The No-Fluff Guide to Google Ads Match Types

Let’s be honest, match types are one of the most fundamental parts of Google Ads, yet one of the least understood.They control when your ads show, who sees them, and how efficiently your budget’s spent.

And while Google’s automation has come a long way, and Smart Bidding should now be the norm, you still can’t throw in a few broad match keywords and expect the machine to perform miracles overnight.

Smart Bidding only works as well as the signals you feed it.

If your conversion tracking’s off, your feed’s messy, or your campaign structure’s confusing, all that “machine learning” becomes guesswork.

So before you panic about performance or hand everything over to automation, let’s go back to the basics: how each match type actually works today, what they’re best used for, and how Shopping ads play by entirely different rules.

Keyword Match Types: The Triggers That Make or Break Your Campaigns

Keywords tell Google when to show your ads. The match type you choose defines how closely a search query must align with your keyword before your ad is triggered.

Get too loose, and you’ll appear for irrelevant searches. Get too tight, and you’ll miss valuable opportunities.

The key is knowing which match type suits your stage of growth and how much data your campaigns can realistically feed back into Google’s systems.

Broad Match - The Overachiever (When It’s Trained Properly)

Broad match is the most flexible match type, and, when managed correctly, the most powerful. It allows your ads to appear for searches related to your keyword, even if they don’t include the same words.

So, a keyword like luxury bedding could match searches such as:

• “hotel quality sheets”

• “buy Egyptian cotton duvet covers”

• “best 5-star hotel linen”

  
  

Google uses semantic intent and user context, it’s thinking what are they trying to find? rather than what did they literally type?

That’s brilliant if your campaign already has data. But without it? Broad match can behave like a toddler in a toy shop, excited, unpredictable, and not particularly budget-friendly.

If you’re on manual CPC, don’t even bother. If you’re using Smart Bidding, broad can be gold, but only when Google already understands what a good conversion looks like.

Use broad match when you’ve got historical performance, a decent amount of traffic, and a well-trained bidding strategy (tROAS, tCPA, or Max Conversions). Treat it as your discovery tool, not your first move.

💡 Quick tip: You don’t need Broad Match in your Brand campaign.

The whole point of a brand campaign is to capture your branded terms, not to widen them. Stick to Exact and Phrase match; plurals, brand variants, and misspellings are already captured by these types.

You’re not trying to expand into relatable terms here; that’s what your non-brand, Performance Max, and broader search campaigns are for. Keep it tight and protect your brand equity, Broad belongs in discovery, not defence.

Think of it like a Formula 1 car: incredible speed and capability, but only if you’ve built the track, fuelled the engine, and actually know how to drive it.

Phrase Match (2025) - Context Over Literal Order

Phrase match used to mean “this exact phrase, in this exact order”. Not anymore.Since Google merged Broad Match Modifier behaviour into Phrase, it now matches to queries that include the meaning of your keyword, even if the words aren’t in the same order.

Your keyword "luxury bedding" could show for:

• “best luxury bedding sets”

• “hotel-quality bed linen”

• “premium sheets for luxury hotels”

But not for:

• “how to make bedding look luxury” (different intent)

• “cheap bedding for luxury homes” (contradictory meaning)

Phrase match still considers word order as a signal, but not a rule. Google focuses on semantic relevance, if the query means the same thing, you’re in the auction.

That makes phrase match a strong middle ground: enough flexibility to find new queries, enough control to maintain intent.

It’s the ideal starting point for most advertisers, particularly if you’re launching a new product, testing new messaging, or expanding into a category where you’re not ready to unleash full broad match yet.

Keep an eye on your search terms though. Phrase can (and will) bring in close variants, plurals, and similar meanings that sometimes stretch a little too far. Use negatives to tidy up drift.

Exact Match (2025) - Precision with a Side of “Same Meaning”

Despite the name, exact match isn’t exactly exact anymore.Google now treats exact match as “same meaning or same intent”, not a literal, character-for-character match.

Your [luxury bedding] keyword can show for:

• “luxury bedding”

• “luxury beddings” (plural)

• “high-end bed linen” (equivalent meaning)

It won’t show for things that change intent, like “cheap luxury bedding” or “luxury bedding DIY tutorial”, but it can and will match synonyms or rephrased searches.

