I was working on one of my Adwords campaigns recently and a friend who was looking at my spreadsheet asked me why I bother with quote marks and brackets in my Adwords campaign.

So I’m sure there may be others asking the same question.
Here’s the quick answer:

Broad Match.
This is where a keyword phrase is written as is, for example: Organic Vegetables

This is the broadest of all the match types. This match type means that your Ad will potentially be shown to anyone searching for “Organic” and “Vegetables” in their search phrase.

Example, your ad may show up if someone searched for “Organic Chemistry” or “Zombie Vegetables”.

As you can see, this phrase can get your Ad a lot of impressions but the cllicks may be low as your Ad can be shown for searches that are not relevant.

Phrase Match.
This is where a keyword phrase is enclosed by quotation marks, for example: “Organic Vegetables”

This match type means your Ad will only be shown if the search phrase contains the words “Organic Vegetables” in that order.

So for example, your Ad may appear if someone searches for “How To Grow Organic Vegetables” or “Where To Buy Organic Vegetables”.

Exact Match.
This is the strictest match type. This is where your keyword phrase is enclosed by square brackets, for example: [Organic Vegetables]

This is the most specific of the three types. In this case, your Ad will only be shown if somebody searches for “Organic Vegetables” and with no other terms.

Negative Match
Also, its is very important to specify Negative Keywords in your Ad campaign. For example, if you are selling information about “Organic Vegetables” you may want to include the negative keyword “free” so that people searching for free stuff will not see or click on your Ad.

For more information on Adwords and making profits with PPC, visit PPC Classroom 3.

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Tags: adwords, broad match, exact match, negative keyword, phrase match, PPC