As we’ve discussed before on the Fujisan blog, one of the important components of advertising with Google search ads is the different match types available to you. Applying a different match type to a keyword or string of keywords will alter which queries your ads will appear for.
One of these match types is phrase match, and Google has a new update that’ll affect how it works. Today we’re gonna check that out:
A quick rundown of what’s new
As of February 2021, Google’s phrase match setting has begun to incorporate behaviors that in the past were associated with their broad match modifier setting — BMM for short. The reasoning for this is to simplify keywords in the hopes of making it easier to reach relevant customers through search ads.
With this development, you can expect your ads to be included not just on searches that incorporate your keyword(s), but on searches that include the meaning of your keyword.
The example Google gives when explaining the update is a search for “moving services NYC to Boston.” In the past, it would also include searches like “affordable moving services NYC to Boston” that include your keywords plus other words (“affordable”), but now it’ll go even further to include searches that it traditionally wouldn’t. For example, when word order would be mixed up like “NYC corporate moving services to Boston.” (Image below is an example of how the phrase match update will affect your keywords) You can read more here on Google’s explanation.
While this update should be pretty helpful in expanding reach, there are some things that will be lost.
The obvious part of this is the traditional phrase match keyword serving style is no more. Formerly, phrase match keywords responded to the word order of a query to appear on someone’s search. Now that won’t be the case, which may allow some less relevant searches to come through your search queries.
Still, Google’s betting that the benefits will outweigh this loss.
It’s also worth noting other updates that extend past phrase match. This includes broad match being upgraded to now consider additional signals in your Google Ads account — for example, landing pages from your ad, keywords in your ad group, etc. — to deliver more relevant searches via Smart Bidding. Google’s also made adjustments so that keyword matching should be more predictable; a keyword that exactly matches with an identical query will always be preferred so long as it’s eligible with the budget, device or location, and other settings. But we’re still gonna focus on the new qualities of phrase match here.
Why does this matter and how can you prepare?
Beyond the basic changes, what will the actual, concrete impacts of this new phrase match be?
The main thing you’ll see is that as of July 2021, advertisers won’t be able to add BMM keywords into their accounts. That being said, existing BMM keywords that you have in your account will still be supported — Google won’t blow your pre-existing BMM keywords all up or anything, but additional BMM keywords won’t be supported from July onwards.
Per Google, the way to think of your keyword settings moving forward will be: exact match for precision, broad match for reach, and phrase match/BMM for some of both.
Below are more examples to illustrate how Phrase match behavior will change after this update:
| Phrase match keyword | Queries that will match after the update |
| “holidays in zambia” | holiday spots in zambia |
| “long sleeve dress” | long sleeve lace dress |
| “womens boots” | new womens size 37 boot |
| “digital marketing strategy” | online marketing strategy |
As for how to prepare if you’re an online advertiser, there’s some pretty good news here — namely that, unlike some updates that require a whole lot of preparation, you don’t have to do too much for this.
The main thing otherwise is to just start adding phrase match keywords into your accounts if you haven’t done so already. If you start doing this little by little this spring, it shouldn’t be too much work at all.
While you begin adding more phrase match keywords, we recommend familiarizing yourself with how your performance looks under that setting so that you have a good baseline for when everything’s set in stone come July. This will be especially helpful since Google’s indicated they believe phrase match keywords under this update may increase traffic; monitoring your accounts closely now and especially at the beginning of this transition will give you so much more context than you’d otherwise have, allowing you to make adjustments more decisively as you navigate these new phrase match qualities.
In the grand scheme of technology updates that affect digital marketing, this one isn’t world-overturning. It is, however, a scenario where your transition to these new rules will be made smoother just by being aware, keeping a diligent eye on your account, and preparing bit by bit sooner rather than later. Just like with most (or maybe even all) online marketing, testing, adjusting, and assessing performance will put you in a solid position to succeed.
