Broadmatch Modifier – Best Practice on Growing Your Bing Ads Volume
The keyword Match type ‘Broadmatch Modifier (BMM)’ was created to filter and minimise the amount of irrelevant traffic, reduce spend wastage & lower the number of negative keywords needed within an account. When BMM was initially launched, many digital marketers updated their keywords from Broadmatch (BM) to BMM, mirroring the changes across both their Google & Bing accounts.
At Bing Ads we don’t always recommend duplicating your AdWords BMM strategy into your Bing Ads account due to the slight differences between the systems. Google’s BMM blocks approximately 71% of BM traffic, and due to high volumes of search that Google drives this is beneficial in reducing the quantity of irrelevant impressions served for the account. Bing’s BMM on the other hand currently has stricter criteria and removes approximately 90% of traffic when compared to the BM results1, due to the high percentage of search terms filtered from the advertiser’s results potentially misses out on relevant traffic and customers to their website. Furthermore, with Bing searchers having a higher buying power index than Google (Bing searchers spend 44% more than the average Google searcher2), BMM is less necessary when using Bing Ads in comparison to AdWords.
If your account is currently struggling to hit capacity, this optimisation can be quickly implemented and drives immediate results by broadening what BMM can deliver through including BM variations of your core keywords. This strategy has proven to grow volume, whilst maintaining the target cost per acquisitions (CPAs) and costs per click (CPCs).
1. By utilising all four match types; Exact, Phrase, Broadmatch Modifier & Broadmatch keywords it can increases the likelihood of your campaign appearing for more searches
a. Rather than filtering the traffic with BMM, run and review the search term report each week the first 4-6 weeks to identify and implement a list of negative keywords for the account. These negative keywords will then tighten the focus, increasing the relevancy and improving the overall campaign performance each week.
b. Once you have completed 4-6 weeks of reviewing and adding negative keywords, this can then be reduced to once a month or bi-monthly.
(HINT- I suggest adding a reminder for this part into your calendar).
2. Secondly implement a match type bid strategy,
a. When a search query is submitted, Search Ads are selected and shown based on different factors like; keyword relevancy, rank score, CPC, match type etc. When utilising all match types it is important to set up a match type strategy ensuring that the most relevant match type is served. This will assist in achieving a higher quality score, lower CPCs and improve the overall success of the campaign.
b. Please set your max CPC for each match type from highest to lowest based off the below hierarchy:
i. Exact Match $$$$
ii. Phrase Match $$$
iii. Broadmatch Modifier $$
iv. Broad Match $
This is a great way to ensure that a campaign is not missing out on relevant traffic that would normally be removed through the BMM functionality. Don’t forget that due to the weekly additions of negative keywords to the campaign you should see the performance improve week on week during at least first month as the focus of the campaign tightens and also achieving strong relevancy where possible.
1 http://www.ppchero.com/the-people-vs-bing-broad-match/
2 Source: comScore qSearch (custom), June 2015.