AdWords Is Testing A New Match Type

Posted under PPC for all, PPC news by Erez Zundy

One of my clients’ account got an invitation to take part in a beta test of a new feature in AdWords called ‘modified broad match’.

If you ever got upset over the extremely wide range of search queries that trigger your broad match keywords (and my guess that 99% of PPC managers and affiliates did), this new feature is made for you.

Modified broad match gives you better control over which search queries trigger your broad match keywords. Adding a plus modifier (+) immediately before a word indicates that word must very closely match a word in the user’s search in order to trigger the keyword.

This is the example AdWords provided in their email:

If you have leather shoes in a campaign as a broad match keyword, your ad could show when someone searches for “leather shoes,” “leather sandals,” “blue suede shoes,” “athletic footwear” and other related searches because broad match attempts to match your keyword to a wide range of relevant variations.

However, if you have +leather shoes as your keyword instead, the range of searches that trigger your ad is much narrower. Only the exact word, very close variations (e.g. plurals), or a common spelling mistake of the modified word (+leather) can trigger a match. Synonyms do not trigger a match.

Based on this example, when using +leather shoes, these queries will trigger your ad:

• dress shoes men’s leather – “leather” and “shoes” appear in the search.
• leather sandals – “leather” appears in the search, and “sandals” are closely related to “shoes”.
• leathr sandals – “leathr” is a common misspelling of “leather”, and “sandals” are closely related to “shoes”.

These queries will not trigger your ad:

• blue suede shoes – “leather” does not appear in the search.
• athletic footwear – same reason.
• leather belt – “leather” appears in the search, but “belt” is not closely related to “shoes”.

The really great thing about it is that now, unlike the time before this new feature, I don’t need to be worried that if I raise the bids on my broad match keywords more irrelevant queries will trigger my ads and I will pay too much for irrelevant traffic. Now I can enjoy the great power of the broad match without the negative sides of it.

Learning to use this feature properly will, without a doubt, push your PPC campaign to the next level.

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