I Will Never Understand Broad Match

Broad Match Includes Keywords From Another Campaign

[netmeg]

I understand that broad match can sometimes be *really* broad, but does it make sense that it would kick in for a more generic term, when the specific term is included in another campaign/ad group, at the same bid price?

Let me explain. I'll use the sports equipment analogy to describe what I see, because my terms kind of fit that type of organization.

Say I have an overall generic Sports Equipment campaign, plus I have several specific campaigns for Football Equipment, Hockey Equipment, Soccer Equipment, and so on.

Each of these has a number of even more specific ad groups, keywords, and includes all three match types, and each has ads very precisely targeted to their particular keywords (or sport)

So now I run a Search Query Report for Sports Equipment ad group in the Sports Equipment Campaign, and see a large number of broad match impressions/clicks for the term Football Equipment.

Now, my Football Equipment campaign actually has a higher daily budget, a higher maximum CPC, ads targeted specifically to Football Equipment (as opposed to the more generic Sports Equipment) and all three match types for the term Football Equipment.

So *why* would Google show my Sports Equipment ads for the Football Equipment search terms?

It's not that I object to getting clicks at a lower CPC, but the ads aren't going to be as targeted, so maybe I'm missing clicks - the click through rate is pretty low.

Do I need to add my own keywords from one campaign as negatives to another campaign, to kind of sculpt the impressions & clicks into the right sport? They're all listed as "great" QS, so that's not a concern, but I wonder if I try this if I risk somehow losing something in the cracks - maybe Google knows something I don't (no doubt there)

I am confused and disoriented.

Actually, one reason just occurred to me - maybe my Football Equipment was close to budget. I'll have to check that, and run the Search Query report on that one too.

[smallcompany]

I agree with your dissatisfaction in regards of broad match.

Regarding the budget, that’s another issue I’ve always had with Google AdWords – never clear enough with at which percentage the system starts slowing down the campaign. I always pick “accelerated” and see that at the budget of $150 my campaign sometimes (not always) stops showing ads at the spend of around $50. I increase the budget to $250 and they are back into the space.
Why bother about budget if it works in this silly way?

Back to broad match, yesterday I had this case: Group 1 was phrase and Group 2 broad match, same keyword, one only. Bid was the same, ad text the same. Broad was “rocking” and phrase had no impressions.

The way how I look into broad match is – supplemental to exact and phrase, and a tool for discovering new good and bad keywords.

Technically, I would expect the system to ALWAYS “grab” keywords in this order:

Exact
Phrase
Broad

So, if max bid on exact match is $1 and max bid on broad match is $3, you (Google AdWords) pick the exact match, forget broad, period.

[avalon37]

Google is almost "forcing/requiring" broad match on highly searched keywords these days. I have a term that is a 1 word term and very highly searched. On broad match I will get 750 clicks a day, on exact around 40 clicks. Again this is a 1 word term and I have a #2 paid spot...I should be getting a lot more clicks than 40 on exact. Not sure what is going on there. Also the impressions are ridiculously low on exact match, as reported by Google. My ad is #2, again on such a highly searched term, and they are reporting under exact match that only like 400 people a day search for this which is simply unbelievable. This term I run is compared in search traffic to a word like bicycles and way more than 400 search for "bicycle" every day on Google in the U.S.

[JBrown]

[Technically, I would expect the system to ALWAYS “grab” keywords in this order]

As far as I know, it does NOT work that way. The latest that I've heard is that Google will use the keyword/ad combination in the Ad Group that is getting the highest CTR. If the broad match keyword is getting a higher CTR, Google will continue to send impressions to the broad match keyword instead of the exact match. Bids may also factor in though I'm less certain of that.

I've heard one way of getting around these issues is embedded match:
[google.com...]

eWhisper has more here:
[ewhisper.net...]

[netmeg]

Ok. But I would think that from a QS (Quality) standpoint, it would make more sense to serve up the ads from the Football Equipment ad group for the string Football Equipment, than from the more generic (and lower CTR!) ad group Sports Equipment.

But hey, what do I know.

[Rehan]

Technically, I would expect the system to ALWAYS “grab” keywords in this order:

Exact
Phrase
Broad

And according to [adwords.google.com...] that is how it's supposed to work. It says: "The more restrictive match type will always trigger the ad, regardless of CPC bids. For instance, if the broad-matched keyword apple and the exact-matched keyword apple both existed in your account, the exact match would always trigger an ad."

If that is no longer how the system works, Google should update the support pages.

[smallcompany]

Rehan is the man. :)

Holy Shmoly! What do we do now?

The system is supposed to work in one way, but it actually works in the totally opposite one. How come? Does this have anything to do with relatively recent system update in regards of expanded broad match?

I have a feeling that the system had worked in EXPECTED way about year ago or so and farther back. I base this on the overall cost increase.

Should we think that CPC cost increase we are all experiencing lately (increase that has made many campaigns simply unprofitable) is directly connected to the changes which have been brining “alien” ads based on their broad match?

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

To remind you about my late experience:

[webmasterworld.com...]

As a new addition to this last link, I can confirm that I just had another case where many affiliates have stopped advertising on branded term due to the changes proposed by the owner.
Suddenly ads that have never been in the space started showing up below (guess which) position #1.
The only connection is that half of the branded keyword (built from two words, generating one word only) has to do with what those totally unrelated ads are about.

Going back to Netmeg’s original statement – It looks like Google AdWords has “tweaked” the money making machine so it fills in the gaps to ensure “predicted” CPC for each keyword.

In other words, our current position is:
You’re not getting away, we’ll (Google AdWords) get you pay what we’ve calculated you should.
IMO, that's the main driver for having broad match showing over exact.

