If you’ve ever run an Google Ads campaign you probably already know that Google will show your ad for related keyphrases that are close to your selected keywords. That can be problematic if you don’t pay attention.
It’s part of ongoing work to eliminate keywords or keyphrases that aren’t good for your bottom line.
It looks as if Google is looking to expand these possibilities for adding keywords to show your ad for even more, though.
They’ve been integrating a new feature for some Google Ads campaigns as a test the past few months, expanding it even more recently.
The idea is that any ‘extra’ room in your daily budget could be applied to clicks for these ‘Automatic Matches’ that Google makes on your behalf.
Since Google has been doing this kind of matching for some time, it seems that this new feature in paid search would expand the matching potential even more.
Right now it is set so that you have to actually opt-in to have this matching done in your Google Ads campaign. However, from experience, it would be best to keep track of it in your dashboard.
You never know if they’ll set it to automatically be ‘On’ for all users. Especially once this becomes a standard feature for all search advertising accounts on Google.
I will not be using it as it relinquishes control over keywords, giving Google’s computers a lot of leeway on how my clients’ money is spent. I prefer to know where the budget is going and why.
Leaving this ‘feature’ running could be like turning on the faucet in the bathtub and then leaving for a vacation. You might come back to a mess when you return.