What are Broad and Exact Match Keywords and How it Affects Your Campaign

By default, when you add keywords in Google Ads for your PPC campaign, you are essentially adding broad match keywords. What this means is that Google will display your ad not just for searches that use the given keyword, but also for searches that use any synonym or variation of the given keyword.

Let us take for an example that one of your keywords is ‘clothes’.

In this case, your ad will get triggered not just for the word ‘clothes’ but for searches with the words ‘clothing’, ‘garments’, ‘attire’ and so on. It would also mean that the keyword ‘women’s clothing’ would get triggered for the search query ‘clothing for women’.

A second example could be if your ad contains the keyword ‘purse’. In this case, synonyms of the word purse such as handbag, satchel, clutch bag etc would also display your Google ad.

If you do not want this to happen, you can always change to exact match. In this case, your ad is shown only if the user searches for those exact keywords that you added in your campaign. Note as per recent changes within Google Ads, exact match keywords would still trigger ads for plurals, ing and ed stemming, misspellings etc.

So how do broad match and exact match keywords affect your campaign?

To understand the effects on your campaign, first let us take a look at the main advantage of broad match keywords and why Google does this by default.
It is done to increase the reach of your ad and maximize the potential of your campaign. By adding your main keywords, your ad can still reach audiences that are using a variety of related keywords or phrases.

In many cases, the keywords added by the advertiser can have really low search volume. With broad match, you can reach more users and the total search volume of your keywords go up giving you a much better chance of running an effective PPC campaign.

So why use exact match keywords?

Now that we know the biggest advantage of broad match keywords, let us take a look at some of the drawbacks as well.

Firstly you might want more control over which keywords trigger your ad. With broad match keywords, you never really know which words are being treated as synonyms or ‘similar’. There may be related keywords that are not relevant to the product or service you are selling. Even though Google does give you the option of adding negative keywords and other attributes, exact match keywords are the only way to be sure when your ad will be displayed.

The other huge concern that many advertisers would have over broad match keywords is the ‘Quality Score’ of your ad.

Now quality score depends upon a number of factors such as your ad history, landing page relevance, keyword relevance, the ratio between the number of times your ad is displayed to the number of times your ad is clicked etc.

Unfortunately, if the quality score of your ad is poor, it would mean your cost per click goes up significantly. Ad campaigns with poor quality score also mean others bidding lower than you would get a better position in sponsored ad search results. By taking control of your keywords, your ad text and landing page, you can ensure a better quality score that provides a much higher return on investment in the long run.

Conclusion

Both broad match and exact match keywords have their own pros and cons. The main reason to use broad match is to increase the reach of your campaign, get in front of many more users without having to add loads of keywords in your campaign.

Exact match on the other hand should be used when you need more control of your ads, feel that related keywords may not be of much use for your specific purpose or you already have historic information that your exact keyword has the best click-through rate.