach more relevant user searches, we are bringing behaviours of broad match modifier (BMM) into phrase match, and phasing out support for BMM. This will be a gradual rollout that will change the back end processing for keyword match types (AdWords API, Google Ads API, Google Ads scripts) in order to simplify keywords and make it easier to reach relevant customers."

Google has been developing its capacities in machine learning and natural language processing over the years with breakthroughs like applying BERT models to Search as Phil Taylor from ppc-strategist.co.uk rightfully suggests.

The main purpose of Google is to figure out similar intents from implied, paraphrase and same intents words. Whilst close-variants seemed a great idea, it became very hard for advertisers to match the "exact intent" that they are aiming for.

With the change and extension of close-match variants, Phrase match was somewhat left behind, becoming less significant as single keywords were pushing multiple intents and confusing the efforts of the advertiser. And, in reality, advertisers were progressively losing the sense of how qualified our user experience was becoming.

?? When will the changes be rolled out?

Starting today, BMM and Phrase Match keywords will start to adopt the new behaviour, so you won’t need to migrate your keywords if you are using BMM.

If your ads are running in a language other than English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, or Russian, you will need to wait until July for this new behaviour to be applied to your keywords.

From July onwards, you will not be able to create new BMM keywords any more, while existing BMM keywords can remain in the account.

What is the impact on my account?

If you are using Phrase Match keywords ...

• You can expect to see a potential increase in clicks and conversions due to the enhanced Phrase Match which will match a slightly wider range of queries.

If you are using BMM keywords ...

• You might see a slight decrease in clicks and conversions because word order will now be considered if it is important to the meaning of the keyword, and if you used keywords where the (+) was not applied to all words you might also see a slight decrease.

If you are using Broad keywords ...

• Broad is not disappearing (at least for now) and should not be affected by those changes. However, we would strongly suggest only using Broad keywords for discovery purposes, by using audience targeting and to complement Dynamic Search Ads.

In your day-to-day tasks, consider the following effects of the change

1. If you were not using Phrase Match Type, it might be worth reconsidering it, and if you were using keywords that have the modifier applied to part of the keyword, e.g. tennis +shoes, it is time to stop as there is no clear way to highlight a specific word any more.
2. If you were using all 3 match types, especially in the same ad group, consider pausing BMM to avoid any duplication in the future because BMM will start to have the same behaviour as Phrase match type.
3. Make sure to review the way you check your duplicated keywords because Google is now considering the order of words within search terms when it’s important to the meaning so “some matches that previously matched to BMM will be filtered out.”
4. Some advertisers might intend to find an alternative to BMM. They might try to duplicate BMM by using 3 Phrase keywords to “cover them all”. As an example, "bicycle repair" could trigger "bicycle repair shop near me", and the word "repair bicycle" could trigger the query "how to repair my bike myself".

Essentially, it is more important to (1) extend your Exact Match Keywords, (2) discover new traffic with well-segmented Dynamic Search Ads (3) be vigilant on the terms that are being pushed; rather than complicating, and risking a new update or duplicated terms in your account structure.

What should you do now?

• As a small business, keeping one campaign of best performing campaign with only exact match keywords, and a separate one with best-performing phrase match keywords could help to ensure you are targeting the right terms. For other keywords, you could simplify by mixing match types in the same ad group, whilst keeping your structure as clean as possible with a Search Theme Ad Group structure - STAG.
• For advanced PPC managers, we often hear that long-tail keywords are a source of more qualified traffic. This is a good reminder that we must identify and control our qualified traffic, and a good opportunity to extend the best-performing ad groups with similar intents and long-tail exact keywords. Monitoring the "remaining search terms available" in Google Analytics, in the Search Console and using more ethical platforms such as Microsoft Ads will help you find additional terms based on your site or the ones from your competitors.
• As a data scientist, continuing using the Levenshtein method to figure out the changes in similarity due to close-variants might be a good approach. It will support the detection of similar intents, and unqualified traffic. Pushing more efforts towards competitors' analysis and be proactive in discovering similar terms with external APIs or scripts such as SEMRush, DataforSEO or Ahrefs could likewise be very valuable.
• For SAS tools, we need to adapt the way we think N-Gram Analysis. It is becoming even more important to monitor any unintended terms, which were not intended in our current keywords. As an example, if you are targeting "paving stones" and Google is matching it with an implied or paraphrase word such as "gardening stones", the term "gardening" was not intended and must be monitored even more carefully than others.

Still, in our decision process, let's be careful and open-minded. We should consider if our data are statistically significant. You can check if your date range shows enough clicks to allow enough conversions with a Minimum Click ratio (1 / Conversion Rate * Conversion Threshold). Ideally, it should dynamically find the shortest window and using a tool like Opteo can be a great help for this task.

In Short

All in all, it might be worth switching to Phrase Match if you currently use BMM to stay ahead of the curve and be on board with the new changes. The magical “find and replace” feature in Google Ads Editor makes this quite a straightforward task, whilst we know it is not as simple as it sounds.

Providing a great experience to our users, ensuring qualified and profitable traffic to our businesses should always direct our strategy and, as big as this change can be, it can be seen as a good opportunity to review your search targeting strategy and make sure all available queries are matched with the right user experience.

And you, how are you planning to approach this change?

Authors

• Tara Eaton (Paid Acquisition Partners at IHP)
• Yoann Ferrand (Founder at IHP)

Documentation and additional references

https://ads-developers.googleblog.com/2021/02/changes-to-phrase-match-and-broad-match.html?m=1

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9131274

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10346549

https://searchengineland.com/the-impact-of-close-variants-in-exact-match-types-307186

https://www.ppc-strategist.co.uk/5-things-to-know-about-the-new-match-type/?fbclid=IwAR311RlyLzKxgRGU-tFAkiZFFFMVE0Q5gmR94LihlBETOl8VHFZspnPoaKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAdW1XtGoHY