Welcome back, digital marketing disciples. Google has decided to update something major within their Google Ads advertising platform which will begin to be rolled out from February 1st 2021. The change sees an update to the Keyword types that are available in Google Ads and how they work, with the Broad Match Modifier (BMM) keyword type now becoming redundant.
How will I show for BMM search terms I hear you ask? Will this affect the performance of my campaigns I hear you cry? Fear not, as I will very quickly breakdown the updates and the change in workflow for you below.
What's Changed
Google has 'streamlined' the way that we target keywords by now merging both the BMM and Phrase Match keywords together, with each now using the same keyword expression as the current Phrase Match type (using a quotation mark / " at the beginning and end of your search term).
This means that any keywords featured within the two quotation marks can trigger a search term as long as all keywords are featured, regardless of the order that they appear (basically a blend of the rules for BMM and Phrase Match keywords).
However, to stop this keyword type clashing with any Exact Match keywords, the new Phrase Match will not show for any search terms that only feature the chosen words in the order given.
Here is a diagram to help show the update, comparing the rules for both before and after.
So What Do You Need To Do?
The first thing you need to do is to pause all current BMM keywords within your account as these will need to be updated to Phrase Match.
The next thing on the list is to introduce (if you have not already done so) the new Phrase Match versions of your previous BMM keywords.
The final piece of work is to make sure the new Phrase Match keywords have the same bids in place as the BMM keywords that they are replacing as you don't want to lose your positioning.
We Might Hate Change But Let's Embrace It
As this update is out of our control, there is no need to stress over the changes that are in place and to instead just embrace them. Google believes that this should streamline the process to manage the account which I hope ends up being a good thing.
Let me know your thoughts on this, how you find the updated way of working, and any new information that comes to light at my email hello@alipuglianini.com and I will be more than happy to have a good chat about it all.
Ciao for now,
Ali