P.S.
I used embedded match long ago when my account rep (at that time) warned me I had negative keyword that was matching my phrase. I explained my logics and she said "Oh, OK" :o.
I wasn’t even aware of any existing official documentation that would support it, but entered it based on my intuition.
Also, I’ve always used lots of negative keywords in any campaign where broad or phrase was used.
But… but… that is all like you put a band aid onto a leaking pot if you use it to fix broad vs. exact.
Negatives are to ensure your ad will not show onto certain keywords, not to ensure your exact will take precedence over your broad match.

EXACT is to ALWAYS take PRECEDENCE. There is no logics to support any other way (except being public company ;) ).

[skibum]

It seems that the ad that will generate the most money for Google is generally what gets shown.

We've also seen instances where you might have a campaign for soccer that taps out the budget but the football campaign has not reached its budget. Broad match keywords in the football campaign will sometimes start showing for terms that are in the soccer campaign that have stopped delivering due to budget constraints.

[eWhisper]

I have a feeling in the Google explanation page listed above, when Google says 'identical'; it also means an identical quality score. That's the only way that help page seems to make sense with reality.

[Israel]

I have no choice in one of my campaigns to include some broad matches.

I have another campaign where I've got the most likely exact match down to a science, however this other profitable campaign needs some broadmatches since I can never be sure how people will phrase their queries.

Lately I've been seeing some truly weird, totally irrevelant queries coming from Adwords. Only one word will match any term included in my broad match keywords and they're totally off the mark. I mean totally! No amount of negative keywords can fight these off! big red widgets will show for queries that include only the common words "big" or "red".

Fortunately, I'm not seeing too many yet, but fear I may have just been "lucky" or this is the beginning of an experiment ;)

******

While I was never a fan of the "expanded broad match" since computer still cannot "think", I read a month back or so of the even scarier Ultra Extended Broad Match which sounds like it could be a killer.

It was in Beta then and supposedly advertisers would receive an email if chosen as victims. There was also talk that it would be an "opt out" rather than an "opt in" -- even scarier.

Has that made it out of Beta yet? Does that explain the truly useless queries I'm seeing in my logs?

I'd expect to see a red box alerting us if this went live.

I just keep getting more and more paranoid about Adwords enhancements and correspondingly cut my spend this year to 1/4 of what it was.

******

I want that Adwords traffic, but the lack of transparency makes me leary of any Adwords experimentation. My most recent well researched, well targeted efforts were a disaster.

******

Funny how years ago when I knew nothing, I was guaranteed 100%+ returns from Adwords. Now that I've grown more "sophisticated", I'm hard pressed to keep my head above water with Adwords.

Hard to see how that's any good for anyone except Google stockholders of which I'm not one. I opted to buy stock in the other two players...

******

Those other 2 PPCs out there are actively courting my business by phone and freely answer questions and the spend is next to nothing compared with Google's "surprises".

Appreciate any input as I simply can't read every Adwords alert or follow every Adwords blog to get the latest news. Especially since I'm experimenting carefully with the other two major (?) PPCs. They're bringing in conversions too despite their alleged minor market share!

Thanks!

Israel

[avalon37]

This should be a thread AWA can participate in...perhaps he has not been here lately. Something has certainly changed and Google is saying use broad match or get very little traffic; this is a change that has taken place in the last 2 weeks or so. Google - as transparent as boarded up windows.

[shorebreak]

I have a feeling in the Google explanation page listed above, when Google says 'identical'; it also means an identical quality score. That's the only way that help page seems to make sense with reality.

...and I'd say that while that *would* make Google's explanation acceptable/legit, no reasonable interpretation of 'identical' in that sentence would lead us to that end point.

[JustGirl]

Do I need to add my own keywords from one campaign as negatives to another campaign, to kind of sculpt the impressions & clicks into the right sport? They're all listed as "great" QS, so that's not a concern, but I wonder if I try this if I risk somehow losing something in the cracks - maybe Google knows something I don't (no doubt there)

I do this. I have broad groups and I have exact match groups. I use all of my exact matches as negatives in my broad groups. It isn't working out as well as I hoped. For certain keywords it works really well, but others keywords don't seem to get the right amount of impressions. AND SURPRISINGLY they seem to cost more! The up side, is I get to write a very targeted ad.

[edited by: JustGirl at 12:32 pm (utc) on April 11, 2008]

[SanDiego Art]

Like JustGirl, this is why I split the match types into separate groups. This allows you to use negatives (use exact match) on the broad ad groups, consiting of existing exact match keywords. It has been working very well for me. It does require close attention to detail, and consistent updating of the ad groups (but hey - that's why they call it optimizing).

An example would be if you are bidding on a brand name using broad. Google with match legitimate "branded terms" but it will also match to related competitors' names and products. As you add negatives, you'll see the impressions on the broad match go down. Some are distributed correctly to their exact term (you add newly matched terms from the original broad term to the account as Exact), while others are eliminated (like competitor terms if you choose not to bid on them).

This continuous process should help increase CTR (by getting rid of "extra" impressions and the proper ad creative for the term), which improves QS which lowers CPC, which increases ROI and everyone is happy!

[misterjinx]

Do I need to add my own keywords from one campaign as negatives to another campaign, to kind of sculpt the impressions & clicks into the right sport?
My definitive answer is YES.

Please note also that AdWords with different campaigns for example hotels and bed and breakfast with keyword broad match: when daily budget in hotel campaign finishes Google will "extend" the search and will publish ads from bed and breakfast instead of hotel.

Of course also the published ads is taken from bed and breakfast campaigns...

[edited by: eWhisper at 8:25 pm (utc) on April 17, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed blog URL. Please see TOS. [/edit]