By Afef AyedOn this page
The short answer
Broad match shows your ads on searches related to your keyword's meaning, even without its words. It works best with Smart Bidding, sound conversion tracking and enough conversions. Run it with negative keywords from day one, read the search terms every week, and compare what each match type pays for a conversion.
What broad match does
A broad match keyword reaches searches Google judges related to its meaning. garden furniture can show for 'teak outdoor table' or 'patio chairs'. It can also show for 'garden furniture repair'.
Google decides with signals such as your landing page and the other keywords in the ad group. You only see the result in the search terms report.
When broad match pays
- With Smart Bidding. The bidding sets each auction's bid by how likely it is to convert. With manual bids, every loose match costs full price.
- With conversions you trust. Broad match learns from what the account counts. Double counting teaches it the wrong lessons.
- With enough volume. An account with a few conversions a month gives the bidding little to learn from.
Where AI Max comes in
AI Max for Search campaigns takes the same idea further. It matches beyond your keywords, writes ad text and can send people to other pages of your site. Since September 2026 Google upgrades campaigns that used the campaign-level broad match setting or automatically created assets to AI Max by itself.
So open each Search campaign's settings: a campaign built as broad match with tight negatives may now run with AI Max on. Your negatives still apply, and the search terms report still shows what it bought.
Negatives are your only veto
Broad match decides what a keyword means. Negative keywords are the one place the account can disagree. A broad match campaign with no negatives has given that up.
Start with words that are never what you sell. Then read the search terms every week for the first month, and add what does not fit.
Compare match types inside the account
Do not compare with an outside benchmark. Compare what broad, phrase and exact pay for a conversion in your own account, for the same kind of search. If broad pays much more for the same intent, the extra reach costs more than it brings.
What Optizads checks
The audit flags broad match running with no negative keywords at all. It compares what each match type pays for a conversion inside the account. It also shows the share of spend on searches Google matched on its own: not waste in itself, but one percentage to watch month to month.