Real World PPC Broad Match Modifier

It’s not a bait and switch move, it’s a reward to the customer for knowing what they want.

Everyone loves a good Exact Match keyword. It’s high performing and low cost. But when you miss out on potentially valuable traffic due to a restrictive Match Type, it can really hinder your growth.

That’s why I am a proponent of the Modified Broad Match on certain occasions. When you have a solid keyword set that is performing, but is beginning to grow stale – bring in the modified match to freshen things up. You will find new keywords through the Search Query Report and gain some conversions along the way. It’s a better option than Broad Match because it’s a smarter way to match: misspellings, singular/plural, abbreviations, and stemming…like adding ing, er, ed to a word.

So, why not always use the broad match modifier in Google AdWords? Because 7/10 times it’s more expensive than a phrase or exact matched keyword. Stick to the broad modifier only to find more keywords to expand your phrase and exact match inventory, or if it’s a very hard phrase to nail down.

Now back to the first sentence…In this case, I’ve had the broad modified keyword running for a while because it’s hard to nail down all of the phrase and exact matches, and I want all of the impression share I can get. By doing that, I am paying more per click for this keyword (30% more CPC) vs phrase match. My client conveniently has this product in two versions. One is sold for £4.95 and the other is sold for £10.22 (both competitively priced). I simply send the more expensive traffic to the more expensive product. This lowers conversion slightly, but makes up for the added cost with a higher AOV, and a comparable final ROAS. Trust me, sending ALL traffic to the higher priced product did not work (been there, A/B’ed that). But the smaller amount of new traffic from broad match modified words converts and makes up for the added cost of the clicks.

A quick how-to: Basically all you do is add a Plus + sign in front of the keyword that you require the user to type. ex: +basketball +shoes
I don’t want to turn this into a lesson, I just wanted to give you a quick example of how it worked for me with a real client. For a great overview and details on how to use this match type, go to Google Broad Match Modifier.

So if you use broad modified match wisely, you can find more opportunities to convert and hone in on your target a little more than standard broad match. And remember, not everything can be exact or phrase…that would just be too easy.