A keyword match type, put plainly, is the size of "mesh" you set on each keyword. It decides which searches on Google bring your Search ad up. Open the mesh wide and you cast far but scoop up plenty of irrelevant people; pull it tight and you catch the right ones but may let some genuine customers slip through. It does not belong to the "which kind of ad" layer; it is a trigger setting carried by each keyword inside an ad group, within a Search campaign (it lives at the targeting / triggering layer). Get it right and the most direct benefit is this: the same budget is spent less on searches that will never walk through your door, and more on the people genuinely looking for you. Take a Vancouver moving company. Set "moving" to the widest match and the ad gets triggered by searches like "where to buy moving boxes" or "DIY moving tips", so the money simply leaks away. Pull it down to exact match, and only people searching "moving company" can see you. This article makes broad, phrase and exact match clear, plus one often-overlooked "reverse switch", to help you judge whether your account has the mesh set wrong.
Who is this article for? ❓
If you run a service or trade in Vancouver where "customers actively search for what you do", and you are already running or about to run Search ads but vaguely feel "the money is going out and the people coming in aren't quite right", this is worth a few minutes. It will not teach you to click through the back end setting by setting; instead it helps you see what this match-type switch is deciding on your behalf, and what widening or tightening it costs you, so you can judge whether the account is set up well and how to talk to whoever manages it. If what you run is keyword-free Shopping ads or Performance Max (which have no "keywords" at all), you can skip this one.
Pin down where it lives: which layer match types sit at
Many owners, the moment they talk about ads, throw every setting into one pot. Match types actually have a fixed "address", and once you can place it, you will not muddle it with anything else:
- It exists only inside a Search campaign: the kind where the customer actively searches on Google and your text ad appears in the results. Shopping ads, Display ads and Performance Max run on product data or audiences and have no "keywords" at all, so match types simply do not apply.
- It is attached to a keyword, and keywords sit inside an ad group. Within the same ad group, each keyword can be set to a different match width on its own.
- It belongs to the triggering / targeting layer. It governs "what someone searches that brings you up", not "what the ad looks like" (that is the ad-copy layer) nor "how much you pay" (that is the bidding layer).
So a match type is not "a kind of ad"; it is a dial inside Search ads that adjusts "how wide you trigger". To first understand how a Search ad is set up so it does not leak money, see best practices for a keyword Search campaign; to view the whole "targeting" block from higher up, see the overall approach to targeting.
Picture the mesh in three settings: from casting wide to catching precisely
Google currently keeps three match types, and they map neatly onto three mesh sizes. Running our Vancouver moving company through all three makes it much clearer.
Broad match: the widest mesh, cast the furthest
The format is the simplest: write the keyword plain, with no symbols, such as moving. It is the default match type assigned to every new keyword. Google's official wording is that ads "may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don't contain the direct meaning of your keywords". In other words, it pulls in synonyms, spelling variations and related concepts automatically.
For the moving company, broad-match moving casts the widest of the three. It may be triggered by "where to buy moving boxes", "moving house gift ideas" or "DIY moving tips", searches from people who have no intention of paying anyone to move, yet the ad still shows and can still be clicked, eating budget. This is why Google now stresses one point in particular: broad match should be used together with Smart Bidding, letting the system weigh the contextual signals of each search to decide whether to bid. That is what makes broad match safe to use. Leaving a broad keyword to run on a fixed bid is a quick way to leak money.
Phrase match: a narrower mesh, holding to "that meaning"
The format is to wrap the keyword in straight double quotes, such as "moving company". Its official definition is that ads show on searches that "include the meaning of your keyword", reaching fewer searches than broad match. Extra words can sit before or after, but the core meaning has to be there.
For the moving company, phrase-match "moving company" catches "Vancouver moving company recommendations" or "moving company quote", all still carrying the "hire someone to move" intent; but something like "moving boxes", which strays from the core meaning, usually no longer triggers it. It is the middle ground between broad and exact: catching a few more long-tail searches that share the same intent than exact does, while inviting fewer irrelevant ones than broad.
