Use broad, exact and phrase match?

Is there any benefit to using broad, exact and phrase match for the same term? I'd appreciate feedback not on what is understood to be the correct answer but base it on your testing and experience.

Thanks.

 

For me there is no difference or there is a so small difference that do not worth to maintain such kind of list.

Let me tell you my experiment:

I had e theory about 3 months ago that if I use broad, exact and phrase match for the same terms on the same adgroups the AdWords system would give me priority for the exact machs for such terms and would boost my impressions for the adgroups that I use such method.

So I found this site:

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/adwords-wrapper.html

that you just paste your keywords list there and it return the "Wrapped" List (with all mathes).

So I did some tests like measure conversion, impressions and clicks for some of my adGorups for some days and after that I went to these groups and "wrapped" the keyword list - waitted for some additional days and compared the results from both periods (normal list and wrapped list) for the same group.

I could see that there is absolutly no change in group behaviour and also there is the disadvantege that the adGroups has 3x the number of keywords.

So in my opinion just use these additional matchs for very specific cases.

 

The only time I've found testing it worthwhile is when I'm evaluating a high volume (like 50,000 - 100,000 impressions) keyword. I like to run each match through a round of impressions and then stick with the one that produced the best ROI.

It's an easy test to do - give it a go and see how it works for you.

 

I'm with GFC.

If I advertise Red Bicycle - I put in (and I made a PHP function for it):

red bicycle
"red bicycle"
[red bicycle]

Then indeed after a few weeks just monitor how well they go. If one of them tends to do the trick, delete the rest and up the bid.

 

Stay out of the red bicycle market, it's mine!

It is intersting to see the results from these tests. I've yet to uncover any pattern to which matching option works best. Sometimes exact match is the clear winner, and for another similiar term in the same market broad match is the way to go.

Just reinforces the importance of testing I suppose.

 

For those interested, here's the very simple PHP script.

It's intended to auto append whatever product type to product models.

So if you advertise the BC930 Offroad Bicycle, the script would look like this:

<?php 
   
   if(isset($_GET['kw']))
   {
   	//result page
   	$kw = $_GET['kw'];
   	
   	$result_set = $kw . '<br>';
   	$result_set.= '"' . $kw . '"<br>';
   	$result_set.= '[' . $kw . ']<br>';
   	$result_set .= $kw . ' offroad bicycle<br>';
   	$result_set.= '"' . $kw . ' offroad bicycle"<br>';
   	$result_set.= '[' . $kw . ' offroad bicycle]<br>';
   	$result_set .= $kw . ' off road bicycle<br>';
   	$result_set.= '"' . $kw . ' off road bicycle"<br>';
   	$result_set.= '[' . $kw . ' off road bicycle]<br>';
   	$result_set .= $kw . ' off-road bicycle<br>';
   	$result_set.= '"' . $kw . ' off-road bicycle"<br>';
   	$result_set.= '[' . $kw . ' off-road bicycle]<br>';
   	
   	echo $result_set;
   	
   	echo'<br><br><form name="aw" action="aw.php" method="get"><input type="text" name="kw" size="24"><input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"></form>';
   	
   }
   else
   {
   	//search page
   	echo'<form name="aw" action="aw.php" method="get"><input type="text" name="kw" size="24"><input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"></form>';
   }
   
   
?>

PHP:

Works great if you have to enter tons of models with a finite set of KWs added. Just enter the model number in the search box.

Just save it as aw.php

 

Other than a little extra effort to put in all three variants, is there any downside to having all three keywords? I assume that if there is a clear winner or loser(s), culling the weak ones would help CTR and Quality Score.

I'll try the three and cull after a week or two.

 

No downsides that I know of. It's just more knowledge to you basically.

For instance, if "red bicycle" gets all the hits and not [red bicycle] it's a sign to look for whatever they type in front of it or behind it. You might find a great nihce for 'striped red bicycle' for exampe. Or 'red bicycle race'. For which you can do a stand alone, optimized ad.

That wouldn't have occured to you as easily if you didn't have data to base it on.