You can specify your keywords as broad matches, phrase matches, exact matches, or negative matches. These different match types help refine your ad targeting, spend less on irrelevant clicks and increase the number of quality users that click on the ads and convert into leads. Using a combination of two or more of these techniques is the way to run an effective campaign.

• Broad Match – This is the default option. If you include root keyword or keyword phrases-such as tennis shoes-in your keyword list, your ads may appear when users search for tennis and shoes, in any order, and possibly along with other terms. For example, your ad may appear for the queries buy tennis shoes and tennis sneakers but not tennis players. Your ads may also appear on relevant variations of your keyword phrases and plurals, as well as some related keywords and phrases via our expanded keyword matching technology. Broad matches are often less targeted than exact or phrase matches. If you decide to use broad-matched keywords, we recommend you create keyword phrases containing at least two descriptive words each. A note about expanded matching: The system continually monitors system-wide keyword performance and other relevance factors. This helps determine which expanded matches and variations are the most relevant to user searches.

• Phrase Match – If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in “tennis shoes”, your ad will appear when a user searches on the phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and possibly with other terms in the query. In this case, the search can also contain other terms as long as it includes the exact phrase you’ve specified. For example, your ad may appear for the queries buy tennis shoes and tennis shoes store but not shoes for tennis.

• Exact Match – If you surround your keywords in brackets-such as [tennis shoes]-your ads will appear when users search for the specific phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and without any other terms in the query. For example, your ad won’t show for the query red tennis shoes. Although you won’t receive as many impressions with exact matching, you’ll likely enjoy a higher click-through rate, because users searching for these terms are typically looking for exactly what you offer.

• Negative Keyword – You can use negative keywords to weed out irrelevant searches. To specify a negative keyword, place a negative sign (-) before the keyword. If your keyword is tennis shoes and you add the negative keyword -cheap, your ad won’t appear when a user searches for cheap tennis shoes. You can apply this option for a keyword at both the ad group and campaign level.