Adwords Match Type Question

For a one-word phrase, is there any difference between:

"keyword" - phrase match
keyword - broad match

It seems like it would be the same. If these were both in an ad group, wouldn't one just override the other?

 

Yes, there is a difference. I've often added all three variations of a word to a single ad group and they all get impressions/clicks.

 

Yes, I'm looking at a campaign that contains this, and there are indeed impressions across the keywords. My questions is, what is the difference? I don't understand it.

 

Basically, if my keyword was "fast car", here's how it would show up:

if my query was:

Fast way to get a car

the broad match will trigger.

if my query was:

fast car pricing or pricing on a fast car

the phrase match would trigger.

And if my query was simply (and only)

fast car

the exact match would trigger.

Learn more about it here.

-T

 

IF the keyword is say, dogs, then I fail to see any difference between:

"dogs" and dogs although there would still be an obvious difference for [dogs]

 

beejeebers, I agree with you. I just found a thread in the Adwords Google Group that might shed some light on this, though. The following is from here:

There used to be no difference between phrase and broad matches on
a single keyword. When Google quietly introduced expanded matching:

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6136

this changed. For instance, if someone uses:

"carpet"

that will trigger searches like:

carpet remnants
carpet store
red carpet
how to clean carpet
carpet cleaning

but with carpet in the list as a broad match, Google's expanded
matching could trigger the ad for keywords like:

rug
rug store
floor mat
shag
interior decorating

You never know what you're going to get these days with broad match.
It's useful when you're in the exploratory phase, researching keywords,
but can hurt you in the long run. If you use broad match these days,
it's crucial to either bid lower on it than phrase and exact or to
build a long list of negative keywords based on the actual search hits.

 

Hi,

Yes, it is very important to understand the difference
between the different match keywords and how they
work.

Broad match can be very expensive if you are not
careful. One way of getting the most out of these
keywords is to do plenty of reasearch and use negative
kewords to block out 'searchers' and not 'buyers'.

Regards,

RPM