If you liked running a tidy account where exact match did most of the work, 2019 was a rough year.
How we got here
The first step came in autumn 2018. Google started letting exact match keywords trigger on searches with the same meaning, even when the words were different. Its own example was the keyword [yosemite camping], which could now show for "campsites in yosemite", "yosemite campground" or "yosemite national park camping".
For anyone who builds accounts with one theme per ad group, each with its own ad and landing page, this was a headache. We spent a lot of time in the search terms report working out which new queries had crept in.
The common workaround was to lean harder on phrase match and broad match modifier keywords. They felt like the safer way to stay close to the searches we actually wanted.
What changed in 2019
That workaround did not last. Google announced that same-meaning close variants would also apply to phrase match and broad match modifier keywords. A phrase match keyword such as "lawn mowing service" could now match a search like "local lawn cutting services".
Google's reasoning was familiar. Around 15% of the searches it sees each day are new, so advertisers can't list every useful query by hand, and letting keywords match on meaning would catch the ones we miss. It said advertisers should expect roughly 3 to 4% more clicks on the affected keywords.
Google also said that when a search exactly matches one of your keywords, it would prefer that keyword over a close variant. In theory that stops your own keywords from competing for the same query.
Our honest reaction was mixed. More reach is useful, and some of the new searches really were relevant. But every one of these changes moves a bit of control from the advertiser to Google, and "more clicks" is not the same thing as more profitable clicks.
What we changed in our accounts
- We checked search term reports more often, especially in the weeks after the rollout.
- We treated negative keywords as the main control we had left and reviewed them every week.
- When a useful new query showed up, we moved it into its own ad group or campaign so we could bid on it and write an ad for it.
Google rolled the change out over the following weeks, starting with English and then other languages.
A later note for anyone reading this now: Google folded broad match modifier into phrase match in 2021, and new broad match modifier keywords could no longer be created after July 2021. The advice about search terms and negatives still holds.
If you want a second pair of eyes on how match types behave in your Google Ads account, get in touch.
Google's announcement: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9426627
