Google Shopping campaigns are a powerful tool for e-commerce businesses looking to reach new customers and drive sales. By advertising using Google Shopping, eCommerce stores can showcase products with their images and image details.
However, one caveat, is unlike Google Search there are no keywords for advertisers to control when you want your Google Shopping ads appear. Instead, Google matches user searches with keywords found in the advertiser’s product title, product description and different product attributes within your data feed.
Therefore, for an advertiser to ensure that a campaign is effective, it’s important to carefully manage your targeting and avoid wasting ad spend on irrelevant searches. One way to do this is by using negative keywords in your Standard Shopping campaign.
What are Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords are terms or phrases that you specify in your campaign to exclude your product listings from appearing in search results for those specific terms. For example, if you sell women’s shoes, you might add “men’s” as a negative keyword to prevent your product listings from appearing in search results for men’s shoes.
Why Use Negative Keywords in Your Standard Shopping Campaign?
Negative keywords play a critical role in optimizing your Standard Shopping campaign by helping you focus your targeting and prevent your product listings from appearing for irrelevant searches. By excluding irrelevant searches, you can:
Improve the relevance of your product listings: By excluding irrelevant searches, you can ensure that your product listings are shown to customers who are more likely to be interested in your products. This helps to improve the relevance of your product listings and increase the likelihood of clicks and conversions.
Reduce wasted ad spend: By excluding irrelevant searches, you can reduce the number of impressions and clicks that your product listings receive from customers who are unlikely to make a purchase. This helps to reduce your ad spend and improve your return on investment (ROI).
Improve the user experience: By excluding irrelevant searches, you can improve the user experience for your target audience by showing them more relevant product listings. This can help to increase engagement and build brand trust.
How to Add Negative Keywords to Your Standard Shopping Campaign
Adding negative keywords to your Standard Shopping campaign is easy and can be done in a few simple steps:
Log in to your Google Ads account.
Click on the “Campaigns” tab.
Select the Standard Shopping campaign you want to modify.
Click on the “Settings” tab.
Scroll down to the “Keywords” section and click on “Negative keywords.”
Click on the “+ Negative keyword” button to add a new negative keyword.
Enter the keyword or phrase you want to exclude, and then click “Save.”
It’s a good idea to regularly review your negative keyword list and make any necessary updates to ensure your Standard Shopping campaign is optimized for the most relevant searches.
Tips for Choosing Effective Negative Keywords
To get the most out of your negative keyword strategy, it’s important to choose effective negative keywords that accurately reflect the searches you want to exclude. Here are some tips to help you choose effective negative keywords:
Use broad match: By using broad match, you can exclude a wide range of searches that include your negative keyword. For example, if you add “men’s” as a negative keyword, your product listings will not appear in search results for “men’s shoes,” “men’s clothing,” etc.
Look at your search terms report: Your search terms report shows you the exact terms that people are using to search for your products. By reviewing this report, you can identify irrelevant searches that you want to exclude using negative keywords.
Use common misspellings and synonyms: Make sure to include common misspellings and synonyms of your negative keywords to ensure that you are excluding a wide range of irrelevant searches.
Avoid using too many negative keywords: While negative keywords are an important tool for optimizing your Standard Shopping campaign, it’s important to not overuse or you will block keyword searches that could drive wanted traffic.
What If You Are Running Smart Shopping Campaigns?
Smart Shopping campaigns use machine learning algorithms to dynamically determine the best keywords and placements for your product ads. As a result, it’s not possible to see the exact keywords that trigger each ad, but you can use the metrics in the keywords tab to understand how your ads are performing and make informed optimizations.
However, you can still add your basic negative keyword list. If I have tested and found that Smart Shopping campaigns outperform manual campaigns, then I’ll add a list that includes my “Who Done It” list … why, how, who, can I etc.
In addition, there are likely words that you will know from reviewing search campaigns that will block unwanted traffic such as free, cheap, used, etc.
Adding negative keywords to Google Smart Shopping campaigns, you can follow these steps:
Log in to your Google Ads account.
Click on the “Campaigns” tab.
Select the Smart Shopping campaign you want to modify.
Click on the “Settings” tab.
Scroll down to the “Keywords” section and click on “Negative keywords.”
Click on the “+ Negative keyword” button to add a new negative keyword.
Enter the keyword or phrase you want to exclude, and then click “Save.”
Final WORD
Adding negative keywords to your Google Shopping campaigns is a crucial step in optimizing your campaign and driving sales. The ability to view the search terms is one of the reasons that manual shopping campaigns will many times outperform the “smart” shopping campaigns even with their “machine learning”.
To get the most out of this negative keyword strategy, you will need to regularly take the following actions:
Log into your Google Ads account and select the Standard Shopping campaign to modify.
Scroll down to the “Keywords” section and click on “Negative keywords.”
Add the keywords or phrases you want to exclude and save.
Regularly review your negative keyword list and make updates as needed.
Remember to use broad match where it makes sense. Review your search terms report, include common misspellings and synonyms, and avoid overusing negative keywords when choosing effective negative keywords.
By following these steps and using negative keywords effectively, you will improve the relevance of your product listings, reduce waste ad spend, and increase conversions for your business.
He has been called the foremost expert in eCommerce Marketing Growth Strategies. He was named to Best of Los Angeles Awards’ Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his website or his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.
Google recently introduced their new Performance Max bidding strategy to replace the Smart Shopping campaign. Smart Shopping campaigns were introduced a few years ago and have since been touted by Google representatives as the best and easiest way to grow your sales using Google Shopping.
There are few things in life that I find are the best while also being the easiest and, in my experience, I quickly determined that Google Smart Shopping was not one of them.
Now, Google has their new and improved Smart Shopping that goes even further with automated bids and ads named Performance Max.
In this article we examine the changes and try to decipher Google’s claims of how Performance Max is now the best and easiest way to grow your sales through the Google Ads platform.
What Were Google Smart Shopping Campaigns?
Google defined there smart shopping campaigns as a product feed to create and show a variety of ads across different networks, including the Google Search Network, Google Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail. Google would test different combinations of the image and text assets provided by the advertiser, then Google would select when to display the most relevant ads, automatically.
At first, this sounds great, less work for advertiser. No need to subdivide campaigns, no need to optimize bids, no need to add negative keywords, nothing but launch a campaign. However, the issue quickly became that advertisers would not know which of their products were serving for what keywords at what bid or even on which network their products were appearing.
And boy did Google promote the Smart Shopping campaigns. I had several discovery calls over the last few years, where new advertisers through either the Smart Shopping campaign was all that was available OR that it soon would be the only choice!
Advertisers were asked to trust Google to make the best decisions for their account.
If you have trust issues or simply have the belief that Google may not have your best-interest in mind over that of Google’s, then this was a difficult proposition.
Difficult or not, if it worked it worked and would have been the end of the story and believe me I tested because I really wanted smart shopping to work so I could focus client efforts differently.
I tested Google Smart Campaigns various times over the last two years and found that a well-optimized manual campaign would outperform Smart campaigns every time generally in sales, but always in profitability and usually it wasn’t even close.
I was mystified by individuals online in Google marketing Facebook groups touting how much success they have had with Smart Shopping and how it had outperformed manual Shopping campaigns.
My thought was, wow they must have not known what they were doing in setting up and optimizing their manual campaigns.
The benefit of Smart Shopping campaigns was that it was much, much easier to setup and could easily be incorporated directly from a Shopify store in a few mouse clicks.
If you believe that some advertising when easy (hopefully being profitable), is better than advertising where it may not be so easy, but much more profitable is the correct choice, then Smart Shopping could have been a viable option. For my clients that wish to pull every possible dollar of profit from their Shopping and Retargeting campaigns, manually created Google Ads campaigns have always been the correct choice.
However, now Google’s highly touted Smart Shopping has been replaced by the next generation … Performance Max.
What Do We Know About Performance Max?
Google is promoting Performance Max (PMax Campaigns) as a significant improvement to Smart Shopping Campaigns claiming Performance Max will yield an average increase of 12% in conversion value at the same or better return-on-ad spend.
It seems to me that a 12% improvement on not very good calculates to be still not very good, yet I digress, and we shall continue to explore.
Performance Max campaigns will be eligible to serve across even more Google platforms. This additional reach will bring increased traffic, but just like with Smart Shopping the lack of transparency makes it difficult for advertisers to know if that additional traffic is profitable or is just more.
