When setting up your Google Ad Search Campaign, deciding on the right keyword match types to use can really have you scratching your head. Many decide to only use exact match, to stay as conservative as possible and minimize clicks from unrelated search terms.

This can be a good strategy if you already know all of the good keywords and search terms for your campaign. That’s the problem though, when first starting out you don’t know yet and by using exact match exclusively, you will potentially miss out on related search terms that are just slightly different but quality traffic nonetheless.

This translates to you receiving fewer search impressions and clicks and therefore fewer sales. These are sales your competitors might be snatching up instead.

The problem is that most businesses don’t know how much they can truly pay to acquire a new customer and still turn a profit. They just set out to generate clicks, leads and sales at as low a cost as possible.

They start out with exact match keywords only. They only use ‘last click’ attribution which doesn’t give them the bigger picture.

This is a huge mistake and makes it easier for their competitors to come in, outspend them and take a bigger share of the market.

Instead, if you were to do the following:

1. Accurately determine the max amount you can pay to acquire a new customer.
2. Set up single keyword ad groups with a combination of match types.
3. Set your conversion attribution model to ‘position-based’.

You’ll start to truly see which search terms are profitable for your business over time and which aren’t. It’s hard to determine this before actually testing.

I think this strategy of using a mix of match types also works better with automated bid strategies if you decide to go that route eventually.

Important: Make sure you try to brainstorm possible negative keywords that you want to avoid before starting the campaign AND check your campaign search terms report DAILY to find new negative keywords and keywords you can create new ad groups around. This is crucial so you’re not wasting ad spend on unrelated search terms.