So what does this relatively new match type mean for pay-per-click advertising, and how can you reap the most rewards from its most recent addition?

What is Broad Match Modifier?

In short, a broad match modifier (BMM) allows you to be more targeted than broad match keywords, but have greater reach than with phrase or exact match.  To reach your target audience you may find that using only broad match may produce irrelevant search queries and costly ad clicks, which can quickly add up. Using broad match may therefore require more time and resources spent adding negative keywords to your campaigns in order to reduce the amount of low quality ad clicks. Using phrase or exact match, on the other hand, may decrease your ad visibility to relevant search queries. Adding broad match modifiers can be a huge asset in refining your keyword targeting.

Adding BMM’s to Your Campaigns

To add a modifier to an existing broad match keyword, simply add a plus symbol (+) in front of each word that you want required to be present in the search query in order for your ad to show.

Examples:

+exercise +class

• This will show your ads for queries such as “exercise fitness class” and “local exercising classes”.

exercise +class

• This will show your ads for queries such as “classes for better fitness” and “workout class”.

Broad match modifier can help to keep costs low while improving conversion rates.  It works well alongside of existing broad match keywords, or in replacement of them if you currently experience a number of irrelevant search queries.

When properly implemented, successful BMM’s offer more precise and refined targeting while keeping your scope wide enough to capture relevant clicks and drive high quality leads.  Test these for yourself to see how broad match modifier can improve your campaign results!

QUICK TIP ~ Adding Broad Match Modifier Keywords in Adwords Editor

If you’d like to add broad match modifier keywords to existing broad match keywords, here are some quick tips for using the Adwords Editor.

To add a Broad Match Modifier to the beginning word in a keyword phrase:

1)       Open Adwords Editor. Under the Keyword tab, highlight existing broad match keywords.

2)       Click “Append Text” on the bottom left.

3)       In the “Add” drop-down menu, enter “+”

4)       Select “Before existing text.”

5)       Check the box “Duplicate selected rows and append text to duplicates.”

To add a Broad Match Modifier to subsequent words in a keyword phrase:

1)       Highlight existing broad match keywords.

2)       Click “Replace Text” on the bottom left.

3)       Replace the blank spaces ” ” in the selected keywords with a blank space and plus sign ” +”.

4)       Check the box “Duplicate selected rows and append text to duplicates.”

Given the enormous amount of data and accounts that had to be dealt with and coordinated, we would say the the Microsoft/Bing and Yahoo transition teams did a very good job.

However, the transition has not gone off without its problems, and we wanted to enlighten people about a few of them we have dealt with so far for our pay-per-click clients.


> Billing Issues Leading to Paused Accounts

Many clients have their Microsoft AdCenter accounts set up to bill their credit cards in order to pay for their ad clicks. We have found that since the transition this functionality within AdCenter is not working reliably. In two instances, one client’s AdCenter account has been completely paused even though a credit card is on file and the account is set up to be auto-billed once the balance is at zero in order to keep the ads running non-stop. To resolve the problem, we had to go in and initiate a manual payment on the credit card. So if you are having your AdCenter account paused and you can’t figure out why – check on this billing issue first. Hopefully AdCenter will fix this bug soon. For now, we are having to monitor our client’s AdCenter accounts very carefully.

> Reporting Delays

Today (10/29/10) we are experiencing very long delays in AdCenter pay-per-click information being reported within the Microsoft AdCenter account itself. As an example, for one client Google Analytics is showing they received approximately 1,000 clicks from Bing pay-per-click thus far today. However, so far today the reporting data within Microsoft AdCenter says that client has only received about 100 clicks. So this data in AdCenter today is very, very delayed. We haven’t seen this talked about yet but would imagine it is affecting other advertisers as well.


> Ad Impressions Drop Bug

Microsoft AdCenter, as part of this transition, has also introduced a new way that they are categorizing ads. They have a new “Medium” variable,  and they are categorizing ads as part of their Search or Content network within this “Medium” variable. If you go to your ads within your AdCenter account you will see this. It looks like this new feature may be causing some issues for some advertisers, resulting in some ad impression drops. Search Engine Roundtable has more information about these potential bugs.


The transition of all Yahoo pay-per-click ads being served up by the Bing/Microsoft platform is still in its very early stages, and there are sure to be more issues to be figured out. In addition, lots of opportunities for advertisers to take advantage of in this new combined pay-per-click network (with LOTS of traffic).

What does this mean?  It means by the 2010 holiday season (or by early 2011, MS and Yahoo are giving themselves some wiggle room on the actual date), when consumers do a search on Yahoo.com, the results will be delivered by Bing.com.  They will be Bing.com search results.

Also, the pay-per-click ads that come up when a search is done on Yahoo.com will be delivered by Bing/Microsoft.  For pay-per-click advertisers, if they want to run ads on Yahoo.com, when this transition occurs they will now manage those ads using Microsoft’s AdCenter platform (which advertisers currently use to only manage ads shown on Bing.com).

So the big Microsoft/Yahoo search engine deal has received regulatory approval, and it is full steam ahead for the folks at Microsoft and Yahoo working on implementing the transition.

Note: Microsoft and Yahoo have set up a Website to provide ongoing information about this transition.

Well, if it was as simple as that, then Google would not be a $196 billion company.

It is true, the optimal situation to strive for is one in which your Website ranks in the Top 5 organically for all of the search engine keyword search terms that are important to your business.  However, given the effort it takes to achieve a Top 5 organic ranking for most search terms (because of competition), and given the need of most businesses to start driving more targeted traffic to their Website sooner than later, most companies use a combination of both SEO and pay-per-click.

With pay-per-click advertising, you can quickly run your ads against thousands of keyword searches.  Compare that to SEO, where you have to work hard to get ranked in the Top 5 organic positions for just a handful of keyword searches.

For our clients, we start out by understanding their business and target customers.  Then, we do exhaustive keyword research to understand what people type into search engines when they are looking for their products or services.  We use this research to come up with an initial list of keywords to target for SEO work.  At the same time however, we recommend launching a pay-per-click advertising effort which will let us run ads against thousands of keyword searches that are potentially relevant to the business.  Then, using detailed performance tracking, we measure which keywords produce leads and sales, and which don’t.

This data from the pay-per-click campaign then either verifies that the initial keyword targets for SEO work were correct, or that this SEO keyword target list needs some editing.

So in this way, pay-per-click advertising and SEO are complementary.  Pay-per-click campaigns quickly give us data on which keyword searches are worth investing SEO effort into.