Which Google Ads match type fits your business
Broad match looks good on paper, but Google also shows your advert on searches that will never make anyone pick up the phone. Tradespeople end up paying for clicks that can never become a job. This page shows which match type works when, and what you can change in your account today.
The three types are not separate choices but three rings around each other. Exact sits inside phrase, phrase sits inside broad. The wider the ring, the more searches come along that you never intended.
Why broad match eats your budget
On paper, broad match looks appealing. You set a keyword and Google fills in the rest. The problem: Google fills in too much.
We give no percentage here, because there is no reliable figure for how much budget broad match costs, and it would not say anything about your account anyway. The mechanism itself is hard fact: a painter advertising on [painter Leeds] gets, under broad match, clicks from people who want to buy a painting too, or who are looking for a painter vacancy. What that costs you is sitting, line by line, in your search terms report.
With budgets of 300 to 800 euros a month, that adds up fast
Every irrelevant click is money that does not go towards a real enquiry.
The three match types that still exist in 2026
Google still has three match types. Broad match modifier (BMM) no longer exists; Google scrapped that variant in 2021 and folded it into phrase match.
Exact match [keyword]
: precision, small reach.Phrase match "keyword"
: balance between reach and control, ideal for those starting out.Broad match keyword
: biggest reach, but risky without enough data.In Google Ads you can see straight away which type a keyword has. Square brackets mean exact, quotation marks mean phrase, no punctuation means broad.
Exact match: tight, but limited
With exact match, Google shows your advert only for searches that are almost literally the same as your keyword. The keyword [painter leeds] matches "leeds painter", but not "cheap painter leeds".
That makes exact match economical, but also small
For tradespeople with limited search volume in their area, that leaves very little traffic.
Phrase match: the best starting point for tradespeople
With phrase match, your keyword must appear as a meaningful sequence within the search. Google may add extra words before or after it, but the core stays intact.
For most tradespeople, this is the best starting point
You keep enough control to avoid irrelevant clicks, while still catching enough search volume to keep your campaign running.
Building a new campaign
Then start with 5 to 10 phrase match keywords that are specific to your service and your area. Also add 10 to 15 negative keywords, such as "vacancy", "training", "course", "free" and "DIY". That filters out most of the noise right away.
The same three types, tested on a real keyword
The rings from the first figure only become concrete once you hold real searches up against them. Below is the keyword painter Leeds in all three notations, with the three searches this page mentions itself. In each box you see whether the advert joins in. That way you see at a glance why broad without a block list costs money.
Broad match: only worthwhile with enough data
It is not automatically bad, but broad match is risky without enough conversion data. Without that data, Google's algorithm guesses which clicks are valuable, and that guesswork costs you money.
Only switch over once you have Smart Bidding active
Google does not name a conversion threshold for it, but without bid automation, broad match has nothing to steer by. Whether your campaign has enough conversions shows in how stable your cost per conversion has been over the past thirty days.
Not sure whether your account is ready for that yet
A PPC specialist checks that in half an hour and stops you switching over too soon.
What you can already change today
You do not have to wait for a new campaign. In Google Ads, click the pencil icon next to a keyword and choose the right type.
Already running a campaign
Then first change your most valuable keywords to phrase or exact match. Do not change everything at once, so you can see what effect it has.
Want to see exactly which searches already trigger your advert
Go to Campaigns, click Keywords and choose Search terms in the submenu. That shows exactly which searches have eaten up your budget.
No time or inclination to work this out yourself
Many tradespeople would rather outsource Google Ads, so the match types and the budget stay in good hands while you get on with the work.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best match type for a tradesperson with a small budget?
Is broad match always bad?
No, but it is risky if you get fewer than 30 conversions a month. Without enough data, Google's AI guesses which clicks are valuable.
What is the difference between BMM and phrase match?
How do I see which search terms trigger my advert?
When do I switch over to broad match?
