An explanation of the different types of adwords keywordsWe were recently assisting a customer to get started with their google adwords campaign and they questioned why the keywords we had suggested contained brackets and quotes. Here's an explanation of what they do and how they affect your listings.
Broad Match
A broad match keyword contains no special characters an example of this would be: web hosting
Having this as one of your keywords could match your advert to search terms such as: web hosting, tea party hosting, spiders web
Naturally the first search term would be fine but why would you want your advert to appear under a search for tea party hosting or spiders web?
This will significantly increase the number of impressions and reduce both your click through ratio (CTR) and your return on investment (ROI).
If you are going to use Broad Match make sure you have a very conclusive list of negative keywords (see below) to minimise the risk of wasted exposures.
Phrase Match
A Phrase match keyword is surround by double quotes an example would be: "web hosting"
Using a phrase match means your advert will only be displayed if it conatins the words within your phrase and in the correct order. So if somebody searched for "Where to buy web hosting" or "What is web hosting" your advert would get displayed.
This tightens things up a little and can make your ad appear only in much more relevent search terms. However, you should still need to consider a good negative keyword list, as an example the phrase "windows web hosting" would still match your phrase, but what if you don't sell windows web hosting? It's going to be a wasted impression or click that once again reduces the efficiency of your campaign.
Exact Match
This is the tightest of all the types of matching and your keywords are enclosed in square brackets, an example would be: [web hosting]
When using exact match your advert will only appear when the search term is identical to your keywords. This will significantly mimimise the number of impressions you have and should increase your CTR (if your advert is properly relevent to the terms). If you use only Exact match then there is not really any need for negative keywords, however you will need to build a fairly conclusive list of all the keywords and phrases a potential customer may use to find your services.
Negative Match

A negative keyword is a keyword you can use to make sure your advert doesn't appear if this word is included in the search term. It is defined in a seperate list witihin your adwords account. (At the time of writing the negative keyword list appears under your regular keyword list). Negative keywords are started with a - sign, an example would be: -windows
With the above example if we had a a phrase match of "web hosting" then are advert would NOT appear under searches containing "windows web hosting" however it would appear under the search term "linux web hosting".
By mixing the use of the different types of matching patterns you can optimise your campaign to be far more targeted and effective. This will help to increase both your CTR and your ROI.