Why Does Google Ads Constantly Want Broad Match?
Charge for those impressions.
If you’ve run Google Ads lately, you’ve seen the push:
“Try broad match!”
“It works better with Smart Bidding!”
“Reach more potential customers!”
Translation: spend more money on less relevant clicks.
Google wants you using broad match because it gives them more control—and gives you more noise.
You're being nudged into inefficiency.
Broad match isn’t targeting—it’s a traffic faucet. Your ads show up for all kinds of barely-related searches, and you pay for every curious click.
Sure, you’ll get impressions. But most of them won’t convert. You’re not scaling—you’re spraying.
Meanwhile, your budget burns faster than your sales team can say, “Why is this lead asking about landscaping?”
Google makes more money when you spend stupidly.
Let’s be blunt. Broad match means:
More impressions (which looks good in reports)
More irrelevant clicks (which costs you)
Less precision (which helps Google, not you)
Their Smart Bidding algorithms are smart—at spending your money. Not necessarily at qualifying leads.
Google doesn’t care if that click turned into revenue. They care if it clicked. That’s how they get paid.
Take back control.
Use exact and phrase match where intent matters.
Build tight ad groups with clear keyword themes.
Layer in audience targeting to filter the junk.
Review search terms daily and add negative keywords aggressively.
If you must test broad match, do it in isolated campaigns with strict guardrails. Otherwise, it’ll bleed into everything.
Google’s advice is optimized for Google. Not for you.
Use the match types that match your goals—not theirs.
