hi, i’m amr. “broad match wastes budget” is the line i hear most from b2b teams who tried it once on manual bidding. google ads help says something narrower, and it’s about the pairing, not the match type alone.
what google ads help says
- “Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned because it is the most comprehensive.” ads may show on searches related to the keyword
- phrase match: “Ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword”
- exact match: “Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword,” and it “gives you the most steering over who views your ad”
- “It’s critical to use Smart Bidding with broad match.”
- “Smart Bidding works best with broad match because the wide set of searches allows it to learn what works best for you.”
- adding very similar keywords, such as “red car” and “car red”, “isn’t recommended”
my reading, not google’s wording: the page treats broad match and smart bidding as one setup. broad match on manual bidding is the combination it warns against.
what to check this week
- export your keywords with match type and bid strategy side by side
- flag every broad match keyword that sits in a campaign on manual bidding
- where you keep exact match for control, say so on purpose: google describes it as the most steering
- for broad match under smart bidding, check how many conversions the campaign gets. google suggests judging smart bidding over at least 30 conversions, which i covered in an earlier post
- remove near-duplicate keywords, since the page says they don’t change costs or performance
where this stops applying
the page contains no performance figures and doesn’t say broad match beats exact match, so this post makes no such claim. it gives no budget guidance for b2b accounts with low lead volume. i haven’t audited any account, so the list above is a starting point.
start scaling — if your match types and bid strategies were set in different years by different people, a short account review will line them up. let’s connect.
Sources: Google Ads Help, “About keyword matching options” (support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7478529). Figures are published product documentation, not verified results from Amr’s own client accounts.