Can Google Ads Phrase Match be Trusted

[UKSBD]

Set up some temporary phrase match keywords a couple of months ago.

Looking through search terms, it's crazy the way Google allow ads to show for a search term that is so far away from the phrase match keyword.

Is exact match the only reliable method of preventing unwanted impressions (apart from setting more and more negatives) nowadays?

 

[YasmeenLondon]

This is something many people working in PPC have been complaining about for ages.

Unfortunately for us, Google's main incentive is to spend your budget, the system is designed and continuously tweaked to keep impressions up, they couldn't care less about quality filtering and showing your ad to the right user.

I ONLY use exact match and I also add as many constraints as I can, such as negative keywords, tweaking demographics, time, location and audience.

 

[UKSBD]

This is something many people working in PPC have been complaining about for ages.

Unfortunately for us, Google's main incentive is to spend your budget, the system is designed and continuously tweaked to keep impressions up, they couldn't care less about quality filtering and showing your ad to the right user.

I ONLY use exact match and I also add as many constraints as I can, such as negative keywords, tweaking demographics, time, location and audience.

Yes, I try to only use exact match too.

Tried phrase match on a few short phrases for a while and couldn't believe just how bad it was, keep adding more and more negative keywords but it's like chasing your tail.

Going to go back to exact match only

 

[Paul Carmen]

Google Ads match types no longer do what they say on the tin!

This is because they're no longer built for you to run small campaigns, or the sort of tight keyword type campaign that used to be so successful.

These are all built for AI type campaigns (max conversions, VBB etc), these work pretty well if you run ecommerce, or you need really good data and form, phone, value tracking for lead gen. You will always need to be blocking irrelevant searches as negative keywords.

Unfortunately, as searches move to longer tail and AI search takes over, there will be less search traffic available for the more traditional methods.