May
Automatic Matching
Google has been busy perfecting their automatic billing matching feature the past few months.
While you’re away on Memorial Day travel this weekend, do you mind if we just slip into your account and make some minor adjustments?
We didn’t think you would mind. Have a great weekend!
In all seriousness, this is a fairly controversial feature and should be measured closely.
What to do first:
Opting in and out: Automatic matching is applied at the campaign level. You can opt your campaign in and out of automatic matching on your Campaign Settings page.
Or Leave it on: Do nothing, it’s conveniently already running for you 
Should you choose to leave it on, you will want to measure the performance. You can do this via 2 reports:
• Performance statistics: Aggregated performance statistics for automatic matching will appear in each ad group’s Keywords tab, in a line item labeled Automatic Matching Total.
• Search Query Performance report: You can see the search queries that triggered your ads due to automatic matching by running a Search Query Performance report. The queries will be labeled Automatic in the Search Query Match Type column.
Now that I’m thinking of it, this would be a great strategy to try with my clients. While they’re gone this weekend I’ll email them with the great news they’ve been selected for the ‘double management service’ where I increase their billable hours as I see fit (only when it’s relevant, of course). I’ll let you all know on Tuesday how it worked out.
How do you turn it off?
Tyler – Edit campaign settings – uncheck the automatic matching box
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=86319
I don’t see the option anywhere. Either I’m blind or it has not been pushed to my campaigns yet.
It probably hasn’t been enabled yet in your account. Once it has, it’s hard to miss
Is automatic matching the same thing as “extended broad match” that I’ve been hearing about lately?
It’s very close but I would say it’s a step beyond expanded broad match. The biggest difference is actually a positive one – we can control automatic matching because it’s a setting. Expanded broad match requires more strategic adjustments.
another difference to note, which is also something that gives you more control than expanded broad match, is that this feature supposedly doesn’t affect your accrual of the traffic you’ve been receiving:
per google: “Automatic matching won’t allow your spend to exceed your budget, and it also won’t affect the traffic you’re currently receiving. For example, say your campaign’s daily budget is $10, and on average you accrue $8 in traffic in a day. The automatic matching system may add $1 of relevant traffic per day, meaning it will not prevent your ads from accruing the traffic it normally does. Note also that automatic matching will not affect your campaigns if they already capture the majority of relevant traffic. “
Jeff, I completely agree with you! It is enabled in most accounts now, but (according to Google) will not go live till June 3. Although it is true that we can see the statistics in the keywords tab under a row labeled automatic matching there is no way for us to change bids. The automatically watched keywords will get the average bid for you campaign (imagine that?). Also as I’m sure you already know, Google’s version of the search query reports are not very transparent in that they will have “### unique keywords” then what? The beta is not very transparent and not empowering to advertisers and I would suggest disable it and instead use good old keyword building tactics.
Agreed Charlene –
Personally I’ve decided I have a few particular areas I am going to test automatic matching in a VERY controlled manner. The feature has potential but will require some serious oversight.
I would think this feature would be a no – brainer in the ‘beginner’ adwords accounts where people aren’t versed in expanding keyword lists.