Hi, I just dont get it! eg. i'm going for "the best mattress in the world" keyphrase Google says i should be in position 1-3 with .22 cents but i never get listed because other ppl are paying $1+ for keyphrase "best mattress" in broad match. How does having hundreds of keyphrases make sense for anyone???
The match type has an impact on the Quality Score, I believe. So if you are bidding on a term on exact match, and someone else is bidding on phrase match, then you would have to bid less than they would to appear in the same place, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL. There are a number of reasons that they may be bidding more than you: 1) They have a higher conversion rate 2) They make more money from a sale (maybe a higher margin) 3) They are numpties, and think that the objective on Adwords is to appear top. All of which is pretty much irrelevant. What other people are doing on their campaigns should be of no interest to you at all. You need to find the bid/position that is the most profitable for you. And you should do everything you can to improve your Quality Score (as this means that the most profitable position for you cost less, and/or is higher). Always use exact match on every relevant term, and pick up the rest with phrase match. Use the search query report to see what people actually search for, and either add them as exact match or negative match. How do you know which match type other people are using?
WHAT!!! so if i do a bunch of exact matche keyphrases i'll be paying less per click when they appear because of the relevancy? Are you sure? I know if my click though rate is high i move up and pay less per click. But i didn't know i would pay less for exact phrase match too. so i'll need a freak'n long list! do i include plurals... "scary mask" "scary masks" do i include spelling errors? You better be sure cause this is a sh** load of work. lol
Yes mate, you have to include your plurals in your keyword phrases as well, to cover up for all the keywords. Not only this connectors like "IN" also have to be inserted in your campaigns very diligently. This is indeed a tough job. LOL
Ah - just been reading up on this. Can I check that I've got this right? If somebody searches for tennis shoes, it makes no difference whether you bid on "tennis shoes" or [tennis shoes], you get the same Quality Score. But bidding on "shoes" would give you a lower Quality Score. That being the case, rather than saying that if you are bidding on "tennis shoes", there's no point in also bidding on [tennis shoes], but by going through the search query report, you should list all of the other relevant terms that it throws up (e.g. cheap tennis shoes) explicitly, using either exact or phrase match? So does this mean that the only time that you should use exact match is if you want the term only with nothing before or after it (which would be virtually never)?
That is my understanding of how exact and phrase match work. Google encourages the use of it to "optimize" your keywords, but really, doesn't it just limit your results? Is there any disadvantage to using only broad match? I don't think so.
Just realised the answer to my own question here. If you bid on "widgets", at £0.50 per click, then you are bidding the same regardless of what it matches to. But if you bid on [widgets], only that search term would be £0.50 per click. So exact match makes it easier to adjust the bids on terms that perform significantly differently. It's your way of saying "this is how I want to handle this specific term". For example: If "designer widgets" is converting very well, but is only average with words like "cheap" at the start, then there is a case for having [designer widgets] and "designer widgets" in your keyword list, with different bids. Google says: There's no definitive Quality Score benefit to be gained from adding the same keyword multiple times with different match types to your account. But there is sometimes a case for doing so if the performance of the different match types varies significantly. In much the same way that adjusting bids on keywords is more precise than adjusting bids on Adgroups, putting terms into exact match is more precise than managing them on phrase or broad match. Jbenz - I too believed as you did, but looking on Google's help system has left no doubt that this is how it works. There is a benefit in using exact and phrase match, but in terms of QS, they reward having the correct terms, not the match type.
Personally I think there's one HUGE disadvantage to using broad match - and that is, as it is interpreted as expanded match it's just too broad. Even with an expansive and growing negative list - I felt like every time I added more negative keywords, the broad match expanded it's range so I was constantly adding more negatives.