Jul '23 • Ad Management
Changes to Keyword Match Types over the years
Keyword match types have changed a lot over the years, as have the best practices surrounding them.
Here's what I've seen:
2016 Best Practice:
Exact match variants of top converting keywords.
Phrase match to bring in more relevant search terms.
No Broad match anywhere.
Segment by relevance, largely using single keyword ad groups (SKAGs).
2021 Best Practice:
Exact match variants of top converting keywords.
Phrase match to bring in more relevant search terms.
Very little Broad match, only to bring in new converting terms to add as exact match.
Segment by intent, but tightly grouped to maintain relevance.
2023 Best Practice:
Very few Exact match variants, only top converting keywords.
Very few Phrase match keywords.
Broad match in almost every ad group as primary keyword match type.
Segment by intent with less regard for relevance.
Reasons for changes:
1. Google changed how match types work, first wrecking the specificity of Exact match, then ruining Phrase match by making it a loose Broad Match Modified replacement. These changes were to match based on intent, rather than matching relevance between words used.
2. Google's automated bidding improved to the point that it surpasses manual bidding 9.5 times out of 10. Machine learning(ML) benefits from larger data sets and Exact/Phrase match didn't provide the variance to benefit from the ML.
3. People started using voice search much more frequently and searches became (and are still becoming) longer and more specific. This made it harder to match as many searches from the shorter, more general Exact and Phrase match variants of target keywords.
4. As more people started using Broad match, Google's matching algorithm got (and is still getting) much better at recognizing intent.
This is all pretty abridged and based on my personal experience and opinion, but I see it holding true.
It's wild to see things that were best practice to avoid becoming best practice to adopt.
Never stop testing, learning, and growing!
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Changes to Keyword Match Types over the years
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