Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! The world of advertising with Google is always changing. Ready to play some catch-up? Here’s your Google advice straight from the horse’s mouth: Use broad match paired with Smart Bidding. This strategy makes you more likely to hit relevant searches as well as higher conversions.
But let’s get into why that is a good strategy. Here are three things to know about matching keywords for your Google Ads strategy:
- What are your intentions? Much of Google’s updates in the past few years have all been about user intent. Now, can we read minds? No. Can models and algorithms come close to it? You betcha. But sometimes long or complex searches can have hard-to-translate intentions. Broad match keywords can match to a variety of queries and relate keywords to each other for results that are more relevant to a user’s intent.
- Matchy matchy keywords. Now Google doesn’t always give up the secret formula, but they do give us ingredients here and there. The Google ranking truth to know here is that an exact match keyword that is identical to a query is now always preferred as long as it’s eligible to match. That goes for both phrase and broad match keywords as well!
- Group Mentality. Now, this isn’t so much about keyword matches, but an organizational reminder. For the sake of tracking and improving your ads, Google reminds advertisers that grouping your ads thematically, then breaking down a group depending on how it performed is your best starting point for optimizing keywords.
In general, Google has also simplified the keyword matching process when building ads. But, Google always suggests experimenting in your Recommendations Page with drafts and exploring Smart Bidding keyword suggestions.
Check out Google’s full keyword announcement for specific cases and examples of keyword matches.
