The Difference Between Phrase and Broad Match

Unless specified otherwise; advertisers’ campaigns are set up automatically to Broad Match. 7Search.com does not recommend completely disabling Broad Match or Phrase Match because this would block a campaign from potential customers and conversions. To make this feature more cost effective, we have given our advertisers the ability to bid separately for each Extended Match option and provided an area to add negative keywords to hone search options.

When you click on the "TDU" Custom Title Link on the Manage Keywords Page you see 3 possible bid boxes:

"Bid in USD" Your regular bid (Exact Match bid). The bid you assigned to your keywords when you were constructing your campaigns. This is used for the phrase and broad match bids.

"Phrase Bid" Here you can make your phrase match bid lower than the regular bid. You could also disable it by entering 0.

"Broad Bid" Here you can make your broad match bid lower than your regular bid and the phrase bid. You could also disable it by entering 0.

Random Example: The keyword "Search Engine" Regular bid $0.35

Phrase Matching will display your listing when a searched term includes your keywords in the exact order given, in combination with other words. A possible Phrase Match might be "fast search engine". Instead of opting out of Phrase Matches all together, try placing your Phrase Match bid at $0.03. It is important to still receive traffic on the possible phrase match because that search term is still highly relevant.

Broad Match keywords are displayed when a surfer searches for a term that contains your words, in any order. A possible Broad Phrase might be "engine search"; notice that the words are still in this search phrase only juxtaposed. Try placing your Broad Match bid at $0.01, so you will still appear on the listings for the Broad Matches but won't pay as high for a click like this which may not convert as well. However, don't exclude yourself completely because there may be some converting keywords out there that will fall under Broad Match.

You can fine tune your Extended Match keywords by adding Negative keywords to your campaign. A helpful suggestion for finding your negative keywords is to enter the Reports page in your account and then select Keywords Report. A break down for each keyword will be shown by the following criteria; Phrase, Broad or Exact Match keyword(s) that received the click, the date and time of the click and whether that click converted (Our FREE Conversion Tracking Tool must be implemented).

Once you view your reports, you may find that you're receiving a lot of good traffic from Phrase Match, but notice some keywords that may not apply to your campaign, i.e. Google Search Engine, may come up many times, this is where the Negative Keywords tool is handy. In such a case, enter the campaign you are working on and click on the Negative Keywords link. Here you could enter the keyword, Google, in your negative keywords and then you will not appear on any listings with the word "Google". More common negative keywords are "Free" or "Wholesale".

Ranking of the Broad Match and Phrase Match keywords still depends on your bidding strategy. You will not always be pulled for the Phrase or Broad Match. If there are enough bidders under keywords as actual or "exact match", then the Extended Match option will not be implemented.