Lately I’ve spent a lot of time researching what broad match actually does in Google’s Adwords.  Most of the time broad match does a damn good job.  It finds misspellings, finds relevant combination, and gives me 500% more clicks then if I used exact match.

But there is a dark side to broad match.  Let’s play a game.  I’ll give you a list of keywords and you tell me what broad matched term Adwords was trying to match.  Here’s the list:

-1040ez line 11
-1040ez print out
-1040now.net
-1040x free online
-1099 forms online
-1099 int online
-1099 misc forms online
-1099 on line forms
-1099 online
-1099 online forms
-2009 1099 online forms
-ajmain
-ajweb
-can i access my w 2 online
-can i print w2 online
-complete 1099 online
-download my w2 online
-download w2s online
-fill online w3 w2
-find my w2 online
-find w 2 online
-find w2 online
-find your w2 online
-form 1040
-form 1098
-form 1099
-form w2
-form w2c
-free forms online
-free irs online tax filing
-free online calculation 1120s
-free online irs form 1099
-free online w2 forms
-get irs five ditit pin online
-get my w2 online
-get w2 forms
-get your w-2 online

Did you guess “IRS Online”?  This is only a small sample of how crazy broad match can be.

The lesson for me is not to rush in and kill off or lower the bid on a term like “IRS Online”.   Instead it would be valuable to isolate the term by adding an exact match of the term in question.  Simply adding [IRS Online] to your keyword list (while keeping the broad matched version) would tell you quickly how valuable the exact phrase is vs what Google is serving in broad match.

Step two is using an advanced keyword filter to find the raw query and what broad matched term triggered the keyword being shown.  I can’t tell you how valuable this “keyword data mining” will be to the success of your campaign.  While your competitors are lowering the bid you’re finding keyword gems and adding a myriad of negative keywords that tighten the performance of your campaign and provide awesome ROI in the long run.

I will add two more posts soon talking about Keyword Data Mining and the Advanced Raw Keyword Filter.