Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech
    Mission
    Staff
    Newsletter
    Search Engine Land
    Third Door Media

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Google is making a big change to exact match keyword targeting in AdWords

Google is making a big change to exact match keyword targeting in AdWords

Ads may trigger when searchers use different word order and function words as Google broadens its definition of close variants.

Ginny Marvin on March 20, 2017 at 9:05 am

On Friday afternoon, Google announced another change to the way exact match keyword targeting works for search ads. Matching for close variants — plurals, typos, abbreviations, adverbs and so on —  will be broadened to include variations in word order and function words in the coming months. With this change, Google may ignore word order and function words when determining whether a search ad should trigger for an exact match keyword. In other words, exact truly no longer means exact.

Google introduced close variants in 2012 as a way to capture plurals, misspellings, typos and other versions of exact match and phrase match keywords to broaden reach and coverage and save time building out search keyword lists. Advertisers that wanted tighter control were able to opt out of close variant matching until 2014, when Google removed the ability to opt out of close variants for exact match and phrase match. Bing followed suit the following year.

The change reflects Google’s increasing confidence in its machine learning capabilities — in this case, to determine when queries have the same meaning as the exact match keywords in an advertisers’ account. It’s one more area in which advertisers are being told to trust the algorithms to take over.

Google says early tests indicate advertisers could see up to three percent more exact match clicks on average while maintaining comparable click-through and conversion rates.

For more on the details of the changes, see our full coverage on Search Engine Land.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    AI and machine learning in marketing: Are you deploying the right models? 
    Google, NBCUniversal duking it out to be Netflix adtech provider
    My stack is bigger than your stack, so what?
    ActionIQ rebrands and launches CX Hub
    Old Navy to drop NFTs in July 4th promo update

About The Author

Ginny Marvin
Ginny Marvin was formerly Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

Related Topics

Performance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Protect Your Paid Advertising Spend Against Ad Fraud and Invalid Traffic

Build an Integrated Search Strategy Across Google, Amazon and YouTube

Get a Jumpstart with Google Analytics 4!

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

Organic Search Industry Benchmarks

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.