Exact Match

Exact Match is a Keyword-match type, which helps advertisers with Google Ads and Bing Ads is available. With exactly matching keywords, you can reach potential customers who are only looking for the specific Keywordyou're bidding on, or search for close variants of that keyword. By bidding on exact match keywords, you can closely control your advertising budget and get a better ROI on your ad investment.

What is an exact match keyword anyway?

Exact Match is the GoogleKeyword-type that allows you to place your ad when a searcher types in the exact word or phrase you are bidding on. An Exact MatchKeyword in Google Ads will only be displayed in an auction if the search query exactly matches your Keyword or is a close variant of it.

Google explains Exact Match as follows:

With Exact Match you can show your ad only to customers who search for your exact Keyword or search for close variants of your exact keyword. From the four Keyword-matching options you have with Exact Match most control over who sees your ad, and can thus achieve a higher click-through rate (CTR) achieve.

With Exact Match your ads can appear when the meaning of a person's search exactly matches your Keyword matches. When you Exact Match you may not get as many impressions or clicks, but probably a higher click-through rate (CTR). This is because your ads can be displayed to people searching for terms that match your product or service almost exactly.

How did exact match keywords change in 2017-2018?

In the early days of paid search, exact-match keywords were just that: they only matched search queries that exactly matched the keywords being bid on. While this gave advertisers a lot of control, it also forced them to create extensive Keyword-to create lists with many close variants.

As Google got smarter, it modified exact-match keywords to include close variants, including misspellings, singular forms, plurals, acronyms, root forms, abbreviations, and accents. This significantly reduced the need to include dozens of variants in a single ad group.

In March 2017, Google changed the operation of Exact Match-keywords again and expanded the definition of close variants to semantically similar search queries.

Google Adwords Exact Match Keyword Change

When an advertiser clicks on the Exact-Match-Keyword [shirt for men] offers, an ad will be placed not only for the search query "shirt for men", but also for semantically similar phrases, i.e. search queries such as "shirt for men" and "shirt for men".

In this example, the exact-match keyword matches a search query that is actually not an exact match. It is a reordering of the same words, but not the same phrase.

Examples for the modification of Adwords Exact Match Keywords

There are a few other cases where Exact Match Keywords can be triggered by search queries that do not exactly match the Keyword match. This mainly involves function words, prepositions (in, to), conjunctions (for, but), articles (a, the), and other words that often have no bearing on the intent behind a search query. Function words can be added, removed, or changed and still have a Exact Match Keyword trigger.

According to Google, this change has a big impact: Advertisers are seeing an increase in exact match clicks of up to 3 %.

Google changed the rules for exact match keywords again in 2018. Exact match keywords are now matched to "close variants that have the same meaning as your keywords," including synonyms, paraphrases, and results with the same implied intent. The importance of Exact Match Keywords

Why are exact match keywords so important?

Because there is a central error in the "more extensive" search options (Broad Match and Phrase Match): For broad and phrase-match keywords, your ad is likely to be displayed for search queries that you do not want to advertise on.

Width match - With this option (along with the modified broad match), your ads will be displayed for search queries that contain misspellings, synonyms, related queries, and other relevant variants.

Phrase match - With this option your ads will be displayed in search queries

are displayed that match a phrase or are close variations of that phrase, with additional words before or after them. However, the ads are not shown when a word is added in the middle of the phrase or when the words of the phrase are rearranged in any way.

Exact Match Keyword vs Broad Match Keyword

It is obvious that many of these searches are useless for our range of tennis shoes. We do not sell basketball shoes. We don't sell designer shoes. Heck, we don't even sell tennis racquets! We sell tennis shoes, and EXCLUSIVELY tennis shoes, and therefore broad based searches are a waste of our valuable advertising dollars.

While the search queries to which our phrase match-Keyword "tennis shoes" is much more relevant than the one we associate with Broad Match have seen, but we. If we sell high quality, expensive tennis shoes, we don't want to advertise against "discount tennis shoes"; if we only sell certain brands or models, we want to be able to take that into account too.

Exact Match So keywords are better than Phrase Match and Broad Match, right?

Not so fast! When you advertise on Google has Exact Match also its problems.

Matching only the search query "tennis shoes" is great. But what about "men's tennis shoes"? We probably sell those too. Or better yet, what about "buy tennis shoes"? This searcher is actively looking for a pair of tennis shoes to buy. Their intent is clear. We want that potential customer!

The list of high intent search queries that we want to serve our ads for is probably endless. Identifying these search queries and adding them as keywords is incredibly important because of a principle known as the long-tail of search.

Basically, the point is that most of the Trafficthat you receive via search comes from users who have entered a longer search query. Many of these Long Tail Keywords are very focused, but their Search volume is so low that you probably won't have the opportunity to use it with exact match keywords.

If you only use exact match search terms with one word, you will miss out on a lot of valuable visitors!

What kind of keyword strategy should I use?

Broad & Phrase Match attract too many useless searches. Exact Match misses valuable Long Tail Keywords.

Use Broad & Phrase Match to discover new possibilities

Discover and bid on new variations of the keywords you bid on. Capture all these variations with Web Analytics, bid on more specific keywords and increase the Relevanceby increasing the quality score and click-through rates.

Discover opportunities for negative keywords

With the option "Negative Keyword Matching" you can prevent your ads from being displayed for various unwanted search queries. This is an effective weapon against the above described kind of irrelevant Traffic.

By using multiple match types, adding negative keywords, and identifying new, interesting keywords, you can simultaneously reach the audience you want to reach and avoid spending money on clicks that don't convert.