On February 4th Google announced that it is going to start removing Broad Match modified keywords. In doing so, they will be changing how phrase keywords are used. For most digital marketers this is very unfortunate news, especially when Google recently changed search query data as well. However, this new update isn’t as bad as it sounds.
As smart bidding was refined over the years, broad match has become more effective in driving performance when the two are combined. Because of this, phrase match and broad match modified are often now considered for the same use. You can reach your ideal customers using a combination of the two. On February 18th, Google is making changes to these two keyword match types to make it easier to reach customers.
This is a big change for digital advertisers as a majority of users apply broad match modified keywords to their campaigns. Optmyzr has collected some research regarding the usage of phrase and broad match modified keywords.
“In Optmyzr’s analysis of 162 million positive keywords on February 5, 2021, we found the following about how advertisers use Phrase Match and Broad Match Modified keywords.
89% of advertisers use broad match modified keywords.
55% of advertisers who use broad match modified always put a plus in front of every term in their BMM queries, i.e. +video +games +for +xbox
95% of all broad match modified keywords have a plus in front of every term of the keyword. So only 5% of keywords are more selective about plussing words like this ‘video games for +xbox’.”
Merging Phrase Match and Broad Match Modified
To give marketers more control, the strengths of Broad Match Modified will be merged into Phrase Match. Phrase Match will now expand to cover additional Broad Match Modifier traffic. Merging the two will make reaching potential customers and managing keywords easier in your account(s). Here is an example from Google that demonstrates the new difference.
In this example it shows what type of search queries Broad Match Modified would pick up compared to Phrase Match and what search queries Phrase Match will pick up after this change. As you can see, Broad Match Modified would pick up the search query moving services Boston to NYC. If you were this company you might not actually provide this service and would be wasting money on something you do not provide. Worse, you would likely not find out about it until after the fact. With the new phrase match you can ensure you hit a more targeted search query without getting the outliers that are way off the mark.
What Happens to Broad Match Modified Now?
Broad Match Modified won’t just disappear on February 18th. Google says this change will be slowly rolled out over several months, so that there is no shock to the system and digital marketers can make a smoother transition.
“Starting mid-February, both Phrase Match and Broad Match Modifier keywords will begin to transition to this new matching behavior. Because this behavior will be applied to both match types, you won’t have to take any immediate action—you’ll keep your performance data and have no need to migrate your keywords.
In July, once the new behavior has been rolled out globally, you’ll no longer be able to create new Broad Match Modifier keywords. However, existing Broad Match Modifier keywords will continue to serve under the new behavior. That’s why starting now, we recommend creating new keywords in phrase match going forward.”
How Does Phrase Match Change
Although the Google algorithm will be more helpful for digital marketers, it is still an algorithm A.I. can make mistakes. Google states that word order will stay if it makes a difference to the meaning. For example, if your targeted keywords are a verb and a noun it will remain in the proper order. However, if the target keywords are two nouns then they can be interchanged in the order they appear. Google sees this as the same. In other words, the interchanging of the words has a similar variation. Most of the time there won’t be any issues with searches. However, there is uncertainty with the community when the sequence gets flipped like “orange juice” and “juice orange”. Stuff like this can happen regardless of market size or the size of your campaign budget.
The good news is that it can be avoided if you remain attentive over your account. All you have to do is review your search terms report regularly. In doing so you can find poor matches in your account and add them to your negative keywords list. There is a lot of back and forth regarding the changes that Google is making with broad match modified and phrase match. Hopefully, now you have a better understanding and can be prepared to make changes and catch all of the search queries you aren’t interested in.