| Since 2014, when Google ended support for the "true" exact match type, the company has periodically thrown advertisers for a loop by making more changes to its keyword matching options, favoring machine learning and automation over manual controls. This time around, the company is expanding phrase match to include broad match modifier traffic, and ending support for the latter. These changes will start rolling out in two weeks. The updated phrase match will continue to respect word order when it's important to the meaning, the company said. In July, after the new behavior rolls out globally, advertisers will not be able to create new broad match modifier keywords. Because the change is happening to both match types, there's no need to migrate keywords and advertisers will get to keep their performance data. This could, potentially, save advertisers time spent managing keywords, but it'll certainly mean that some will have to spend a lot more time recalibrating campaigns. Traffic may fluctuate as this rolls out, so keep an eye on your performance metrics so you can adjust accordingly. And, get used to using the updated phrase match moving forward. How will this affect your campaigns? Or, why won't it affect your campaigns? Send your thoughts my way, and spare no detail: gnguyen@thirddoormedia.com. I appreciate it! Read more here. | 
