Google uses four different keyword matching options to make your keyword searches more specific. There is usually a bit of confusion over these keywords, so read over this carefully. The four keyword match options are Broad Matched, Phrase Matched, Exact Matched, and Negative Matched.
Broad Matched – ex. keyword. The keyword is entered without any modifications.
Broad matched keywords are the most common type of keywords used by advertisers. They usually bring in the largest amounts of traffic, but generally don’t have the highest conversion rates because they are so broad. Basically if you add a keyword into the keyword box, then that keyword is broad. According to Google, Broad matched keywords display your advertisement whenever a single word within the key phrase is searched. For example, if your keyword is “funny Simpsons movie” then your advertisement will be displayed when someone searches for “funny”, “simpsons”, or “movie”. Google says that your advertisement will also be displayed if someone uses a search phrase which contains any one of those terms, for example – “that was funny”, or “I like movies” will also display your advertisement. Even though Google says that your advertisement will display for all of those irrelevant searches, I have found that your advertisement will 99% of the time only be displayed if most of the search term is similar to your keyword, such as “Simpsons movie”, or “funny Simpsons”. I would recommend making a broad matched copy of every keyword you have, because broad matched keywords are mainly what Google’s Contextual Advertisement analyzes when they place your Ads on other websites (I will talk more about this later).
Phrase Matched – ex. “keyword”. Keyword is within quotation marks.
Phrase matched keywords are displayed only when your keyword(s) appears inside their search phrase in order. For example, if your keyword is “red shoes”, your advertisement will be displayed on searches for “green or red shoes”, “colorful red shoes”, but it will not be displayed for searches for “red or green shoes”, or “red colorful shoes”. You see, when you are using phrase match, your Ad will only be displayed when your keywords are next to each other in the web surfers search phrase. Phrase matched keyword performance is in between Broad Matched and Exact Matched. They usually give you more traffic than Exact Match, but less traffic than Broad Match. They usually give you higher conversion rates than Broad Match, but not as many as Exact Match.
Exact Matched – ex. [keyword]. Keyword is within brackets.
Exact matched keywords do what they say. They are only displayed if the user wants to search for a keyword that is exactly the same as one of your keywords. Exact match keywords usually don’t receive many clicks, but they usually have the highest conversion rates.
Negative Matched – ex. –Keyword. Keyword has a minus sign in front of it.
Negative Matched keywords may be a little confusing, but they are good to use if you are advertising for a product with a popular name that has several other completely different products. Negative Matched keywords purpose is to allow people to filter their keywords from certain searches which will not give them good results. Here is an example. Let’s say someone was advertising for Pepsi Cola and one of their keywords was “cola”. Then that person would not expect many sales from people who searched for Coca-Cola, so to keep their advertisement from being viewed by anyone who was searching for Coca-Cola products, they would add the negative keyword –coca to their keyword list. When they did this their advertisement would show anytime someone searched for Pepsi or Cola, but it would not show if anyone typed the word “cola” into their search phrase.
Examples for Broad, Phrase, & Exact matched keywords
This is when Google says your keywords will show:
| Users Key phrase | Broad Matched keyword | Phrase Matched keyword | Exact Matched keyword |
| red shoe | "red shoe" | [red shoe] | |
| tennis shoes | not displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red candy tastes good | displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| I hate red shoes | displayed | displayed | not displayed |
| red Nike shoes | displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red tennis shoes | displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red shoes | displayed | displayed | not displayed |
| red shoe | displayed | displayed | displayed |
When actually this is when they will really show:
| Users Key phrase | Broad Matched keyword | Phrase Matched keyword | Exact Matched keyword |
| red shoe | "red shoe" | [red shoe] | |
| tennis shoes | not displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red candy tastes good | not displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| I hate red shoes | displayed | displayed | not displayed |
| red Nike shoes | displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red tennis shoes | displayed | not displayed | not displayed |
| red shoes | displayed | displayed | not displayed |
| red shoe | displayed | displayed | displayed |
