5 Reasons Why You Should Still Use Exact Match Keywords in Your PPC Campaigns
Have you ever been told to use broad match with smart bidding for optimal results? Broad match is effective because it learns from past conversions and uses various data sources to show your ads on relevant searches. It has more learning abilities compared to phrase or exact match.
Considering the capabilities of broad match, you might wonder if exact match is still necessary. So let’s explore the 5 reasons why you should still consider using exact match keywords.
#1 Impression Share
Impression share is a valuable metric that measures how frequently your ads were displayed compared to their potential display opportunities. It gives insights into your visibility for specific keywords and helps you gauge the potential for increased ad exposure. This metric can be viewed at different levels, such as campaign, ad group, or keyword.
Exact match keywords provide the most accurate impression share data because they precisely match search queries. This accuracy helps you understand how often your ads appear for your top-performing keywords. Analyzing impression share revealed that the advertiser’s ads were showing less frequently than expected for their top keywords, prompting them to explore additional keyword options for increased visibility.
Upon reviewing their search term data, they discovered that certain search terms were triggering ads from multiple ad groups, leading to inefficient ad serving. This realization prompted them to optimize their ad groups to improve ad performance and maximize impression share for relevant search terms.
#2 Duplicate Search Terms
Duplicate search terms occur when the same search term triggers ads from multiple ad groups in your account. This can lead to fragmented stats and may prevent your preferred ad and landing page from being used.
For example, consider the search term “30 year fixed mortgage.” In one account, this search term triggered ads from various ad groups like “30-year mortgage,” “Mortgage rates,” “Home loan,” and others. However, analyzing the stats for this search term across different ad groups revealed significant differences in performance.
Google has a priority system to determine which ad group should display ads for a search term, based on factors like keyword relevance. However, to ensure precise control over ad serving, it’s essential to have an exact or closely matching keyword for each relevant search term in your account.
While Google may suggest removing some keywords to streamline ad serving, this can sometimes lead to your top-performing search terms showing ads from the wrong ad group. To maintain control over how your ads and landing pages are served for specific search terms, it’s advisable to ignore such recommendations and focus on adding relevant keywords to your account.
#3 Quality Score
The Quality Score shown in your account is calculated only when the search term exactly matches your keyword, regardless of the match type used.
For example, if you have a Quality Score of 7 for the keyword “mortgage rates,” it only applies when the search term precisely matches this keyword. However, by adding your top search terms related to “mortgage rates” as broad or phrase match keywords, you can gain insights into your Quality Scores for those search terms.
It’s important to note that adding all your top terms as phrase or broad match keywords can lead to an expansion of what you’re eligible to show for, potentially causing budgetary concerns.
Nevertheless, having your top search terms as keywords, regardless of the match type, allows for a better understanding of your Quality Scores and can help you make more informed decisions about your campaigns.
#4 Budget
The recommendation to use Smart Bidding and broad match assumes an unlimited budget, which is often not the case for most advertisers. If you have a set budget for your campaigns, does it still make sense to use broad match?
It’s crucial to analyze the data in your account to make informed decisions. In one example, the advertiser includes their top-performing search terms as keywords for all match types: exact, phrase, and broad. This approach ensures that phrase and broad match keywords only receive impressions if they haven’t consistently converted for a few months and haven’t been added as keywords yet.
As impressions on keywords increase significantly, it indicates that Google has found new search terms for those keyword and match type combinations. Some of these new terms may be beneficial, while others may not perform well. Monitoring changes in impressions helps identify the need to delve deeper into query and n-gram analysis to determine new keywords or negative keywords to add to the account.
If your budget is limited, starting with mostly exact and phrase match keywords is advisable. Then, if you’re not reaching your budget, expanding to broad match can help increase conversions. Conversely, if you’re hitting your budget, pausing poorly performing keywords, regardless of match type, ensures that your better-performing keywords utilize your budget effectively.
If you can afford to add broad match keywords, their effectiveness is often governed by your bid strategy.
#5 Bid Strategies
The two primary bid strategies in Google Ads are target bidding and max bidding, which can be further classified into target CPA, max CPA, target ROAS, or max revenue.
Target CPA or ROAS strategies use the maximize conversions or revenue approach with a specified target for the campaign. Max bidding aims to achieve the highest number of conversions or revenue regardless of the cost per conversion.
In the case of max bidding (max revenue or max conversions), using broad match keywords can lead to Google spending your entire budget because broad match can match to numerous search terms. However, with max conversions or max revenue bidding, exact and phrase match keywords generally perform better than broad match.
On the other hand, in an account using target CPA bidding, the metrics for broad and phrase match keywords are quite similar, even though exact match keywords have the lowest cost per acquisition (CPA). Broad match may have a higher cost per click (CPC) due to its higher conversion rate compared to phrase match, allowing Google to bid more aggressively on broad match variations to achieve the same CPA as phrase match keywords.
The performance of target versus max bidding strategies can vary significantly based on these nuances.
Conclusion
Impression share is a crucial metric that exact match provides, which you’ll miss if you only use broad match. Including your top search terms as exact, phrase, or broad match helps you manage duplicate search terms and gain insights into Quality Scores.
For advertisers with limited budgets, using exact and phrase match often yields better results than broad match. Unless you’re using Target ROAS or Target CPA bidding methods, broad match may not be ideal as it can exhaust your budget without considering conversions.
However, there are exceptions, such as B2B accounts or those targeting small geographic areas, where a mix of exact and broad match (along with phrase match when necessary) can provide control, insights, and leverage machine learning to optimize PPC performance.
In the age of machine learning, exact match remains valuable for PPC professionals seeking to fine-tune their accounts and achieve optimal results.