This means you still get strong control, but you can’t assume absolute precision. Expect the occasional surprise in your search terms.

Exact match is best for bottom-of-funnel, high-intent, or brand-defence campaigns where you want predictable performance and strong alignment with conversion goals.

Use it to protect your most valuable searches and manage CPCs, but don’t assume it’s immune to close variants. “Exact” now simply means close enough that Google’s confident the intent is the same.

AI Max - Not a Match Type (But Easy to Confuse As One)

Let’s clear this up straight away: AI Max isn’t a match type. It’s a campaign-level automation layer that uses Google’s large language models to interpret your keywords, assets, and audiences, then decide which combinations to prioritise across Search and other placements.

In short, AI Max controls how Google learns and adapts, not how keywords match.

If you’re planning to test AI Max, tidy up your account first. Running multiple ad groups with overlapping Broad, Phrase, and Exact keywords can confuse the system and drag out learning.

Before launching AI Max:

• Consolidate campaigns and ad groups.

• Remove duplicate or overlapping match types.

• Tighten your negatives.

• Double-check your primary conversion actions.

AI Max isn’t a targeting tool, it’s an automation accelerator. If your structure is messy, it’ll make faster mistakes. If it’s clean, it’ll scale intelligently.

Get your match types and signals in order first, then let AI Max do its thing.

Negative Match Types: The Filters That Keep Things Clean

If your regular keywords are your triggers, negatives are your filters, they tell Google when not to show your ads.

And here’s where many advertisers get caught out. Just because positive match types (Broad, Phrase, Exact) now work based on meaning and intent, doesn’t mean negatives do.

Negatives are still old-school. There’s no close variant matching, no intent guessing, no “Google knows what you meant”. If you don’t explicitly tell Google what to block, it won’t do it for you.

That’s why negatives matter more than ever. With Phrase and Exact now more flexible on the positive side, your negatives are the only thing keeping control tight, filtering out the junk that Google’s “close enough” logic might let slip through.

Broad Match Negative - The Theme Blocker

A broad match negative blocks any search that contains all the words in your negative, in any order.

Example: cheap bedding stops your ads appearing for

• “cheap white bedding”

• “bedding for cheap hotels”

…but not for “affordable bedding” or “discount bed linen”.

Broad negatives are literal - no synonyms, no intent guessing. They’re perfect for filtering out entire themes of traffic: “jobs”, “DIY”, “free”, “used”, “student”, etc.

Use them to keep traffic focused and CPCs realistic, but don’t overdo it or you’ll block relevant queries by accident.

Phrase Match Negative - The Specific Blocker

Phrase match negatives stop your ad from showing if the search contains that exact phrase in that order.

"luxury bedding" blocks:

• “buy luxury bedding”

• “luxury bedding set”

…but not “bedding luxury brand” or “hotel bed linen”.

Perfect for competitor names, brand confusion, or recurring irrelevant phrases that creep into your reports.

Exact Match Negative - The Surgical Cut

Exact match negatives block one specific query and nothing else, [luxury bedding] removes “luxury bedding” but not “luxury bedding sale”. Use them for cross-campaign exclusions, brand-vs-generic separation, or pruning low-performing exact terms.

🔹 Final Thoughts

If there’s one thing to remember, it’s this:

Match types aren’t just settings_, they’re signals. They tell Google how much control you want, and they tell your data how much trust it’s earned.

Broad match scales only when Google knows what a good conversion looks like. Don’t expect Smart Bidding to fix bad data.

Phrase match is your steady middle ground, flexible, but focused on meaning, not wording.

Exact match is your anchor, precise, but not immune to same-intent expansions.

So before you “trust the machine”, make sure you’ve done your part: 

✅ Track the right conversions. 

✅ Keep your negatives tight. 

✅ Optimise your feed like your ads depend on it, because they do.

Automation only amplifies what you feed it. Give it rubbish, and you’ll scale rubbish faster.

Give it clean, structured intent, and suddenly your results look effortless.

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4M Digital is a paid media consultancy specialising in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Paid Social campaigns. With over 15 years of expertise, we help businesses unlock the full potential of their digital advertising strategies through tailored management, audits, and training.