How To Choose Match Types

At the forefront of every PPC campaign is raw research for possible keywords to use for a campaign. After finally building a list of keywords you believe will attract the best possible traffic to your site you have to decide what match type best fits for each term. I've read multiple ways people choose to go about this, but let me tell you what you might read and then what I do and why I do it.

What The Internet Will Say

To begin with and keep it brief our options are broad match, broad match modifier, phrase match, and exact match. One belief you will surely see across forums that I slightly disagree with is the idea of "NEVER" using broad match types under any circumstance. The safest way and what you will read of most is to mainly use phrase and broad match modifier, which will work great sometimes, but you can definitely take it a step further from that. There are great tools online, such as Semrush and Spyfu, that will help decide which type to use simply because one estimated CPC might work better for you because of your budget. Now you can definitely convert by only using broad match modifier and phrase match, but where this falls short is the ability to narrow in even more on high valued key terms with exact match. I don't usually have exact match in my general campaigns, but where I prefer to use them is in competitor and brand campaigns. These are campaigns where I am specifically targeting people who search specific brand names, such as a competitor or your own. Google chooses to show ads that are triggered by the most relevant keywords, although ad rank has a lot of influence on what is shown, there may be times where the exact match is shown before an ad with a higher ad rank. My branded campaigns have a small portion of what my total budget is so I need this campaign to be very targeted and it tends to have a much higher conversion rate because of it.

What I think They Mean To Say

Let's address the harsh "NEVER" you will see a lot of across the internet when it comes to broad match types. I completely agree that broad match are a huge waste of money... for the most part at least. I use broad match type terms on two occasions: first, when I am starting a campaign and I don't feel confident with the quality of keywords I have gathered. This happens when you are marketing something that isn't necessarily popular online, such as a new trend type of thing or anything you just don't really see. Using a single broad match term here can help gather data to see which key terms people are searching to come across your ads. Then after some time, will vary in every scenario, you be the judge of when to pull out your converting key words that you will add as a different match type and either lower the bid or completely shut off the broad match term. The only other time I choose to use broad match type is when I have a campaign that won't go through its budget. I've had campaigns that have a budget of $500 a day and will not even reach a third of it. In this scenario again, a broad match will help gather data as to what consumers are searching to find your product. As time passes it's important to realize your campaign may get left behind if you choose to just leave the same list of terms that were working for you a year ago. As I mentioned in my previous post, How To Manage High Budget PPC Campaigns, being able to gather data and make calculated changes based off that data is what will keep your overall abilities consistent regardless of how big or small your campaign is.

Here's My Strategy

To summarize my straightforward strategy, I do my research when first starting a campaign and will only use phrase, broat match modifier, and maybe one or two exact match terms in my main campaign. In the case that I am marketing something with a lack of proven data, I will add a single broad match term to simply gather information about what people are searching when coming across my ads. Only other case where broad match makes sense to me is when a campaign simply does not pull the traffic it once did and won't use up all its budget. Lastly, I will have a branded and competitors campaign where the majority of my terms will be phrase and exact match terms to ensure only high-quality traffic being pulled from there. I'm sure I will adjust this strategy as the market changes, but as of now this has proven effective for me so feel free to give it a shot and see how it works for you. Happy Managing!