Paid Search Keyword Match Types – The Ultimate Guide – Negative Types Part 2 of 3

That would allow all the others to still be matched. If you only bid on exact match keywords then there would never be a circumstance where you would need to use negative keywords. If there’s a query that isn’t performing well you can just pause or delete it.

Negative Phrase Match

Negative phrase match keywords are used when there’s a common recurring theme that isn’t relevant to what you’re advertising. Negative phrase match keywords match a series of words with strict word order that are a part of a larger query phrase.

The syntax is simple, here it is:

-”keyword or phrase”

If you sold bottles of white wine and didn’t want your ad to be shown for queries related to sauce, then you’d add:

-”sauce”

That negative phrase match keyword would prevent you from showing on all of the following:

white wine saucewine sauce recipehow to make sauce with winemake sauce with winebest white wine sauceetc…

Improve ROI With Negative Phrase Match Keywords
Negative phrase match keywords can be a very powerful way to improve the performance of your campaigns and increase ROI. Negative phrase match is the negative match type that I use most often in my campaigns. It provides the right level of control while scaling very well to match many irrelevant queries.

Here’s a tip – if you sell something, and your main goal is to sell more of that something, there are a few negative phrase match keywords that you should add to every one of your campaigns.

Here are a few that you should be able to expand upon without much thought:

-”free”-”download”-”how to”-”cheapest”-”guide”-”reviews”-”demo”

Of course, you’ll need to use some common sense with these. If you’re competitive advantage is price, then you may not want to prevent your ads from showing for queries containing “cheapest.” Those keywords may very well be your money makers. The fact is that there can only be one price leader.

Negative Broad Match

Negative broad match is used when you would never want the negative keyword or any word related to it to trigger your ad. Negative broad match, like positive broad match, gives the search engine’s algorithm the most control over what’s matched and what isn’t. Because the matching rules are much more loose, it’s likely that sometimes you’ll block queries that might actually be relevant. For that reason, I recommend using negative broad match sparingly.

The syntax is easy, just add a minus sign before the keyword or phrase. Here’s an example:

-keyword or phrase

When using negative broad match keywords it is important to watch out for unanticipated synonyms that would cause relevant queries to be blocked. Sometimes it isn’t always easy to know how broad match keywords will be interpreted by algorithms. Here’s a few words that may be considered synonyms or highly related to ‘wine’:

-alcohol-spirits-liquor-beer

It’s a no-brainer for a human to look at these and intuitively know that none of them are the same as “wine.” However, it may not be the same for matching algorithms. That’s why I always recommend using negative phrase match instead of negative broad.

Up Next – Advanced Match Types

At this point in the series you now know almost all you need to know to manage a respectable Paid Search account. However, there are additional match types that we haven’t covered. I’ll explain them in the third and final post in the series.

Let me know your thoughts about the post. Is there a point or technique I forgot to mention? Do you have a strategy that’s been killer for your campaigns? If so, please share. If you want to speak privately, please feel free to reach out to me on Google

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