Exact match: the tightest mesh, naming that one intent
The format is to put the keyword in square brackets, such as [moving company]. Google's current definition is worth noting: ads show on searches that have "the same meaning or intent as the keyword", reaching fewer searches than both phrase and broad. There is a point that is often misunderstood here. Exact match does not mean "only word-for-word counts": it also covers close variants, such as plurals and singulars, reordered words, misspellings and reworded synonyms. So [moving company] catches not only "moving company" but also same-meaning forms like "company for moving", while never slipping over to "moving boxes" or "moving tips". It gives you the strongest control of the three.
And one reverse switch: negative keywords
The three settings above govern "which searches bring you up", whereas negative keywords work the other way: telling Google plainly "do not show me on searches containing these words". The moving company could set "jobs", "hiring", "boxes" and "free" as negative keywords, shutting out the job-hunters, the box-shoppers and the freebie-seekers before they ever cost it anything. There is a point here that differs sharply from ordinary keywords and trips people up: negative keywords do not cover close variants automatically. Google states explicitly that excluding "flowers" will not also block the singular "flower", so you have to add the variants one by one. This "waste-prevention" work around negative keywords is worth combing through on its own; for now, just remember that it pairs with match types as a set: one opens the door, the other closes it.
Standing at the searcher's end, what do they actually experience
What does setting this mesh right or wrong mean for the Vancouver neighbour who is searching? Suppose you are that moving company, with [moving company] set to exact match and negative keywords in place: someone who has just searched "Burnaby moving company quote" on their phone sees your ad right at the top. The headline is about moving, with a phone number and a route to a quote, one tap away from getting in touch, clean and on point. Meanwhile someone searching "where to buy moving boxes" never sees that ad at all, and so never mis-clicks or burns your money. The whole point of match types, at the customer's end, comes down to one line: the people looking for you meet you the moment they search, and the people not looking for you never run into you.
Where this sits in your business
Keyword match settings sit at the marketing and customer-acquisition stage, and at the part nearest to closing. They filter for the people already actively searching, with the clearest intent. They work hand in glove with your website: match types let the people "searching the right words" in, while the landing page and website catch them and make them want to call or fill in a form. Open the mesh too loose and the budget leaks onto irrelevant searches; pull it too tight and you may shut out customers who should have come in. That balance is precisely what someone needs to keep watching and adjusting.
When it is worth combing through
A few common signals: you open the "Search terms report" and find a string of searches with nothing to do with your business spending your money; the account is wall-to-wall broad match with no Smart Bidding behind it; you have never set a single negative keyword; or the ads have run for a while, clicks are plenty, yet hardly any decent enquiries come through. Meet any one of these, and it is worth combing through each keyword's match width, along with the negative keywords. Often this needs no extra budget at all, simply putting the money you already have back where it belongs.
Leave this to 5U Website
Keyword matching looks like merely "whether to add quotes or square brackets", but the real work is in this: which words should be tightened to exact, which are worth widening to catch the long tail, whether broad keywords have Smart Bidding behind them, and whether the negative-keyword list is being topped up regularly. Get these wrong and either the money leaks onto irrelevant searches or customers are shut out. Over our years building websites and doing digital marketing for Vancouver businesses, we have taken on plenty of accounts left "wide open on broad match with nobody watching"; pull up the search terms report and the waste is plain to see. To be straight with you: for a local business on a limited budget, we generally recommend starting tight, on phrase and exact match, so the money lands on searches with clear intent. We would hold off on broad match until you have conversion tracking in place and Smart Bidding switched on, so the system has data to learn from and can judge each search for you. Without that, broad match tends to be a faster way to burn through the budget. What we do for clients is first work out which words your customers actually use to find you, set each word to the right match width by intent, get the bidding and negative keywords in order, then keep pruning against the search terms report, so that every part of the budget lands, as far as possible, on "people who will come in". If you are about to run Search ads, or have an account that has long shown no results, take a look at our website design and digital marketing services, or send an email describing your situation. We usually reply within one to two business days.
In the same series, the Google Ads overview helps you build the big-picture framework, so you can place this switch back into the larger picture.
Last updated:
