Broad Match Keyword Match Type – this is the most used AdWords keyword match type and the most unfiltered type. It is used almost exclusively by inexperienced AdWords managers.

AdWords loves the broad match keyword match type as it generates lots of traffic, many clicks, and increases their payment.

I personally do not like to use broad match and prefer to use instead broad match modifier which looks like this in the AdWords control panel +keyword +here.

Here’s what Google AdWords says about broad match keywords:

“When you use broad match, your ads automatically run on relevant variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren’t in your keyword lists. This helps you attract more visitors to your website, spend less time building keyword lists, and focus your spending on keywords that work.”

“Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned if you don’t specify another match type (exact match, phrase match, or negative match). The Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, including synonyms, singular and plural forms, possible misspellings, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), related searches, and other relevant variations. To help deliver relevant matches, this match type may also take the customer’s recent search activities into account.”

What Google does not say is that if your broad GPS fleet management for example Google  would show your ads and generate click charges on broad matched keywords like: adware gps, air lq fleet, at&t fleet oakland park blvd, azuga device, blacklist gps, cyntrx customer service, dash cams for fleets, digital fleet, usft, fleetsharp instructions. These are real keywords and real terms found in an AdWords account that are showing ads and accruing clicks. I personally find these terms very untargeted and I would not want my clients paying for clicks for those terms.

Instead, I recommend a very careful use of broad match and prefer using a broad match modifier keyword. See Wednesday’s blog post for an explanation on broad match modifiers.

If you feel you need better results from your investment in AdWords, I invite you to review our service offerings and schedule a free 15 minute call and account review to see how we would be able to improve performance and get better quality conversions for your ad spend.