How the Keyword Match Change Will Effect Your Google Ads Campaigns
Feb.4, 2021
This morning Google Ads announced it will be updating their keyword match types, Broad Match Modifier and Phrase match. Generally in the match type worlds, Broad Match is used for reach and Exact Match for targeting, with Broad Match Modifier and Phrase Match filling in as a mixture of both.
Since BMM and Phrase match are so closely related, and serve many of the same use cases, changes are being made to bring better reach. The best of Broad Match Modifiers are being pulled into Phrase Match, to give you more control and better reach.
According to Google:
“phrase match will expand to cover additional broad match modifier traffic, while continuing to respect word order when it’s important to the meaning. This makes it easier to reach customers and manage keywords in your account.
With these symantic improvements, you can just use the phrase match— to reach the customers you want without worrying about the searches you don’t want. An example given on the Google help page is for a moving company that is looking to reach people interested in moving out of New York City. The updated phrase match, will help you reach people only looking to move from NYC to Boston, not people looking to move from Boston to NYC.
So will Broad Match Modifier Go Away?
Simply put, Google will phase out support for broad match modifier. But these changes will roll out the next several months.
You don’t have to worry about taking drastic action, as both phrase match and broad match modifier keywords transition to this new matching behavior, it will be applied to both match types. You won’t need to change or migrate your keywords and you’ll be able to keep your performance data.
Once the new behavior has been fully rolled out by this summer, you’ll no longer be able to create new broad match modifier keywords. But don’t worry, existing broad match modifier keywords will continue to serve under the new behavior.
Therefore, moving forward from here on out you should be creating all new keywords in phrase match. If we are already managing your Google ads, it’s nothing to worry about. If you need help implementing these changes in order to maximize your reach, give us a call or email.
Here are some more examples of BMM to Phrase Match changes to expect:
