How to Use Broad Match Keywords in Google Ads

Wed, Aug 31, 2022

John reveals how he uses broad match keywords to widen reach, lessen click farm traffic in Performance Max, and get high-quality leads and conversions.

Watch this video to learn more about broad match keywords in Google Ads – how they work, the factors and limitations to consider when using it, and the tips and tricks John uses to optimize your campaigns with broad match.

Plus, learn about the instances when search terms do not matter and what you should consider instead to scale your campaigns.

PS: This guide series is from an internal Solutions 8 training. We’re sharing everything with you, our dear subscribers, to show our gratitude for the overwhelming support you’ve given us. We value you and your growth with Google Ads. 🖤💚🤍

0:00 Intro | How to Use Broad Match Keywords in Google Ads

0:52 Broad Match is smarter now

4:23 Broad Match for lead generation can be very tricky

8:15 Job Opportunities at Solutions 8 – Client Managers, Google Ads Specialists, and Strategists

9:28 Search terms don’t matter

14:28 Bidding on keywords that target multiple languages

18:38 Using broad match keywords to see what works

20:34 The limitations of testing what works with broad match keywords

21:39 Broad match will match to your brand

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Transcript
John:

Previously broad match was terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, broad

John:

match would match to anybody that had wanted kind of, regardless of the result.

John:

And the change that took place is Google essentially added

John:

two features to broad match.

John:

So because the DSA element has been added to broad match,

John:

broad match became a lot smart.

John:

Before broad match was gonna say, well, if you wanted, you know, red,

John:

high heel that matched for boot and that matched for like the working

John:

boot and then also matched for.

John:

cheap shoes and they still do that.

John:

There is still some of that there, but it actually is gotten smarter.

John:

Now the there's a few different elements that need to be there inside

John:

of just a Google ecosystem before broad match can actually work well.

John:

Keyword specifically as of November 16, 20, 20 Google put out a kind of a hidden

John:

small memo to everyone that was only really featured on search engine journal.

John:

And it was called Google wants to have advertisers give

John:

broad match and smart bidding.

John:

Another try previously broad match was terrible.

John:

Terrible terrible, terrible broad match would match to anybody that it wanted

John:

kind of, regardless of the result.

John:

And the change that took place is Google essentially added

John:

two features to broad match.

John:

One is a very proactive, Smart bidding engine.

John:

And the other one was the ability to scan the page and

John:

actually incorporate some DSA.

John:

So because the, DSA element has been added to broad match, broad match became

John:

a lot smarter before broad match was gonna say, well, if you wanted, red high

John:

heel, that match for boot and that match for like working boot and then also

John:

match for, cheap shoes and they still do.

John:

There is still some of that there, but it actually is gotten smarter

John:

now, because if you have, let's say a red, high heel on your site and you

John:

have a broad match keyword of red high heel, you're going to get more dress.

John:

More upscale attire, more high heel type of searches because that's,

John:

what's also been featured on the page that you're driving that ad too.

John:

there's a few different elements that need to be there inside of

John:

just a Google ads ecosystem before broad match can actually work well.

John:

So in broad match, you'll need to have one, a high volume of

John:

intent and a high volume of.

John:

So, for example, when we ran this for our, health clinic and we ran

John:

it for our, more higher end goods.

John:

Like there's a hammock company that works really well for what we found is that when

John:

there's a high amount of volume, Google can optimize faster, but the first few.

John:

weeks looks, it looks terrible.

John:

It usually does.

John:

It looks pretty terrible because Google is broadly matching the search terms

John:

to your keyword and finding out what doesn't work and finding out what works.

John:

So broad match can work really well when there's a high amount of traffic,

John:

because it can learn quickly when there's low amounts of traffic or even low

John:

intent and even low, conversions broad match does very poorly broad match.

John:

Also.

John:

Can work well for both lead generation and eCommerce.

John:

And it actually is one of the only keyword types that I've

John:

seen better than an exact match.

John:

And you phrase, match that actually competes with performance max fairly well.

John:

Performance max is gonna try to use DSA, which is what the broad match is doing.

John:

They DSA and broad match are, are they going to match to what's on your site?

John:

Those two compete very often, but a broad match that has a high.

John:

Inbound traffic can sometimes even overtake a performance max campaign.

John:

So it's still a good practice to test broad match in a new account,

John:

even alongside a performance max, because it sometimes can even teach

John:

performance max here's what type of search terms you should go after.

John:

And also what type of search terms you should not go after.

John:

So it's, learning to the conversion action, which is whatever you're

John:

tracking, whether it's lead or sale.

John:

Inside a lead generation gets a little bit more tricky lead generation because

John:

a lot of times you're looking for a higher intent type of user broad match.

John:

Sometimes doesn't work really well.

John:

The point in time where broad match can work well for lead generation

John:

is when you put a person through a high a high barrier to entry.

John:

So if you're using broad match keywords and you're sending 'em to a page,

John:

that's just capturing email, you're gonna get everything relevant or.

John:

And it's kind of the same mantra for performance max.

John:

Now it's not a fix for bot traffic, but it is a fix for, lead quality.

John:

So I'll give it a good example of this.

John:

Cause I've been running this for some time on a client account.

John:

And the client is close, all that stuff down.

John:

I know I've used this as an example before.

John:

But I think it's good for everyone since we're all on the call today

John:

to see this, because I'm not sure who's exactly seeing who is not yet.

John:

So if I add my filter of original source and I save paid traffic, we can see that

John:

there's still a high amount of activity.

John:

I have a lead today, yesterday, third, third, second, second, first 31st,

John:

you there's high amount of activity.

John:

I'm only spending about $3,000 a month in this account and I'm generating

John:

some really high quality leads.

John:

And I was open up the first, let's say like five of them most.

John:

And this one that came in today forms mission they're in Santa

John:

valley, they became a lead.

John:

There's an email, there's a first name.

John:

There's a last name.

John:

We have a life cycle, a phone number, a state and region.

John:

When is it a good time for us to call you?

John:

And they had to put that in there as required your zip code, and then

John:

said, build, go ahead, build your.

John:

This person submitted this on their own.

John:

They want a 30 foot by 40 foot by 10 foot building.

John:

They built this on their own.

John:

So it's a good quality lead.

John:

Like I, couldn't ask for a better lead.

John:

Next one.

John:

Same usually same type.

John:

A first name, last name, email.

John:

They want an eight foot by 18 foot by 12 foot.

John:

I mean, we're putting 'em through some really hard forms.

John:

You know, monitor style with mezzanine auxiliary building with

John:

ARB again, you get the point.

John:

These are really, really, really high quality leads.

John:

My keywords that's driving all these leads and even the sales.

John:

I have two broad match keywords, steel building metal building.

John:

Doesn't really make sense.

John:

it shouldn't really make sense, cuz these, you can see the amounts

John:

of, of deals that they're creating.

John:

They're in the hundreds of thousands.

John:

Now, the reason why this is working though is it costs me right now in the

John:

last 30 days actually, which is last, we go last three months cuz they sales

John:

teams are slow hundred six contact.

John:

$47.

John:

Each three deals so far at $1,600 per sale, 10,000 row as awesome.

John:

we're crushing life here because these three deals are, we're probably

John:

about a hundred to $200,000 each.

John:

Yeah, this one here 229,000.

John:

So I know that these are really good deals.

John:

Now, when we look at the pure broad with target cost per acquisition

John:

we started a dynamic, group, this one doesn't have anything.

John:You can see the:John:

this here and the keywords that are actually driving the majority of

John:

clicks steel building metal building.

John:

We just added in these as pure broad.

John:

Keywords after that, cuz we wanted to start to see if we can scale up.

John:

But since we're in Arizona, we're using, Broad's really not much more we could do.

John:

It's just more of a test, but what's nice about this is you can see the cost

John:

for leaves really low 25, 68, 36, 44.

John:

It's right on target for $41 for less, $500,000 in revenue that we've made.

John:

So it's nice about this is pure broad can work.

John:

If you look at the actual campaign, I'm not even tracking a convers.

John:

That's how crazy this is.

John:

I've attracted conversion in probably over a year.

John:

This is not a glitch.

John:

I'm interrupting the video you're watching because I need to remind

John:

you that I'm always looking for people to join our team.

John:

So if you're passionate about Google ads and you wanna work with the best

John:

Google ads agency on the planet, please go to so late.com/apply.

John:

Speaking of working with the best Google ads agency on the planet, if

John:

you're having trouble with Google ads and you want professional.

John:

That's what we do.

John:

You can go to.

John:

So lake.com that's S O L eight.com to apply for your

John:

free no obligation action plan.

John:

And if I've given you any level of value at all, maybe think about giving me a

John:

thumbs up and try to do our channel.

John:

That's how we choose the YouTube algorithm.

John:

So they actually know that I know what I'm talking about.

John:

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or confessions hit

John:

me below in the comments.

John:

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

John:

One of the reasons is because the client's web developer is holding

John:

them hostage and legally to their own website because they built a website.

John:

They had a disagreement, yada, yada, yada, I can't get into the website.

John:

So install, track.

John:

No one has the password.

John:

I'm like, I don't care.

John:

that's fine.

John:

Last 30 days has been $2,500.

John:

The bid strategy's learning.

John:

it's gonna be learning pretty much forever.

John:

Because it doesn't actually see conversions, but I've been running

John:

it like this for probably six months.

John:

The keywords are just all over the place.

John:

I have 301 clicks for modular houses.

John:

I don't know.

John:

I could have made a hundred thousand dollars off of that.

John:

It's not even the keyword that we want.

John:

we don't want modular homes.

John:

that's actually what they don't want.

John:

They said, Hey, did you know that you actually can't live in these in Arizona?

John:

The buildings that we build, you cannot live.

John:

But I don't really care.

John:

What's really interesting about this whole thing is the search terms.

John:

Don't quite matter.

John:

That much is steel building was driving all the conversions.

John:

So the kind of the moral of the story is when you're running pure broad,

John:

look less at the search term, look more into the results, which is why

John:

a lot of times this fails, I haven't added a negative keyword in probably

John:

four months and there's things on here that I don't even know what they are.

John:

And it's kind of funny, like there's tough shed.

John:

Okay.

John:

that's probably a, competitor for a shed.

John:

Metal buildings, Phoenix.

John:

That's perfect.

John:

That's probably a steel company.

John:

I'm still not getting rid of it.

John:

A has a contract conversion, but B when I do track conversion, I look

John:

at the actual conversion itself.

John:

So there's a lot of stuff here that I should be adding as a negative.

John:

And we don't, I don't even know what Mueller is.

John:

So this is very hard.

John:

This is a very advanced strategy because you have to stop touch.

John:

And you can't touch it.

John:

You shouldn't touch it.

John:

You should look at the $30 leads.

John:

You're getting better filling out the form perfectly.

John:

But when you're looking at Google ads, that should not be happening.

John:

So what's really interesting about pure broad is I don't know if this

John:

search terms are actually real.

John:

I have a lot of good deals that I look at that thing I'm like, I can't

John:

really tell you where that keyword came from, because I don't know if this is

John:

the first click, the multiple clicks.

John:

I, I can't really exactly tell.

John:

Carolina carports in Arizona, C pearls for sale.

John:

I don't even know what this is, but they don't match at all.

John:

They're so widely, different from each other that they shouldn't happen.

John:

So a pure broad did is simply look at the intent of the user.

John:

They didn't look at the search term, stand about placement.

John:

It's not about necessarily even search term it's does that keyword have an

John:

audience that converts forget everything we've known about Scags keyword sculpting.

John:

we have to remove it from our mind.

John:

And we also have to know that not everything is, sometimes

John:

even going to be tracked.

John:

If it's a 21 day time lag, it's 17 clicks your search terms.

John:

Now are I.

John:

Because what we're also seeing though, is that there could be three or four

John:

clicks here that if you're tracking, like, let's say last click or even first

John:

click , you're missing the path to search.

John:

So we can't even identify, did someone type in steel say

John:

steel shade structure, Arizona.

John:

And then found out about the website, maybe did two or three more searches,

John:

looked at some competitors, keep coming back to us and converted.

John:

Yeah, maybe that's why I see competitors and odd things in here that I don't want,

John:

but I'm not gonna stop that journey.

John:

I'm looking at the conversions and the cost for conversion,

John:

the conversion quality.

John:

So pure broad doesn't make sense.

John:

And it's hard because a lot of times we over optimize ourself

John:

into, a degradation of the.

John:

So when we're looking at meta modular houses, I'm gonna keep this thing running.

John:

I had already negative keyword barn toin because I actually saw the leads coming

John:

in and said, Hey, do you build barn?

John:

Dominiums I'm like, okay, perfect.

John:

I have a reason to get rid of that keyword.

John:

This I'm probably gonna have to negative keyword out, but.

John:

it's still performing well.

John:

And I'm still probably getting people that are looking at modular houses

John:

that found this thing that found out that they can't live in it then said,

John:

okay, you know, it's not up to code, but live in it anyway, that's fine.

John:

And then they buy a $200,000 house or $200,000 steel building.

John:

So there's really a lot of oddities that happen in here.

John:

But the best part about this too, is you get to take an approach to.

John:

A keyword strategy that will allow you to be very expansive for not that much money

John:

and which is perfect for us, because if you have a small geography, that's okay.

John:

I can still get tens of thousands of clicks in a population that who would,

John:

who's gonna buy $200,000 steel buildings.

John:

there's not probably a lot of people in Arizona.

John:

There's you.

John:

Wanting to spend a quarter million dollars on a metal building on a property

John:

in Arizona today, but I'm getting a lot of that traffic that is converting

John:

those people at a very high level.

John:

we can't ignore the fact that there's, 75 leads this month and just

John:

Arizona for 200,000 steel buildings.

John:

Everyone on this call probably says, that's not something that

John:

I thought was gonna happen.

John:

Like, Hey, just Arizona cord million building.

John:

Can you get $30 leads?

John:

At the, 10, 15, 20 per week, if this works though.

John:

So we use it very tactically.

John:

There's another one that I like to bring up and this isn't gonna work every time.

John:

My case study here, my reason for bring this up is this worth testing.

John:

It's not the definitive strategy.

John:

It is absolutely worth testing though.

John:

Another client here that is a body sculpting company they're in just Chicago.

John:

They have an $85 budget per day $85 per day budget.

John:

They're going up against plastic surgeons in Chicago that imagine

John:

like Casa, what was the plastic surgery in, in orange county?

John:

Didn't you, had that, what, as an example that you always would like to use?

John:

Yeah, it was plastic surgery, Beverly Hills, and it was

John:

like 500 CPCs or whatever.

John:

And Chicago is probably about the same.

John:

I haven't actually done the research to look at it, but I'm getting three.

John:

My cost per click on plastic surgery.

John:

Procedures is $3.

John:

Well, why is it three?

John:

It's not because I'm bidding, long tail it's because I'm getting long

John:

tail results that are less competitive.

John:

So I have 18 leads for $2,200 in Chicago for plastic surgery.

John:

Now there was a 4th of July lull here.

John:

So I know that this is working before and then you'll see it is working

John:

good, then a lull now's coming back.

John:

But if we look at like the last seven days, we have $469 cost, five leads,

John:

cuz it's 200 or $2 and 62 cents.

John:

So my cost per convergence, 93 bucks.

John:

So it works really, really well.

John:

And as a brand new company, there's no Facebook, Instagram, there's nothing.

John:

They literally just opened their doors and then said, can you guys all help?

John:

I'm getting lipo Chicago to someone's gonna have to help me with that word.

John:

Audio looking at you.

John:

That looks Spanish to me.

John:

that is Spanish says surgeons in Chicago.

John:

It's Spanish.

John:

Yeah.

John:

Perfect.

John:

That costs me two bucks for that lead like that.

John:

I mean, my English keyword is broadly matched to a different language.

John:

But what if, you have a large Spanish community in that city and people may be

John:

Googling it in, their native town, that's what ha that's exactly what happened here.

John:

So I bid on Lippo, Chicago.

John:

That was my keyword.

John:

Google said, Hey, did you know that surgeons in Chicago in Spanish broadly

John:

matches to a liposuction procedure in Chicago, you two should meet.

John:

And then I spent $2 on that click route and $15 a click.

John:

I'm sorry.

John:

I spent $2 on that conversion.

John:

So you'll see here that there is one impression, one click, one conversion,

John:

one impression, one click, one conversion when you're bidding phrase and exact,

John:you're gonna see,:John:

because you're going very specific.

John:

You're assuming that all of the people that Google knows about are

John:

going to be searching that keyword.

John:

We are right and wrong at the same time.

John:

Most of the.

John:

What this means is that we're when we go phrase and exact we're

John:

telling Google, no, no, no, no.

John:

You stay put, I know exactly what the people that are on

John:

your network gonna search.

John:

we know a lot of times a good direction, and then we have a good

John:

keyword strategy and does work.

John:

Rod helps this cuz it says, says, well, I don't want to bid

John:

$28 for lipo suction in Chicago.

John:

But lipo, Chicago covers everything.

John:

And so I get multiple languages too, but you'll see the cost for

John:

conversion in the last 30 days.

John:

These are good.

John:

Now liposuction near me cheap.

John:

Perfect.

John:

I don't know if it's cheap or not.

John:

I don't really care.

John:

It's it's usually a, about a under two, $3,000 procedure.

John:

Is that cheap for person limit in Chicago?

John:

I'll pay nine bucks to find out rather than $16 a click to assume.

John:

No.

John:

So that's, what's interesting is we look at the leads though,

John:

are leads good right now?

John:

This is a white label client.

John:

They're like, yeah, leads are good.

John:

We just need to keep pumping.

John:

'em full leads.

John:

Keep doing what you're doing.

John:

And this is perfect for us.

John:

This is a $70 per day budget, delivering bad transfers, breast augmentations, and

John:

light sections and Brazilian bubbles.

John:

That's very, very competitive stuff.

John:

Everyone knows what that is.

John:

So The nice part about using broad is we get to see what works.

John:

That's what I love about this.

John:

We use DSA like this as well, scan the page, find out what happens then

John:

make changes to the page and make changes to the native viewers to

John:

make sure that what's on the page.

John:

And what's also being searched.

John:

What's also converting happens more often, very standard stuff.

John:

Broad match does the same thing.

John:

Broad is DSA, which we love and we all.

John:

Broad match is exactly DSA, but we get to send off a direction.

John:

It's almost like a performance max with a signal.

John:

Hey, we'd like to have DSA on a page, but I also go towards these specific

John:

procedures or these specific keywords, or you even go a little bit more long tail.

John:

a lot of times I like to use the example for the hammock company, someone Googled

John:

hammock without stand and they purchase another person, cooled hammock withstand.

John:

They also purchased lead generation.

John:

Doesn't, I, don't have to look at the lead to know that they've spent money with.

John:

And so what's nice about this is we get to see multiple points in entry.

John:

And we also get to see the intent.

John:

We also get to have a lot less cost.

John:

We also have a lot wider reach because now I'm matching for a

John:

thousand search terms for one keyword.

John:

If we could make it more long tail, the better, if we could make it more long

John:

tail and multiples, the better just know that the keyword that's winning.

John:

Is not always going to win because the keyword's gonna win because the

John:

keyword matched to a person there's so much more that we can leverage inside

John:

of Google that if we talked about this same conversation two years ago, no

John:

one in this room, whatever, probably well virtual room would agree that a

John:

keyword is going to match to a different.

John:

Language we be talking about, should we add an S at the end?

John:

Should we have the word?

John:

And in between, in phrase, match is exact match.

John:

Are we missing any keywords before?

John:

And after now, this thing is going so advanced.

John:

it picks up different languages.

John:

That's how advanced Google is getting.

John:

So to test this in every one of our campaigns, I think it's good, but just

John:

know the limitations limitations are.

John:

They need to have a lot of traffic.

John:

I need to have the 12,000 impressions in a small area, so I can get the

John:

744 clicks to know what works.

John:

I'm gonna pay cheap for that though.

John:

But I'm gonna know I got 744 and 720 of them were irrelevant

John:

probably, but my CPA's in line.

John:

The quality's good.

John:

I'm okay with that.

John:

So it needs to have a high amount of search and a high amount of activity

John:

that is where broad match works.

John:

I don't have access to it anymore.

John:

There was a debt consolidation company that we did this with.

John:

When I had debt consolidation as a broad match keyword, I got to bid.

John:

my CPCs were coming in half the cost of the first page bid.

John:

I was getting 35% conversion rates on the quality leads.

John:

66% on all leads, 35% on the quality leads.

John:

Cause it was a massive amount of inbound traffic.

John:

And everyone's trying to say like best and cheaper, fast.

John:

And I just did, debt consolidation, Google do your thing.

John:

And I did this a year and a half ago and it still works.

John:

It still works really, really well.

John:

I'm gonna pause here on the bra mesh top.

John:

Oh, and then one last final.

John:

I'll talk about negative keywords and the brand broad

John:

match will match to your brand.

John:

Absolutely.

John:

It will try to match to your brand.

John:

Because it scans the page and found your brand.

John:

It also scan the page, find your brand, and then find the

John:

competitors of your brand.

John:

That's how much this is going, going off on the wrong direction.