The manner in which Google Ads provides searchers with relevant advertisements is through the various search parameter that they put into the search engine. When you set up your Google Ads campaigns, as part of your digital marketing campaign, you will give a number of keywords to your campaign. This is as when a user’s search query matches, or contains some of, these keywords your advertisement will be shown.
There are a number of classifications under which you can categorise your keywords. In this article, we’ll chat about what these are. This addition, we’ll outline a fictional scenario to show you how these categories of keywords should be used.
Scenario
Marco has elected to open a coffee shop with a delicatessen on the side. His friends have said to him that a Google Ads campaign – that targets people who live and work in the area that his business is in – is the best way to promote his shop. Joe has hired an experienced digital marketer – who has done some of the best digital marketing courses in the world – to put develop a digital marketing plan for his company.
Before the digital marketer embarks on setting up the Google Ads campaign for Marco’s business, he asks Marco what keywords he wants to utilise for his business. In other words, the digital marketer needs to get from Marco which keywords he would like to be:
- Broad match,
- Broad match modifiers,
- Phrase matches,
- Exact matches, and
- Close match variants.
Broad match
Broad match keyword match types deliver the widest reach however have the least amount of relevance. This is because the keyword may not be included in the search term which your ad gets matched to as Google Ads may match your ad to any search term that it feels is appropriate when, in really, it isn’t. Instances of broad match keyword match types are:
- Misspellings,
- Synonyms, and
- Related searches.
In Marco’s case, broad match keyword match types – to coffee shop – may be terms such as:
- Café,
- Coffee house,
- Coffee bar,
- Java shop,
- Tea house, and
- Tea room.
