How to set up broad match keywords in Google Ads

It's Google's job to decide which Ad gets shown. It's your job to make that decision easy.

The picture above represents Google looking at all the ads competing for the same audience, trying to decide which should be shown for the search result. Let’s use the search:

“Best markers for graphic design”

If at this stage you don’t understand the importance of Audience and who is your Audience with regards to Ad campaigns I suggest that you read this article first.

To have a chance at setting up successful ad campaigns you have to understand the match modifiers. The way in which you ads are selected or better said, which keywords and phrase are your ads being shown for.

You are the one spending the money on the ad so its your responsibility to tell Google when you want your ads to appear and to whom should they be shown.

Let’s start with Broad match modifiers.

Set up broad match modifiers

Before we begin please keep in mind that when I say “searches” that means what our customers are typing in to Google to find your product. And with that in mind think of Google as a business serving its client (the person doing the search) with the mostly likely business/website to help them with their particular problem.
With that said.
Broad match modifiers ensure that your ads will only show for searches that include the words you’ve marked with a plus sign, such as +best +markers +for +graphic +design, or close variations.

I’ve highlighted “+for” because although the user might include “for” in the complete phrase that is being searched, adding a “+” for words that are not key to your product description is not encouraged by google.

 

With that rule in mind we can simply our broad search criteria to searches that must include:

+markers +graphic +design

 

 

Broad match modifiers can help your keywords achieve a higher click-through rate (CTR) with a more targeted audience, which in turn can help your site get more paying customers or other conversions. This article explains how to set up broad match modifiers.

Note: Keep in mind, your ad may show for close variations of the individual “+” terms or the combination of these terms into a single keyword.

Set up broad match modifiers

Broad match modifiers ensure that your ads will only show for searches that include the words you’ve marked with a plus sign, such as +graphic +design +markers, or close variations. Broad match modifiers can help your keywords achieve a higher click-through rate (CTR) with a more targeted audience, which in turn can help your site get more paying customers or other conversions. This article explains how to set up broad match modifiers.

Note: Keep in mind, your ad may show for close variations of the individual “+” terms or the combination of these terms into a single keyword.

If some of the terms in your keyword do not have a “+” (for example, +red +baseball hat), then the terms without a “+” will be treated as broad match, while the “+” term (or it’s close variants) will need to be included in the user’s search for ads to show.

There is no negative broad match modifier match type. The same keyword text as a Broad negative, with or without “+” modifiers will behave the same. In the examples below, the two keywords will block the same queries. Learn more about negative keyword behavior.

  • Broad negative: leather shoes
  • Broad negative: +leather +shoes

How to add broad match modifier versions of a phrase or exact match keywords

Broad match modifiers only work when they’re used with broad match keywords. If you’re only targeting exact and phrase match keywords and want to increase coverage, try creating a separate ad group and adding the corresponding modified broad match keyword for each term in the keyword. We don’t recommend adding a “+” on function words (like “in” or “to”), or words that aren’t directly relevant to what you’re advertising.

Exact keyword phraseModified broad match equivalent
"buy graphic design markers"
"purchase graphic design markers"
"shop design markers"		+buy +graphic +design +markers
+purchase +graphic +design +markers
+shop +design +markers
"graphic design markers"
"design graphic markers"
"design markers graphic"		+graphic +design +markers

Further Reading

How to make a Keyword list

How to make a Keyword list

How to make a Keyword list

How to make a Keyword list

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