Smart Shopping campaigns served product shopping ads and display ads across Google’s Search Network, Display Network, YouTube and Gmail.
Performance Max campaigns will now serve ads across Google’s entire network of Search, Display, YouTube, Discover and Gmail, Maps.
While the increased reach adds Maps and Discover, how Performance Max ads also has changed how their ads take priority.
While advertisers could run Smart Shopping and Manual Shopping campaigns side by side (although Google would give preference to Smart Shopping) the Performance Max ads will be even more dominant.
Ads from Performance Max campaigns will be served in lieu of all other Shopping, Display (including retargeting) and Search ads within an account.
The only exception is that Search ads will still be served from a Search campaign where the Exact Keywords match.
Is It Possible to Opt Out With Some Products In Performance Max?
Yes. You can use a subset of your products. This is where adding custom labels to your product feed becomes important.
As I have written, spoke about and taught in the past, custom labels are a vital way to subdivide your account. Custom labels are the only customizable fields that can be used to subdivide.
Perhaps, you want to test the new Performance Max (PMax Campaigns) with just a subset of your products? Then, creating and using custom labels will be essential in creating these campaigns.
When Is It Happening?
All Smart Shopping campaigns will be automatically converted into Performance Max campaigns by the end of Q3 2022. Advertisers can also automatically convert their campaigns with a simple ‘one click’.
As of now, Smart Shopping campaigns can no longer be created. Currently, Performance Max is the option along with manual campaigns.
FINAL WORD
For advertisers without the knowledge or time to dedicate to Google Ads, Performance Max may be the option. In fact, for those it will be the only option.
It will be now extremely easy to let Google create all of your campaigns with a couple of clicks and hand over your advertising directly to Google.
Unfortunately, with Performance Max the lack of transparency in the form of not being able to see how or what or who or anything about the campaign other then seeing results has only gotten worse.
Advertisers will not be able to give much input other than what products to advertise.
Will it work? Is Performance Max the best and easiest way to advertise?
Performance Max will yield some results and will increase where ads appear (although historically not within premium placements).
Will Performance Max produce better results than creating manual campaigns?
Probably not, but it sure will be easier.
Will Performance Max produce better results than Smart Shopping?
The verdict is still out, but it will increase spend so watch your budgets.
Should you create all campaigns using Performance Max?
Test and determine what is more important to you. Control or ease of setup and ease of advertising.
For me, I will test in some as subsets within some of my private client’s accounts, but I will be very deliberate in making any complete change to Performance Max.
For you, I would recommend testing using the same cautious approach and as always let the data drive your marketing decisions.
He was named to Best of Los Angeles Awards’ Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his website or his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.
Guess what one of the biggest mistake Shopify owners make advertising their products using Google Shopping?
It is thinking that using Shopify’s free Google channel will have your products correctly running on Google Shopping and the orders will start to flow in.
Shopify, instructs you to open the proper Google accounts: Google Merchant Center and then Google Ads account if you want to run paid traffic. Then, Shopify instructs to connect those accounts to your products in Shopify. Many Shopify store owners think by clicking a couple of buttons, like magic your products will start to list and orders will start to come pouring in.
However, I’m telling you today that magic rarely exists and clicking that Google channel checkbox or two is not going to grow your sales at least not efficiently and I’ll tell you why.
First, with the free traffic.
It is true you can generate some free traffic through Google Shopping just by opening a GMC and linking your products. But for most, the free traffic is going to be a mere trickle.
The free traffic you will receive will range from 1 to 2 clicks per day to 1 to 2 per month depending on what you are selling!
Furthermore, the Google channel in Shopify does not let you adjust the different fields that Google uses to filter, sort and list your products.
You could use a supplemental feed inside Google Shopping to enhance your listing, but if are using Shopify’s Google channel to submit your products there is a good chance you have no idea what a supplemental feed even is.
Second, with paid traffic.
If you go on and also open a Google ads account and add some advertising budget, what Shopify will have you using for simplicity’s sake is a Google Smart Shopping campaign. For “smart” shopping campaigns and yes, I’m doing air quotes around smart, you have no idea of where you are advertising, at what bid or for what keyword. In addition, if you are submitting all products you would need to do some deep discovery to find out even for what product.