Once your campaigns run steadily at a minimum of 30 conversions a month and you have Smart Bidding active. At that point, Google has enough data to make good decisions.
Want to know which match type you are using right now?
You can check this yourself, but a second opinion costs you nothing. We check your campaign for free and show you where the budget is leaking.
What you can already do if your search volume and traffic are falling
The reflex is often to write more content or push harder on link building. But if traffic is shifting to AI answers, you first want a clear view of where you are losing traffic and why you are not being mentioned.
Do not just look at search volume in tools, but put the figures side by side: rankings, sessions, scroll behaviour and click behaviour on important pages.
With a tool such as WP UX Heatmap and Scrollmap you see directly in WordPress where visitors drop off, which parts are ignored, and whether people actually reach your call to action.
Ask AI overviews and search assistants the same questions your audience asks. Who gets mentioned, which arguments are used, and how often does your brand come up.
That gives you an honest picture of your position in the new search experience, separate from rankings in the classic list of results.
Your pages need to do more than rank, they also need to make sense to AI systems: clear answers, strong arguments, a clear structure and consistent information about who you are and who you are the best choice for.
This often means your pages end up more compact, clearer and more decision-focused than old SEO landing pages.
With llms routing, schema data and a good internal structure, you help AI systems connect your content to the right questions.
For this, TheSEO has developed, among other things, an llms generator and an AI snippet preview, so you can see what story AI might tell about your brand.
How TheSEO protects your SEO traffic against loss to AI
TheSEO combines classic, strong SEO with a strategy for visibility in AI overviews and search assistants. No isolated tricks, but an approach that starts with insight and ends with concrete improvements at page and brand level.
Why does my search volume seem to be disappearing while my rankings stay the same
In many cases the actual search volume stays the same or even rises slightly. What changes is the way answers are given. AI overviews and search assistants give an immediate summary with a limited number of sources. If your brand is not among them, attention shifts to others, and it feels as if demand has shrunk.
How do I know if my traffic is leaking away to AI overviews
Look up your most important keywords in an incognito window and check whether AI overviews appear. Then check which names get mentioned. You can map this systematically with a scan such as AI Traffic Loss Shield, so you can see, page by page and keyword by keyword, where the risk is greatest.
Can I make my brand more deliberately visible to AI search assistants
Yes. By writing clear content about who you are, what you do and who you are the best choice for, and combining that with llms routing, schema data and a logical internal structure, you give systems more confidence in your brand. That increases the chance of being mentioned as an example or a recommendation.
Is this traffic loss temporary or permanent
All the signals from our research point to a lasting shift. Users quickly get used to answers, comparisons and lists they get directly from a search assistant. Whoever learns now how to become visible in those answers builds a lead that will be hard to catch up on later.
What can TheSEO concretely do for me if my search volume is falling
TheSEO maps out your current situation, measures the risk of AI traffic loss, helps redesign key pages and guides the technical side with llms files, schema data and internal structure. On top of that, we use tools such as WP UX Heatmap and Scrollmap and AI Traffic Loss Shield so you can keep steering it yourself.
Next step
A tightly set up Google Ads campaign works best combined with a site that is itself ready for today's search engine. So take a look at how an AI-ready homepage can further help your conversion rate.
Not sure where to start with your match types? Book a call and we will look at your account together.
Exact match: precisely what you mean
With exact match, your advert only appears when someone types your keyword or a clear variant of it. Think of spelling mistakes, plurals or a different word order. [painter leeds] therefore also matches "leeds painter" or "painters leeds". But not "cheap painter leeds" or "painter leeds vacancy".
The reach is smaller than with the other types, but the relevance is the highest. If you are spending ten euros a day, you want every click to come from someone genuinely looking for your service. Exact match gives you the most certainty of that.
The downside is that you might miss people. "Emergency plumber Bristol Sunday" does not fall under [plumber Bristol] exact. But those are people who do pick up the phone. That is why you never use exact match as your only type, but always in combination with phrase match.
