• Overview
• Standard Match Type
• Advanced Match Type
• Excluded Words
• How It Works
• Benefits
• Tips & Best Practices

Overview

• Standard match type – for exact matches of your keywords or their minor variations.
• Advanced match type for broader user queries.

Standard Match Type

Example
If you advertise on the keyword “plasma television,” your ad may be shown for the following search queries:

Advanced Match Type

Example
If you advertise on the keyword “plasma television,” your ad may be shown for the following search queries:

Excluded Words

This feature helps refine your matches as illustrated in the examples below:

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.
• The maximum number of Excluded Words allowed at the account and ad group levels is approximately 50 words/phrases.

Benefits

• Either target specific keywords or expand your reach and display your ads for a broader range of relevant searches.
• Improve your performance with the ability to broaden your results using our match type features.
With Advanced match type, you can:
• 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.

How It Works

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."

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:

• Account
• Campaign
• Ad Group

Tips & Best Practices

1. 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 unqualified traffic.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. As you set your bids, keep in mind that Advanced and Standard match type ads receive equal priority in appearing in search results.
• Your ad will only appear once in search results if you have keywords set for both Standard and Advanced match types.
• For example, let’s say you have the keyword “television” set for Advanced match type in one ad group and “plasma television” set for Standard match type in another ad group. If a prospective customer searches for “plasma television,” only one of your ads will be displayed.

• Ad testing
• Insert Keyword
• Conversion-only analytics