The only thing actually smart about a Google Smart Shopping campaign is the way Google has configured it to easily accept money from more well-intentioned, yet novice advertisers.
It is a fact that Google Shopping has many moving parts, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. I recently released a course designed to explain the entire process called Understand, Conquer and Profit Using Google Shopping.
This course is a free course within Google Shopping University, and it will clarify the entire process of using Google Shopping.
Click on the link below to signup and in under an hour you will know more about advertising using Google Shopping than 90% of Shopify merchants including probably your competitors!
You don’t need to be an expert, you don’t even need to run the advertising yourself, but you should absolutely know how Google Shopping works and that is why I created this course.
Click on the link below to read all the details and get started today.
He was named to Best of Los Angeles Awards’ Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his website or his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.
Here is an expert tip on a fairly simple way to save some money on your Google Paid Ads.
How much ad spend you are going to reduce will depend on how much you are currently spending and how many negative keywords you currently are using, but I can tell you that it could be around 3-5% of your ads budget.
For you to save money on unnecessary ad spend what you should do is add what I call the ‘Who Done It’ list of negative keywords to your campaigns.
What is the ‘Who Done It’ list of negative keywords?
This is a list of negative keywords that block question searches from triggering your ads to show. Effectively blocking question searches in both shopping campaigns and search campaigns that utilize either phrase or broad match, this list will eliminate high level searches that rarely if ever directly lead to a sale.
What are these keywords and why do they never or at least very rarely lead to a sale?
Here are some of the words. Read through the list below and think what type of keyword searches these would generate for your campaigns then we will look at examples for one of my private clients:
‘where’
‘how to’
‘how do’ / ‘how you’
‘could I’ / ‘could you’
‘can I’ / ‘can you’
‘should I’ / ‘should you’
‘does a’ / ‘is a’
Why does this list of ‘Who Done It’ keywords rarely if ever lead to a conversion?
Because these keywords are going to generate very high level / low buying intent traffic.
As you read through the list you probably filled in the rest of the question in your head as it comes to your campaigns so perhaps you already know what I mean, but let’s look at some examples:
A private client of mine sells shower drain covers and not the $5 variety from Home Depot, but rather super high-end drain covers starting at about $60.
For his company, he wants traffic from keywords from people searching to replace or install a new drain cover.
Here are some of the searches that contain ‘shower drain’ that adding the ‘Who Done It’ list will block.
‘Where are the screws to uninstall a shower drain?’
‘Hot to install a shower drain?’
‘How do I clean my shower drain?’
‘Could I make my own shower drain cover?’
‘Can I replace my shower drain cover myself?’
‘Should I cover the drain in my basement?’
‘Does a shower drain block water?’
You see the pattern, right?
The pattern is that none of these searches have a very high likelihood of leading to a sale.
Sure, you could serve visitors retargeting ads after they visit your website, but still, it is a longshot. Better to save the money on what it would cost to bring these looky-loos to your website and apply the ads budget you save to traffic with a higher likelihood of converting.
Creating Your Custom List of ‘Who Done It’ Negative Keywords
Besides taking the list of examples above, you may want to know how to customize the list for your account.
The most effective way to find your own ‘Who Done It’ list is by reviewing the terms that have historically driven traffic to your ad campaigns.
If you have been following my writings, you are aware that Google has partially hidden this data within your Google Ads account. However, it is still currently available using Google Analytics. Here is an article that goes into details – Google is Now Playing Hide and Seek with Your Search Terms
Fully detailed in the article mentioned above, here are the steps to access your full list of search terms using Google Analytics Search Queries Report.
Change the date in the upper right to dates you wish to view.
Using the Secondary dimension drop down to add ‘Campaign’. Note, without this step you will be viewing keywords from the entire account.
Change rows to a number that will display all data (default is only 25 rows).
Export data.
Applying Your List of Negative Keywords
One you have your own list of ‘Who Done It’ negative keywords the next step is to add it to your account.
When adding negative keywords, you have 3 choices:
Add them at the ad group level.
Add them at the campaign level
Add them at the account level.
Here we are only going to review adding them to the account level because in my opinion there is no reason to have ‘Who Done It’ traffic in any campaign or ad group.
To quickly add these negative keywords to multiple campaigns, I recommend using a negative keyword list. A negative keyword list will easily let you add or subtract keywords to the ‘Who Done It’ list and quickly apply the list to multiple campaigns.
Here is how to create an implement a negative keyword list.
Create a negative keyword list:
In the top menu, under Shared Library, click ‘Negative Keyword List’
Click the blue plus button.
Name your list and add negative keywords.
Click Save
Apply negative keyword lists to multiple campaigns from the negative keyword library
Click the tools & settings icon Google Ads (in the upper right tool bar) of your account.
Under “Shared library,” click Negative keyword lists.
Check the box next to the negative keyword lists you want to apply to campaigns.
Click Apply to campaigns.
Select the campaigns you’d like to apply the negative keyword lists to.
Click Apply.
FINAL WORD
Blocking searches using the ‘Who Done It’ list of negative keywords only works when using manual shopping campaigns. With smart shopping campaigns, you can’t block unwanted keyword searches and you won’t even be able to tell how many ‘Who Done It’ searches you are receiving. Yet just another reason to avoid Smart Shopping campaigns.
Adding the ‘Who Done It’ list of negative keywords is going to effectively block the higher purchase intent traffic or the traffic which is the furthest away from making a purchase.
In the image above, the ‘Who Done It’ list is going to block the awareness to interest group. Typically, those website visitors are a long way from purchasing and not profitable to serve Google paid ads.
Ideally when we are looking to drive traffic from Google at a minimum, we want traffic in the intent to evaluation stage or those looking to make a purchase.
Adding the ‘Who Done It’ list of negative keywords is one way to effectively ensure we are getting this qualified, purchase intent traffic to our Google Shopping and Search campaigns.
He was named to Best of Los Angeles Awards’ Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his website or his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.
Last year Google introduced their Google Campaign Optimization Score.
This score measures how well each Google Ads campaign is rated based on Google’s preferred standards. Rated between 0% and 100%, this score looks like a cut and dry number to measure how well your account is optimized.
Optimization score is displayed on all active Search, Shopping, Display and Video Auction campaigns. A 100% score translates into your campaigns being fully optimized in accordance with Google’s best-practices with scores lower than a 100% meaning Google has other recommendations for your campaigns.
However, it is important to realize that your goals as an advertiser may not (and many times do not) align with Google. When it comes to preferred standards and your campaign’s score it is important to keep in mind that the Campaign Optimization Score is based solely on Google’s goals.
What do I mean?
You will see some examples below, but I like to think of it this way.
Google’s goal is to get as much money from its advertisers as possible while providing a viable marketing network for its advertisers and a good experience for its users.
Our goal as advertisers is or at least should be to optimize our advertising spend based on our own goals. Those goals could be sales and revenue, which is typical for eCommerce advertisers or traffic aka awareness (not as typical). Regardless of the goal, we should work to optimize our ad spend to maximize the value of our goals.
Now, if you are like me, you will find that nothing is more irritating in your account than seeing a low score. If you are an agency, it also can be disastrous if a client is in their account and sees their optimization score is low.
Fortunately, you do not need to accept all of Google’s recommendations to improve a campaign’s optimization score.
Ignoring specific recommendations will give your campaigns the full credit for that recommendation, but you first must login to each recommendation and manually review.
How Do You View Your Google Optimization Score?
Login to your Google Ads Account.
Click on Recommendations in the left side navigation menu.
You can then filter your recommendations into specific categories by clicking on the category name.
You can then Apply recommendations, View Recommendations or Dismiss recommendations. To dismiss you will need to first click on the 3 vertical dots.
You can also view your Optimization Score for individual campaigns. Click on the Campaigns button in the left navigation menu. The Optimization Score is shown by default. You can turn on/off the column. Therefore, if you don’t see it click on the columns button and turn it on. The field is listed under ‘Recommended columns’.
Reviewing Google’s Recommendations
Beyond improving your score there are obvious benefits to reviewing your Google Optimization Score.
First, consistently reviewing recommendations may alert you of new features within Google Ads, soon after they are released. This is how I was first alerted to Image Extensions, which have been fantastic on improving Search campaigns’ click through rates.
There is also a lot of what I consider non-sense recommendations, such as giving 24.6% improvement for changing to Smart Shopping (see image below) or high percentage increase for automated bidding within Search campaigns.
If you have read my Make Each Click Using Google Shopping book, you probably know how I feel about Smart Shopping, but here is a quick synopsis of why it may not be a good idea to trust Google with your Shopping campaigns.
Another recommendation favorite is adding or improving responsive search ads. Which, I mostly agree with although like anything else in Google I highly recommend testing.
Below is a list of categories and common recommendations that I see and the actions that I usually take with each:
Bidding & Budgets:
Raise your budgets (Usually Review and Accept)
Move unused budgets (Usually Dismiss)
Raise your budgets for upcoming traffic increases (Usually Dismiss)
Bid more efficiently with Maximize conversions using a target CPA (Always Dismiss)
Keywords & Targeting:
Upgrade your existing keywords to broad match (Usually Dismiss)
Create Dynamic Search Ads (Will typically dismiss)
Add audiences for reporting (Usually Review and Accept)
Use Display Expansion (Always Dismiss)
Add new keywords (Will review suggestions)
Remove redundant keywords (Usually Review and Accept)
Automated Campaigns:
Switch To Smart Shopping (Always Dismiss)
Ads & Extensions:
Add image extensions to your ads (Always Accept)
Add responsive search ads (Usually Review and Accept)
Improve your responsive search ads (Usually Review and Accept)
Add price extensions to your ads (Usually Review and Accept)
Repairs:
Make sure your automated bid strategy can optimize your bids by fixing your conversion tracking. (Deserves attention).
FINAL WORD
For the most part, I believe that the recommendations that Google provides are a helpful feature for advertisers.
Although seeing a low score may be irritating especially when it is driven by recommendations that would most likely hurt performance, it does work to drive action. In order to improve your Google Campaign Optimization score you need to review and either accept or more likely dismiss each recommendation.
And even through, I personally ignore and dismiss the majority of Google’s best-practices for my private clients’ accounts that I manage this is because of the systems in place of how my agency generates the best results.
Those with less experience managing Google or who want to spend less time optimizing or become more ‘hands off’ may accept more of the recommendations than I do and may even activate the dreaded Smart Shopping campaigns:<.
However, like almost everything else in Google, it comes down to testing to see what will give you the best results in your Google advertising and the recommendations are a great way to alert you of what is available within Google Ads that you may not be using.
He was named to Best of Los Angeles Awards’ Most Fascinating 100 List in both 2020 and 2021. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his website or his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.
Let us start with the basics of how Google Search ads work and then we will discuss the recent change and its importance.
When advertising using paid Google Search Ads, advertisers must enter a list of keywords that they wish to trigger their Search ads.
These Search ads, when clicked, will redirect users to the advertiser’s website. Ideally a page on the website that is related to the product or service that the user was searching for on Google.
Plain and simple.
Now these keywords that are used to trigger ads from appearing start to get a bit more confusing, although not really when you understand how they work.
There are (or at least were) four ‘types’ of keywords allowed that determine when paid ads are eligible to appear.
These keyword types are Exact, Phrase, Broad and Broad Match Modifier. Note, there is also negative keywords, but negative keywords are their own complete subject.
For now, we will look at these 4 match types, what they are and the change to the Broad Match Modifier.
Broad Match Keywords – Allows user searches (or close variants) that match a keyword or keywords related to your broad match keyword to trigger an ad to appear. This keyword type is used to maximize reach.
How to implement this match type: This is the most basic search type is also Google’s default. No punctuation needed to distinguish Broad Match type within the Google Search Ads console. Just enter the keyword and it is automatically a Broad Match Keyword type.
Example: For a broad match type, ‘Lawn Mowing Services’ will trigger your ad for search Lawn Mowing Services; however, it will also allow your ads to be eligible to appear for the simple search query Mowing Services (without the word Lawn) or even a more broad, yet related search such as ‘Lawn Aeration Price’. When using broad match there are going to be many more advertisers and how often ads appear will be reliant on your bid as well as your quality score. Note, that just because you are eligible, doesn’t mean your ads will always appear.
Phrase Match Keywords – Allows user searches (or close variants) that match a keyword phrase in the order of the phrase to trigger an ad. This keyword type is used as a balance between reach and precision.
How to implement this match type: Phrase match is used by adding quotes “ “ around the keyword phrase an advertiser would like to advertise.
Example: For the phrase match ‘Lawn Mowing Services’, only searches containing ‘Lawn Mowing Services’ or a close variant will trigger an ad to appear. ‘‘Lawn Mowing Services’ will trigger an ad as well as ‘Lawn Mowing Services Near Me’ and ‘Hiring a Lawn Mowing Service. Previously, a search for ‘Lawn Mowing and Leaf Blowing Services’ would NOT trigger an add to appear since the words Mowing and Services are separated by the word Leaf Blowing in the search. This is what is changing.
Exact Match Keywords – Allows only user searches (or close variants) that exactly match the keyword to trigger an ad. This keyword type is used for precision.
How to implement this match type: Exact match is used by adding brackets [ ] around the keyword an advertiser would like to advertise.
Example: For the exact match [Lawn Mowing Services], only a search for ‘Lawn Mowing Services’ or a close variant such as ‘Lawn Mowing Service’ will trigger an ad to be eligible to appear.
Broad Match Modifier Keywords – This match type is a hybrid between phrase and broad match. It allows keyword to trigger ads regardless of the order they appear in the user search, however, all words must be used within the search query. In addition, Broad Match Modifier keywords will trigger ads to appear only when the keywords match the ‘meaning’ of the search’. This keyword type is also used as a balance between reach and precision.
How to implement this match type: Broad match modifier is used by add a plus symbol + before each word or words.
Example: For the Broad Match Modifier Keyword +Lawn +Mowing +Services, both the search for ‘Lawn Mowing Services’ as well as the search for ‘Lawn Mowing and Leaf Blowing Services’ would trigger an ad to appear. Having the words in the broad match modifier interrupted does not matter as it previously did with the Phrase Match keyword.
What Is Changing and How It Works
Starting in February 2021, Google announced that phrase match keywords will start to incorporate the behaviors of the broad match modifier keywords.
No longer will phrase match keywords not trigger ads to appear based on the word order as long as all keywords are present. In addition, Google will begin to incorporate meaning into the searches.
One point that sometimes confuses those is what is meant by Google matching the meaning of the search with an advertiser’s keyword specially the Broad Match Modifier keyword type and soon to be Phrase Match keyword type.
To best exemplify this event, I’m using an example provided by Google when they announced the recent change.
For the broad match modifier +Moving +Services +NYC +To +Boston
An ad would be eligible to appear for ‘affordable moving services NYC to Boson’, but it would also appear for ‘affordable moving services Boston to NYC’ since word order does not matter in with broad match modifier.
The updated phrase match will not include the reverse direction where the search has a different completely meaning but will not include searches regardless of word order.
Still confused?
Below is a chart that demonstrates the change.
As you can see from the chart, the new updated phrase match will cover almost all of the searches previously covered by broad match modifier with the exception of now it can interpret meaning!
When Is It Changing?
The change went into effect February 2021. Starting in July of 2021, you will no longer be able to even create BMM keyword types.
Fortunately, you won’t need to make any changes to your account. You can still leave all of your broad match modifier keywords if you have them and they will start to also work interpreting the meaning.
However, going forward (starting at least in July), you will need to enter keyword types as phrase that you would have before added as broad match modifier.
Note, this change will not impact negative keywords in how they work.
Final Word
As a disclaimer, for most of my private clients I exclusively used a combination of exact and broad match modifier keywords match types. I found this combination worked well to provide relevant keyword traffic.
Google changes frequently their algorithm and their interfaces. Mostly minor changes, sometimes major changes; however regardless of the change it always seems to make those using Google ads cringe at the thought.
This change although a bit complicated to grasps seems to make the keyword system more efficient and will be easier to manage moving forward.
No longer do you need to distinguish between exact, phrase and broad match modifier. Now you will just need to use exact and phrase and I guess broad if you don’t care about driving relevant traffic (see examples above)!
Only time will tell, but my thought is this will be a positive change in driving relevant traffic.
