Yesterday I wrote about starting an AdWords campaign by funding it and getting an AdWords voucher (Read full post here). Today I will cover broad matching versus exact matching.

When starting off with AdWords, forget about broad matching.  Just forget that it even exists for now.

What is broad match exactly?  Well, Google defines it this way:

With broad match, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren’t in your keyword lists. Keyword variations can include synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases containing your keywords.

So, for example, if you are bidding on the keywords ‘guitar lessons’ only, using broad match will display your ads for ‘guitar instruction’ or ‘learn guitar’ etc.  According to Google:

The keyword variations that are allowed to trigger your ads will change over time, as the AdWords system continually monitors your keyword quality and performance factors. Your ads will only continue showing on the highest-performing and most relevant keyword variations.

Starting off though, you want to really focus on the most profitable keywords and eliminate the unprofitable ones.  So use exact match only to start off.

Once you are making a profit and are ready to begin expanding your sales volume, then, and only then, should you turn on broad match keywords.