Overview: Match Types
- Overview
- Standard Match Type
- Advanced Match Type
- Excluded Words
- How It Works
- Benefits
- Tips & Best Practices
For your Sponsored Search distribution tactic, we offer two match types by which your ads may be displayed:
- Standard match type – for exact matches of your keywords or their minor variations.
- Advanced match type – for matches that use your keywords in various contexts.
When using Advanced match type, we also provide you with our Excluded Words option to help refine your matches by filtering out searches that are not relevant to your business.
The Standard match type displays your ads for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular/plural variations and common misspellings.
Example
If you advertise on the keyword “plasma television,” your ad may be shown for the following search queries:
The Advanced match type extends your reach by displaying your ads for a broader range of search related to your keywords, titles, descriptions, and/or web content. The Advanced match type also includes keywords from Standard match type queries.
Example
If you advertise on the keyword “plasma television,” your ad may be shown for the following search queries:
When using our Advanced match type, it’s important to use the Excluded Words feature to help block unwanted searches that you believe may not be relevant to what you are offering. Please note that the Excluded Word feature is not available to the Standard match type.
This feature helps refine your matches as illustrated in the examples below:
| Using Advanced match type for following keywords: | You may want to use following Excluded Words: | Reason to block: |
| color television | used | You only sell new televisions |
| ski lessons | children | You only offer lessons to adults |
| beachfront condo | for sale | You only rent condos |
| designer shoes | repair | You only sell designer shoes |
Things to Note:
- Excluded Words can be set at the account level (in the Administration tab) and ad group level (in the Ad Group Setting page).
- At the account level, it will help block out unrelated search terms that you select for all ad groups in your account. For example, if you only sell new products, you may want to exclude “used” at the account level.
- At the ad group level, it will only help block out unrelated search terms for that specific ad group.
- You may add up to 250 Excluded Words (or phrases) at both the account and ad group levels.
Note:
If you add a large number of excluded words at the ad group level, you may experience issues with bulk management. In our bulk submission spreadsheet, all ad group-level excluded words are listed one per row, so adding a lot of excluded words could increase the number of rows past Excel 2003’s 65,000-row limit. You can find more detailed information about uploading bulk files with a large number of rows here.
If you experience any difficulty with account bulk downloads, please contact our Customer Solutions department or your account manager for possible solutions.
Our match type options allow you to:- Either target specific keywords or expand your reach by displaying your ads for a broader range of relevant searches.
- Help improve your performance by broadening and/or targeting your results using our match type features.
- Target additional potential customers based on the existing content of your ad, which can help you save time and effort in managing new keywords.
- Keep your results relevant and focus your budget on the likeliest customers by using the Excluded Words feature to block certain searches that you believe will not apply to your products or services.
You can manage your match types at different levels in your account, which gives you more control on how you manage your match types.
| Setting match type to "Standard" at this level: | Has this impact: | Maximum number of excluded words when using Advanced match type |
| Account | Sets match type to Standard for all campaigns, ad groups and keywords in the entire account. | Up to 250 words and/or phrases |
| Campaign | Sets match type to Standard for all ad groups and keywords in a single campaign. | Excluded words are not available at this level |
| Ad Group | Sets the match type to Standard for all keywords within a specific ad group. | Up to 250 words and/or phrases |
| Keyword | Sets match type to Standard for a specific keyword. |
Key points:
- The "Standard" match type setting overrides any "Advanced" settings in levels below it.
- If you select the Standard match type setting at the account level, all of the campaigns, ad groups and keywords in your entire account will be defaulted to the Standard match type, regardless of the settings at the lower levels.
- If you want to use the Advanced match type at any level of your account, all match type settings in the levels above it must also be set to "Advanced."
- Think of your account-level setting like the electrical circuit breaker in your house: If your circuit breaker is off, none of your outlets or appliances will work. Similarly, if your account is turned "off" to the Advanced match type (by selecting Standard), then none of your ads can be displayed for an advanced match type result.
Example:
- You selected “Advanced” as your match type setting for a few of your ad groups.
- After testing, you decide that you would prefer all your ad groups in one campaign to be set to the “Standard” match type only.
- You can most easily make this change by setting your match type setting to “Standard” at the campaign level. (Then you do not have to switch it to “Standard” for each individual ad group.)
Learn how to adjust match type settings at the following levels:
- Use Advanced match type for keywords that are specific to the service or products you offer.
- Try to avoid Advanced match type for generic terms such as “television” or “books” because you may receive traffic from searches not closely related to what you are offering.
- Improve your campaign performance by applying Excluded Words at both account and ad group level.
- Learn which terms to exclude by looking at your web server logs; work with your web developer to obtain this information.
- Identify the keywords that do not apply to your business but may be commonly used by potential customers.
- Be selective when choosing your Excluded Words at the account level since they apply to all keywords in your account.
- Choose keywords for each ad group carefully.
- Grouping similar keywords into separate ad groups may allow you to set Excluded Words that apply to the specific keywords in each ad group.
- Selecting the most appropriate keywords using Advanced match type may help you get more potential customers.
- As you set your bids, keep in mind that Advanced and Standard match type ads receive equal priority in appearing in search results.
In addition, make sure to take advantage of the following features to get the most out of our match type options: