There is a picture of me when I was 10 years old. In the picture I am wearing a blue shirt, green hat, red pants and some shoes with orange on them. Obviously I hold my parents responsible for that clothing tragedy that struck me that day. Through many years of counseling I have been able to forgive them, but the fact that matching is important has stuck with me.
Google AdWords thinks matching is important as well. In fact, they think it is so important they give you a few different types of matching for your keywords.
Before we talk about the matching, you need to know how to get to the right screen. First, pick a campaign. Then pick an Ad Group within that campaign. In the middle of the screen you will see the words "Edit Keywords". Click that and you'll see what I see in the picture below. Hopefully you won't see my keywords in your own campaign, I don't like competition!
Once you get to this screen, on the right you will see AdWords' description and examples of how to use the different types of matching.
Below are the ways you will use matching and examples of when and why you would want to use that type of matching.
Broad Match.
Broad match is a basic keyword that will match all variations of that keyword. If my keyword is 'car' then a broad match would also show my ad if someone searched for the following:
car
race car driver
buy a car
Anyone that has the keyword in it will be displayed. You should use a broad match most of the time, especially if you are looking for the most clicks possible.
Exact Match.
Bracketing a keyword gives you an exact match. An exact match would look like this, '[car]'. An exact match would only show my ad if someone searched for
car
My ad would not be displayed if someoene searched for 'new car' 'buy a car' or anything else that has the word 'car' in it. You would want to use exact match if there are a lot of other related terms. For example, if I were a Ford dealership I would exact match the following keywords:
[buy ford]
[buy ford trucks]
[buy a ford car]
etc.
I wouldn't want my ad to display if people search for '1969 Ford Mustang' or 'used Ford Taurus radiator'. Those keywords would drive my CTR lower and even if someone clicked an ad it isn't likely to result in a sale.
Read part 2...