Phrase match: the foundation for most tradespeople
For most tradespeople with a budget of up to 800 euros a month, phrase match is the best starting point. Your keyword must appear as a meaningful sequence within the search, but words may come before or after it.
"painter leeds" phrase matches "best painter leeds" and "painter leeds interior of house". But not "leeds painting for sale", because then the meaning sits in the wrong context. That is exactly the difference with broad.
Phrase match gives you room to learn. In the search terms report (Google Ads, Campaigns, Keywords, Search terms) you can see exactly which searches have triggered your advert. Come across terms that have nothing to do with your work? Then add them as a negative keyword, so you do not match on them again next time.
Broad match: when it makes sense
Broad match is not automatically wrong. But it comes with a condition most small tradespeople do not meet: a minimum of 30 to 50 conversions a month, combined with an active Smart Bidding strategy such as a Target CPA or ROAS target.
Without that data, Google's AI guesses which clicks are valuable to you. The algorithm does not know that you are not looking for job applicants and do not sell paintings. So it matches on all sorts of things. You pay for that guesswork per click, while getting nothing back for it.
Once you do hit that threshold, broad match can help you discover new, relevant searches you would never have thought of yourself. But that is a second phase. You start with exact and phrase, build up data, and only switch to broad once the campaign is running steadily. More on when to choose which bidding strategy is on the page about bidding strategy for tradespeople.
How to adjust it
Changing match types is quick. Click the pencil icon next to a keyword and choose the right type. For existing campaigns where everything is set to broad: change your most valuable keywords to phrase or exact first. Do not switch everything at once, because then your campaign performance changes all in one go and you lose comparable data.
For new campaigns: start with 5 to 10 phrase match keywords that are as specific as possible to your service and area. Add 10 to 15 negative keywords straight away. Think of terms such as "vacancy", "training", "course", "free" and "DIY". Those are the terms that trigger searches from people who will never become customers.
Only turn on Smart Bidding once you have your conversion tracking properly set up. Without that data, Smart Bidding is a blind driver, confidently heading in the wrong direction.
Setting up negative keywords for tradespeople
Protect your budget by excluding irrelevant searches from your campaigns.
Manual bidding, Target CPA or ROAS: which bidding strategy works for your situation?
Measuring conversions in Google Ads
Without conversion tracking, every optimisation flies blind. Here is how to set it up correctly.
Three pillars in our approach
In concrete terms, that means we first map out your situation, then jointly make choices about content and technique, and then track the results with tools that run in your own WordPress environment.
That way you do not build a dependency on a one-off report, but a system that lets you keep watching as AI search experiences continue to develop.
The TheSEO tools that help you if your search volume seems to be disappearing
Alongside advice, TheSEO builds its own WordPress tools, which came directly out of this research and out of conversations with clients asking the same question: why is my search volume disappearing while I am still being found.
An interactive scan that gives you insight into the pages and keywords where you run the biggest risk of traffic leaking away to AI overviews and search assistants.
You get a list of at-risk pages, priorities and concrete recommendations to protect your SEO traffic and let it grow along with the new way of searching.
More information: protecting SEO traffic against AI
A lightweight heatmap and scrollmap plugin you use directly in WordPress. It shows you how far people scroll, where they click and where they drop off on crucial pages.
Ideal for seeing whether your redesigned pages really work better, or whether there are still barriers in forms, buttons or navigation.
More information: WP UX Heatmap and Scrollmap
With the llms generator you create a file that helps you steer AI systems in how they read your site and which pages they may use as a source.
The AI snippet preview shows you what answer a system might give based on a page, even before a user actually asks that question.
More information: llms generator by TheSEO
Want to know how much traffic you are already losing to AI answers
If your search volume seems to be disappearing and you are seeing fewer enquiries, this is the moment to look more closely. In a session with TheSEO, we put your most important keywords, pages and AI visibility side by side.
You leave with a clear picture of your risk of AI traffic loss and a concrete plan to put your brand back in view at the right moments.