Google Sunsets Broad Match Modifier. Is it the Start of A New Era?

Google Ads gave us an early Valentine’s Day gift. No, it wasn’t a box of chocolates or free ads for the holiday.

They announced that the sun is setting for Modified Broad Match – one of the keyword match types used to determine which searchers receive your ads. This is yet another impactful (and sudden) change for paid search marketers.

Keywords kick off their migration to the updated match type beginning in late February. So, you can already expect this to influence the results you pull from ad analytics tools.

Here we’ll take a deeper look at the different match types, the expected changes, and how you can navigate the transition — successfully:

The 4 match types

To understand why these changes matter for paid search, we need to understand the current landscape.

There are four main match types that marketers can select to trigger ads in the world of paid search (for Google Ads). Each has its own strategic importance for your optimization efforts and ultimately your conversion rate:

• Exact Match: This is the most restrictive match type which is denoted by [ ]. It will only trigger ads that are an exact match to the keywords that searchers use (with the exception of function words, plurals, and close variants).
• Phrase Match: Denoted by “ ,” Phrase Match will only trigger your ad if the search queries are in the same word order as the keywords you listed.
• Modified Broad Match: This is an even more flexible option than Phrase Match. Denoted by adding a plus sign (+) before each word, the search query must contain the words you set, but the word order doesn’t matter.
• Broad Match: The least restrictive match type is Broad Match. This could show your ad for any search term or synonym that Google believes is contextually similar to the keyword.

Now if you are a seasoned paid marketer in the digital marketing sphere, you probably use a blend of these keyword match types to help implement testing and careful keyword maintenance in your campaigns.

A general best practice after you complete the PPC keyword research is to start keywords on Broad Match Modifier and restrict the match type further once you start to notice traction in your campaigns for specific keywords. This could help with your organic search optimization. It can also help you identify new keywords and long-tail keywords. With this commonly utilized match type going into retirement, the industry will have to create new best practices to help get started with new keywords. Phrase Match could potentially be the next best option for marketers.

A ‘new’ match type

By July 2021, marketers will no longer be able to create new Broad Match Modified keywords in their Google Ads accounts. To help make this transition easier, Google also changed the Phrase Match type to allow other words outside of the selected keywords to be included in the search terms. This creates a hybrid match type between Modified Broad and Phrase Match.

How is this different from before? The old broad match modifier keywords would show ads for queries that contain all of the keywords that were set, but the order didn’t matter. If we were bidding on the keyword query, for example, “Flights from Houston to Boston,” it may have also appeared for searches for “Flights from Boston to Houston,” even if the airline didn’t have the tickets. As a result, the airline could potentially receive wasted clicks.

image from support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10286719?hl=en

Phrase match will now essentially take on the role of modified broad, except for one key difference: Order still matters.

Why this could be a headache for marketers

Due to Google Ads being fast-paced and constantly evolving, what is considered a trendy structure could soon become outdated. This is especially the case now for stacked (or tiered) bidding, which involves bidding on the same keyword, but with all different match types in the same campaign. With this new phrase match change, this strategy could leave your account vulnerable to duplicate keywords, which can make it harder to maintain over time.

Single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) are even more outdated with this new migration. Our advice is to leave them behind.

If you are still operating off of this hyper-segmented strategy, consider pausing ad groups that have the modified broad keyword living within them, or restructure them to a themed ad group instead.

Change never comes easy, so be prepared for the uncertainty this migration will bring. Consider being more hands-on in your Google Ads account to address surprises that new keywords can trigger. Creating preemptive negative keywords can also be a useful strategy to limit wasted spend.

Another important tool to stay ahead of your competition: Similarweb’s Keyword Research Tool. At a time when your market is changing, doing PPC keyword research to monitor the market and your competitors’ ensures you stay agile and allows you to learn from others’ mistakes.

The start of a new era?

This sunsetting doesn’t come as a surprise to many marketers. Google made other changes over the past two years that shifted the keyword landscape.

Google changed match types in the past, making it broader and harder to control. Originally, close variants, misspellings, and function words weren’t factored in. In September, Google also changed the Search Term Report, so only high-volume searches appeared in the report, even if lower-volume searches received a click. These major changes to core metrics and match types point to Google Ads focusing more on audience targeting, which encourages marketers to focus more on the consumer intent of the traffic, and less on what the user is strictly typing. This could be the start of a new era, where match types will be removed and we rely on automated bidding strategies and audience targeting layering to gain website traffic.

7 steps to navigate this change

Before we worry about the implications of this change, we need to ask ourselves these questions:

1. Is my account on an outdated keyword structure? Am I bidding on the same keyword multiple times, but with different match types?

2. Am I in an industry where the order of my keywords is crucial for the success of my campaigns? These could include the airline, moving, and logistics industry.

3. How robust are my negative keywords? Do I have enough in my keyword list within my campaigns to help counteract any irrelevant traffic that could potentially click on my ads.

4. Do I have a Keyword Research Tool to help assist in sourcing long-tail keywords that I would otherwise be able to find using modified broad?

As we prepare for the migration to fully take place, here are some tips and tricks to help make sure your account is set up for success:

5. Consider this a “spring cleaning” time for your current keywords. If you have any modified broad keywords, now can be the time to assess their traffic and change them to phrases (Google will do this for you anyway in a couple of weeks).

6. Review your Search Term Results every other day to monitor changes in queries the new phrase matches are matching up to.

7. If you have the auto-import feature set to import your campaigns to Bing, make sure you paused all duplicate keywords that were imported and set your broad match keywords to phrase match.

With the paid search landscape shifting, it’s more important than ever to sharpen your marketing strategy. Check out the Digital Marketing Guide and elevate your PPC skills. Get it here:

How to Build the Perfect Marketing Strategy

by Kaitlyn Boehm

Client Services Analyst, Similarweb

Kaitlyn, with a background in paid search and a B.S. from UMass Amherst, enjoys video games, cooking, and houseplants.