One thing we love here at Gravytrain is proper thorough analysis, especially when it comes to saving money on PPC. So, one of the more common pieces of analysis we conduct is looking into all the Broad Match keywords in our clients’ PPC accounts and the actual search terms they are coming up for.

Too often we see PPC accounts where Broad Match keywords have been simply paused because although they were getting a high volume of clicks they were converting at a very low rate and just wasting lots of money. But there is another option to pausing them.

It is crucial, with Broad Match keywords, to not just look at them specifically but at the actual Search Terms behind these keywords that have been generating the clicks, as Google can sometimes have you appearing for some quite interesting and irrelevant searches.

What Am I Actually Coming Up For?

Last week we did a full search term analysis, over a 60 day period, for one of our Insurance based clients, in order to find search terms that were generating impressions and clicks but not actually delivering any conversions, and what we found was quite remarkable!

Over the 2 month period we found that our Insurance based ads had not only appeared for but had actually had clicks on searches such as “la senza in store returns policy”, “rugby ball shops”, “buy iphone 4 online” and “cher lloyds clothes”.

Now, I know that the idea of Broad Match is that it is ‘broad’ and brings your ads up for anything that includes one of your keywords, but some of these are still very baffling. “buy iPhone 4 online” could have been picked up by a keyword including “online insurance”, whilst “la senza in store returns policy”” could have been picked up by a keyword that included “Insurance Policy”, but “Rugby Ball Shops” and “Cher Lloyds Clothes” are even more broad and very far removed from any aspect of Insurance!

How do I stop this?

Well, the obvious solution is to add some of these search terms to the negative keyword list. Being insurance based, we were comfortably sure that by adding terms such as “la senza” and “iPhone 4” to our negative keyword list that we were not going to miss out on any conversions!

However, even if you do this analysis every month and add a bunch of negative keywords each time there is still the possibility that you will come up for others broad searches that are just as irrelevant (this wasn’t the first time we did this investigation!), and you can’t negative match every single phrase and word not related to insurance!

The other option is to not use Broad Match keywords at all. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “that’s mad” and of course I don’t think it is sensible to go and turn of all your Broad Match keywords and just have Phrase and Exact Match, as Broad is the best way to bring in a high volume of clicks and appear for a large amount of relevant search terms. But there is a compromise.

Broad Match Modifier

Yes there is more to PPC than Exact, Phrase and Broad Match! By simply adding a + symbol in front of a keyword you can make it a Broad Match Modifier. What this means is that you Google will show your ad for the exact keyword you have and close approximations.

For example, if you were to use the keyword +Car +Insurance, with the Broad Match Modifier, you would be able to appear for searches such as “Car Insurance” and “Cheap Car Insurance” but have no risk of coming up for searches such as “Car Parts UK” or “Home Insurance” which you may well have done if it was just a general Broad Match keyword.

Basically, the Broad Match Modifier gives you more reach than Phrase Match but without the random mess of searches you can get with simple Broad Match. So no more “Rugby Ball Shops”, “iPhone 4s” and “Cher Lloyds Clothes”!

For a long time, advertisers on Google AdWords have struggled to cope with the large variance of traffic volume and ROI in using Broad Match keywords versus Phrase Match or Exact

The general industry-accepted idea is that while Broad Match keywords are useful for new and old advertisers alike, there are many situations in where using them may not be in the best interests of the advertiser.

Whilst Broad Match keywords promise to give the advertiser maximum exposure, exactly how relevant that exposure is often called into question. The result is that many advertisers will get left with numerous mismatched impressions that negatively affect their campaign quality score and worse, clicks that result in no material gain; as in some instances searchers will click on these mismatched ads, but not go on to convert once on the site. Hence, the cost of that click may not be realised now or ever.

While the more restrictive Phrase Match option covers this issue to a large degree, it achieves that by compromising on ad exposure which means lower traffic and conversion volume. Increased ROI at the cost of significantly lower volume of conversions is not very appealing to businesses/marketing professionals.

The accepted norm in the search marketing community until now has been to start with Broad Match keywords with an extensive list of accompanying negative keywords to manage exposure to relevant searches. Search marketers will then identify the keywords/phrases that perform to the desirable level of ROI and subsequently move them to the stricter Phrase and Exact Match types. In all this, the start of the campaign has been most crucial and the precision and accuracy with which the initial selection of Broad Match and negative keywords work has been of great impact on the success of the campaign.

The search community has long debated over the usefulness of Broad Match and demanded an alternative for and more control over the random search queries their keywords end up getting impressions for. Google have finally answered by introducing a new match type in the arsenal. It’s called the Broad Match Modifier (BMM). Essentially, it fits somewhere between the Broad Match and Phrase Match keyword types. The object it satisfies is to stop individual words from Broad Match keyword phrases from triggering impressions on ‘deemed’ related words in user searches. Google have released the graphic below to explain exactly how BMM differs from all other match types.

Click for larger image

With Broad Match, the words ‘formal’ and ’shoes’ will both be independently considered and matched to singular/plural versions, synonyms and other related words not included in the campaign keyword. ‘Formal’ triggered impressions for ‘Evening’ and ‘Men’s Dress’, while ‘Shoes’ triggered ‘Footwear’ and ‘Wingtips’. If the advertiser earlier only wanted people searching for shoes and Phrase Matched ‘Formal Shoes’, they would lose impressions on searches like ‘Evening Shoes’ and ‘Black Dress Shoes’ because their ad will only show if the phrase ‘Formal Shoes’ was part of the search query.

However, by introducing a “+” sign just before the word shoes, they can achieve exactly what is desired, without losing on a possible load of other search queries that are not part of their campaign.

Google has reported that advertisers who used BMM during beta testing of the new match type reported seeing higher clicks and conversions than before. However, Google reported their findings from advertisers who earlier mainly used the Phrase and Exact Match types. Clearly, the increase in exposure lead them to receive more traffic, but with greater control over click-quality – this probably led to the rise in conversions. The report clearly shows the BMM as a means to entice cautious advertisers to have a more bullish approach with their marketing without losing too much control. But what does it mean for the rest of the advertising community that already uses Broad Match?

Other beta testers have independently revealed that on introducing BMM keywords into campaigns with existing Broad Match keywords, BMMs had significantly higher CTRs and conversion rates than the traditional Broad Match terms. We experienced similar results on testing the BMM with one of our clients.

Overall, we observed average conversions on BMM keywords to be double that of the Broad Match keywords.

All in all, Google seem to have hit the right note with search marketers with this release, although it will be interesting to see how keywords utilising these matching options perform in the longer term.

Please note, for now, the release has been made available to advertisers in the UK and Canada only.