Broad Match : Casting the Net Wide

Broad match is a matching option that displays your ads with search queries matching keywords, similar phrases and related variations. This is the default option when you add a keyword to a campaign as it helps you to attract more traffic to your landing page. A broad match includes relevant variations of your keywords, even if they aren’t amongst your keywords. Keyword variations can also include singular/plural forms, synonyms and various relevant variants as well.

Example:

Broad match keyword: car hire.
Ad will appear in: car hire UK, cheap car hire, car rent, van hire

To reduce the amount of irrelevant queries, there are a number of targeting methods that allow you to narrow the traffic down:

• Phrase match: ad will appear if the targeted phrase is searched for, with words before or after the phrase. Other foms such as plural or different word order will not trigger the ad.
• Exact match: ads will only appear if the search query matches exactly with the keyword. In this case no other variation triggers the ad, not even plurals or a different word order.
• Negative match: by adding a negative keyword you can exclude queries that include that keyword.

Broad match may not be the best option for your pay-per-click advertising campaign.