Exact Match No Longer Exact = More Revenue for Google

[consultant]

I'm a sick and tired of google expanding the machine decision portions of their functions without giving the ability to turn them off - specifically, there is no way to turn of variant matched on Exact Match, so it's not really EXACT, it should be renamed "Really Close Match" LOL It is frustrating and pathetic. See this discussion for more info:

[support.google.com...]

[RhinoFish]

For now, you can (usually) add Negative keywords to carve out most of the things you're likely concerned with.

But as Automation grows, both Positive and Negative Keywords at Google Ads will be sunset in the coming years (or months).
They'll collapse match types further, reduce Search Term and Keyword level reporting further, sunset campaign types that have many levers, and more.
In 1-3 years, it'll be pretty lever-less.

Once the levers are gone, the MOST important thing you'll be able to impact is your feedback loop (aka tracking).
Start heading towards more sophisticated tracking now.

On March 14, 2019, G fired this warning shot, to let you know it was coming:
[agency.googleblog.com...]

Note: That was also the last post G put up for ad agencies... ouch. A few months later, they pulled support for agencies. A few months ago, they collapsed Phrase and Mod Broad into a single Match type, reducing the count of matches from 4 to 3... more to come. Buh bye levers!

[consultant]

@RhinoFish - Words of wisdom as I completely agree with you about the future. I invested so many hours into carefully crafting Ad Groups segmented into geographic and match types. Exhaustive long-tail keyword lists. Exhaustive negative keyword lists. Lot of work slowly going down the drain while I watch my Google ROI stagnate or decrease due to increased competition caused by AI features reducing the competitive advantage over less knowledgeable advertisers.

I was looking closer at search term reports and was even shocked they are doing SUBTRACTIVE keyword variant matches. Meaning in an exact match Ad Group where I have [kw1 kw2 kw3] and [kw1 kw2] so I can have finer control, I'm seeing variant exact match with search term "kw1 kw2" on [kw1 kw2 kw3] and not on [kw1 kw2] . Unbelievable. So essentially working on long-tail keyword lists now is a complete waste of time. And in this example, you can't use negative keywords to prevent the behavior.

[engine]

There was a point in time where small advertisers could easily compete with modest budgets, but that's becoming more and more difficult, especially with these changes. Even medium-sized businesses are finding it challenging. In the end it'll be those with the deepest pockets that will prevail.
I can't help thinking there's an analogy; the goose is slowly getting fatter and fatter by moving closer to the feeding stations, and one day might just have a heart attack.

[tomshark]

Hmm, Microsoft Advertising keeps pinging my brain.