What is “Broadience” Targeting?

As most PPC marketers probably know, Google loves to promote the use of Broad Match keywords. This is not always in advertisers’ best interest though, as Broad Match can get out of hand very quickly in terms of spend and traffic quality.

So how can we use Broad keywords to their advantage and maintain control? Meet “broadience” targeting.

Broad Match Overview

First, a quick refresher on Broad Match.

Based on Google’s definition, Broad Match keywords allow your ad to show on searches related to the meaning of your keyword, including those that don’t actually contain the term you’re targeting. They are the least restrictive keyword targeting option.

For example: if you’re targeting soccer cleats as a Broad keyword, your ad might show to someone who searches for “shoes”.

The benefit of using Broad Match is that this matchtype can help you reach a wider audience without an extensive keyword list.

However, this also means they can be difficult to control. Broad keywords must be applied, monitored, and optimized carefully. Otherwise, you run the risk of having them tank your account’s performance through bloated spend from people outside your target audience.

For example: if you’re targeting soccer cleats as a Broad keyword, you might match to someone who searches for “high heels”. If that person then clicks your ad, it’s a waste of your budget.

Controlling Broad Match with Audiences

Adding negative keywords is always a good option to control matching, traffic quality, and ad spend. But reviewing Search Terms Reports can be extremely time-consuming. It’s also more of a reactive optimization, because your money was already spent by the time you caught the unwanted query.

A great solution to proactively control matching for Broad keywords is to layer audiences into the ad group.

This “broadience” strategy allows you to capture a wide range of searches (via Broad Match keywords), while narrowing your reach to the most relevant segment of those users (via audience targeting).

There are a number of ways to test this strategy, and the audiences you use will depend on your goals, keyword intent, etc. Two of our favorite tactics for awareness and remarketing initiatives are highlighted below.

Screenshot of the Targeting & Observation settings when adding audiences in Google Ads

Tactic 1 – Expand Reach

Common Use Case: ensure you have coverage for any relevant phrases you don’t already target (i.e., reach more of your target audience)
Process:
- Analyze performance of the audiences you’re currently using (like in Video campaigns or Observations in Search campaigns)
  - If you’re not using audiences anywhere, add them as Observations to your Search campaigns and collect data for at least 2-6 weeks
- Identify and note the top-performing segments
- Identify top-performing search terms, keywords, etc. and create a custom audience based on those phrases
- Create a campaign/ad group with non-brand, Broad Match keywords
- Navigate to Audiences and select “Edit audience segments”
- Select “Targeting” (see screenshot above)
- Add your top-performing and/or custom audiences; click save
- Optional: if possible, take this one step further by excluding your existing customers or previous website visitors
Result: widely targeting your top audiences and generating net-new traffic from searches you might not have captured otherwise

Tactic 2 – Remarketing

Common Use Case: nurturing users through a long sales cycle
Process:
- Create retargeting lists for previous website visitors, existing customers, etc.
- Create a campaign/ad group with non-brand, Broad Match keywords
  - Another option is competitor keywords
- Navigate to Audiences and select “Edit audience segments”
- Select “Targeting”
- Add your retargeting lists; click save
Result: reaching users familiar with your brand as they search for competitors or other terms related to your services.

Summary

Broad Match keyword performance may have improved over the past few years, but they will likely continue to drive more irrelevant traffic than other matchtypes. By layering on audience targeting, you can prevent irrelevant users from clicking your ads more proactively.

Thus, your campaigns go from targeting a wide, unfocused audience…