Should B2B advertisers use broad match or exact match keywords?

By: Jyll Saskin Gales, Google Ads Coach

As a B2B advertiser, deciding between broad match and exact match keywords in your Google Ads campaigns is a critical strategic choice. There's no single "best" answer that applies to all situations; the ideal approach depends on your specific goals, the maturity of your campaign, and the amount of conversion data you have. Each match type offers distinct advantages and disadvantages, and understanding these can help you build a more effective, cost-efficient advertising strategy.

This article will help B2B advertisers navigate this common dilemma by exploring:

• The inherent tension between increasing ad visibility and reducing costs per click.

• The fundamental methods for influencing your impression share.

• A detailed look at two common strategies: combining broad match keywords with audience targeting versus using exact match keywords with audience observation.

• How to pinpoint the best strategy for your campaigns based on existing performance data and available budget.

The Trade-Off: Impression Share vs. CPC

It’s important to understand from the outset that maximizing how often your ad appears (impression share) and minimizing how much you pay for each click (CPC) can be conflicting goals.

Consider the levers you have in Google Ads to influence impression share:

1. Increase Budget: More budget means your ads can run more frequently throughout the day, potentially capturing more impressions.

2. Increase Bids: Higher bids can help your ad win more auctions or secure more prominent positions, leading to greater visibility.

3. Improve Quality Score: This is a crucial area where you can achieve both goals. A higher Quality Score signals to Google that your ad is highly relevant and valuable to users. This can lead to your ad showing more often (higher impression share) at a lower cost per click (lower CPC).

4. Decrease Targeting Specificity: Broadening your targeting parameters (e.g., using broader keywords or fewer negative keywords) increases the total pool of eligible searches, which can increase your impression share.

Since the aim is to improve underperforming campaigns, simply increasing budget or bids might not be a viable or desirable first step. Therefore, our focus shifts to improving Quality Score and strategically adjusting targeting.

Strategy 1: Broad Match Keywords with Targeting Audiences

This approach leverages the expansive reach of broad match keywords while using audiences set to "targeting" to maintain relevance.

Think of broad match as a wide net cast into the ocean. It allows Google to show your ads for a wide range of searches related to your keywords, even if they're not exact matches. The machine learning capabilities of Google Ads are constantly improving, meaning broad match can uncover surprisingly relevant search queries that you might not have thought of.

However, a wide net can also catch a lot of irrelevant fish. This is where "targeting audiences" come in. When you apply an audience on "targeting," you're telling Google: "Only show my ads if the user's search query matches my broad keyword AND that user also falls into one of our audience selections."

Potential Benefits:

• Higher Impression Share: Broad match inherently opens up the pool of eligible searches, offering greater reach.

• Lower CPC Potential: By allowing Google's AI more flexibility to find new, potentially less competitive queries, and by combining it with relevant audiences, you might see lower average CPCs over time, although the audience targeting could bring CPCs up a bit. This may net out as a wash, but it should increase relevancy.

• Improved Relevancy and Quality Score: The audience targeting acts as a filter, helping ensure that even broad searches are shown to a more qualified group of users. This should lead to higher Click-Through Rates (CTR) and a better Quality Score, which in turn can lead to lower CPCs.

• Discovery of New Keywords: Broad match can help you identify new, high-performing search terms you weren't targeting before, which you can then add as more precise keywords.

Important Considerations:

• Budget & Data Volume: For broad match to learn and optimize effectively, it generally requires a sufficient daily budget and a healthy volume of conversion data. Campaigns with very limited budgets might struggle to gain traction with this strategy.

• Accurate Conversion Tracking: Robust conversion tracking is non-negotiable. Without precise data on what actions lead to conversions, Google's AI cannot accurately optimize for valuable leads from the diverse search queries that broad match can uncover.

• Audience Balance: Be cautious not to make your audience targeting too narrow. If the audience pool is too small, there might not be enough search volume for Google's algorithms to learn and effectively deliver impressions.

Strategy 2: Exact Match Keywords with Observation Audiences

This strategy prioritizes precision using exact match keywords combined with audiences on "observation."

Exact match keywords are like a highly specialized fishing spear. They aim for precision, ensuring your ads appear only for searches that closely match your keyword or have the same clear intent. This typically brings in traffic that is highly relevant and likely to convert.

When audiences are set to "observation," they do not restrict who sees your ads. Instead, they allow you to monitor how different audience segments perform without impacting your ad's eligibility. You can then use this data to identify high-value segments and potentially apply bid adjustments to those audiences or even create new campaigns for them.

Potential Benefits:

• High-Intent & Quality Traffic: Exact match inherently attracts users who are searching for precisely what you offer, often leading to higher-quality clicks and better conversion rates.

• Higher CTR & Quality Score: Due to the strong relevance between the search query and your ad, exact match keywords often boast higher CTRs and contribute to a better Quality Score.

• Greater Control: This strategy offers the most control over the specific search queries that trigger your ads, giving you a clear picture of user intent.

Important Considerations:

• Limited Reach (Impression Share): The precision of exact match inherently restricts your ad's reach. This can limit your impression share and make it harder to scale campaigns if search volume for your exact terms is low.

• Potentially Higher CPCs: Because exact match keywords often signify high user intent and are therefore very valuable, they can be highly competitive, leading to higher CPCs.

• Less Discovery: This strategy provides fewer opportunities to discover new, relevant search terms compared to broad match.

Making the Choice: A Strategic Framework

Instead of viewing broad match and exact match as an either-or proposition, B2B advertisers should consider a nuanced approach based on their campaign's maturity and specific goals:

1. Prioritize Based on Current Impression Share:

   • If your Impression Share is very low (e.g., less than 10%): When your ads are barely showing up for eligible searches, prioritizing exact match keywords with audiences on observation is often the stronger starting point. Your primary goal here is to first capture a larger share of the most valuable and most relevant impressions. This allows you to focus your limited budget on high-quality, high-intent clicks, even if the CPCs are initially higher. This approach helps stabilize performance and build a solid foundation before attempting to expand reach.

   • If your Impression Share is already moderate to high (e.g., 40-50% or more): If you're already capturing a significant portion of available impressions and your goal is to further increase impression share, then you need to broaden your reach. In this scenario, broad match keywords with audiences on targeting is generally the more effective strategy. You're signaling to Google that you're ready to explore new, related search opportunities, while the audience targeting acts as a filter to keep those new queries relevant and efficient.

2. Monitor and Iterate: Regardless of the initial strategy, continuous monitoring and iteration are paramount. Regularly check your Search Terms Report to see what queries are actually triggering your ads. This is especially important for broad match, as it reveals the real-world searches Google is matching you to. Use this data to refine your keywords, add negatives, and adjust your audience targeting.

Conclusion: A Balanced Approach for B2B Success

The question for B2B advertisers isn't simply "broad match or exact match?" but rather, "When and how should I use each match type to achieve my business objectives?"

For many B2B campaigns, a hybrid approach often yields the best results. Start by building a solid, high-converting core with exact match keywords. Once you have a clear understanding of what works and sufficient conversion data, strategically expand your reach using broad match keywords, always with the protective layer of precise audience targeting and continuous negative keyword management. This balanced strategy allows you to capture high-intent demand while intelligently exploring new growth opportunities, leading to increased impression share and, ultimately, more qualified leads at an optimized cost.