Exact Match Keywords: Can You Ever Have Too Much of a Good PPC Thing?

one-match-type-to-rule-them-all

One Match Type to Rule Them All?

During a recent PPC Audit I found something that is as unusual, as seeing accounts with almost all broad match keywords is normal. The accounts had 100% exact match keywords active. There were some broad match keywords in the account but all of them were deleted and hadn't been run in a couple years.

Not only had none of the broad match been used in a couple years but even "close variants" was turned off in AdWords.

This was very unusual! I honestly can't remember the last time I saw just exact match keywords in an account. I had to find out the story behind why this advertiser was only using exact match type keywords, when most novice advertisers hardly ever use anything but broad match type keywords.

Why were they only using Exact Match Keywords?

The advertiser was a partner in the company. He had many roles outside of managing the PPC marketing, including sales & product development. I find this is pretty normal in mid-size businesses.

A couple of years ago the partner had decided if the company was going to run pay-per-click advertising they should at least have a fundamental knowledge of AdWords. So he bought a couple of books and got a few hours of consulting to help bring him up to speed.

All of those are great things, considering they spend about $40k a month on PPC. Trying to understand how best to spend you money is never a bad thing. The problem comes when an advertiser only has a partial understanding, and thinks they get it all!

The one thing that had stood out, during the training and consulting, was how awesome exact match keywords are. He figured if they provide the best ROI & help make sure he isn't advertising on keywords that are irrelevant... well then why not only use exact match keywords!

Save time. Save money. Why not?

Good logic can sometimes be incorrect without all the variables!

The whole reason I was even doing an audit for this company was because a friend has asked to help them out. Over the last couple of years they had slowly seen their volume, and revenue dip. They knew most of the change was coming from their PPC marketing but couldn't figure out why.

In looking back, the changes all started happening after going to just exact match keywords in the accounts.

But why would that be an issue?

Well, one of the things this company hadn't taken into account is all of the "other searches" that don't fit in exactly into the keywords they currently had in the account. It is a well known fact in the paid search marketing arena, that at least 20% of search queries, the search engines have never seen, or at least they haven't seen them in the last 6 months.

So by only using exact match keywords, they didn't take into account that fact. They essentially killed 20% of the clicks & potential conversions they had been getting when they switched to exact match. As time went on, this actually grew so that within a few years they had lost closer to 35% of the revenue coming from Paid Search that they used to receive. Over time more and more new search queries were being used, but they didn't know this because they didn't have any other match types that would pick up these queries.

What is the proper mix of Keyword Match Types?

I don't believe there is a perfect mix of match type keywords. I do however now only use two keyword match types in all of my PPC accounts.

I believe using exact match, with a good representation of modified broad match keywords can help you control spend & maintain performance. Like all things though in PPC you can't just set it and forget it like this advertiser had done.

A lot of you success depends on other factors like how well you: