Should I Be Bidding On Broad Match Keywords?

[MIB Mastermind]

Hey Warriors

I am looking for your opinion on bidding on broad match terms with google adwords is this something I should be doing? or would you recommend only bidding on phrase and exact match?

[dburk]

Hi MIB Mastermind,

I generally do not advertise on Broad keywords in the Search Network because the targeting is poor, CTR is poor and CPCs are too high. It's like a vortex that sucks your ad budget down the drain.

I do occasionally run short term tests with broad keywords to gather data on related Keywords, it is useful for that, thanks to the Extended Broad Match feature. Once I get enough data I delete them, I kill the campaign and use the data to generate new keyword ideas.

Now on the Content Network Broad keywords are the way to go, just create separate campaigns for the Content Network.

[MIB Mastermind]

Dburk thanks for that much appreciated, I usaully turn the content network off but recently I have been hearing people talk about the amounts of traffic and sales they are generating through content network so I will give it a go soon. Also I have recently heard alot of good things about placement targeting so these are things I will need to look into.

[Lucid]

I use broad keywords pretty much like dburk, to gather data. I try to limit to phrase and exact matches only. Broad matches I keep are longer tailed. Although I somewhat disagree with him that broads are more expensive and have lower CTR.

[KevinA]

Exactly what DBurk said, it just brings in low quality traffic and increases your cost per conversion. Stick to phrase match at the minimum I would suggest

[pauljeaston]

By the way, as a newbie, what is a phrase match, exact match, and a broad match? Please bear with me...

[dburk]

Hi pauljeaston,

The official answer:

What are keyword matching options? - AdWords Help

[Joshua.E1]

Yes you should be using broad match, so that you can capture other longer tail keywords that will help you in converting into sales.

But remember to use negative keywords to take away unwanted and unrelated keywords that will not result in a sale or that does not help.

If you add enough negative keywords and have good click through rate, your quality score will increase.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Joshua.E1

Yes you should be using broad match, so that you can capture other longer tail keywords that will help you in converting into sales.

But remember to use negative keywords to take away unwanted and unrelated keywords that will not result in a sale or that does not help.

If you add enough negative keywords and have good click through rate, your quality score will increase.

Hi Joshua,

I have to disagree with you to a point. You can pickup most relevant long tail phrases with "phrase match". The main problem with "Broad match" is the extended broad match feature will pickup so many irrelevant keywords that you won't be able to anticipate and include as negative keywords.

I think many people who rely on "broad match" are just being too lazy to do proper keyword research. As I previously stated, broad match can be useful for researching keywords, but you should keep these tests limited so they do not do significant damage to your account's overall QS.

[pauljeaston]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi pauljeaston,

The official answer:

What are keyword matching options? - AdWords Help

Thanks for the link!