Google Ads to Phase Out Broad Match Modified Keywords
Google sent an announcement email out that they are going to be updating the behavior of phrase match and broad match modified (BMM) keywords in Google Ads. This new change, starting February 18, 2021, essentially makes BMM targeting redundant, and will push advertisers to use only phrase match instead. They expect that all advertisers will be switched over to this new system by July 2021, and while your BMM keywords will still work, anything new will have to be set up as phrase match.
From Google:
Starting on February 18th, phrase and BMM keywords will begin to match the same user searches. With this updated matching behavior, ads may show on searches that include the same or more specific meaning as your keyword. This can lead to an increase in traffic on any phrase match keywords and a slight decrease in traffic on any BMM keywords.
If you are a Crush Marketing client, this won’t affect you much as we preferred phrase match from the start, but good to note that your BMM keywords could start seeing less traffic soon!