Session-Based Broad Match: Friend or Foe?

Earlier this year, Google AdWords launched a variation of their age-old broad match type called “session-based broad match.” Although this addition was incorporated into AdWords with very little fanfare, it has recently started to make more enemies than friends due to the apparent irrelevancy of advertisers' ads to user queries.

In theory, session-based broad matching sounds like a decent idea. Google’s system considers all of a user’s searches within a single search session to better understand user intent and delivers the most relevant ads possible. Here’s how it works: a user searches for a term that triggers your ad. The user then searches for another term in the same search session. Google evaluates this new query and generates similar terms for that search. If Google deems that any of these “similar terms” are relevant to any of the broad match keywords in your account, your ad will be shown again for keywords that are not in your campaign.

In practice, however, session-based broad match appears to create more problems than it solves. First and foremost, many advertisers are concerned about the reliability of this system, and many advertisers report seeing their ads on extremely irrelevant search queries. A high degree of search query irrelevancy could lead to low CTR and an even lower conversion rate, as users clicking on an ad that was served based on session-based broad match are often the least likely visitors to convert.

Secondly, thus far Google has not offered any way to turn off or otherwise control the session-based broad match feature. If you are bidding on broad match keywords, you are eligible to receive session-based broad match clicks. Therefore, it is extremely important to make search query reports an integral part of campaign management. By reviewing these on a regular basis, you can identify where your ads are being served based on session-based broad match, and you can then negative match accordingly.

The good news is that Google apparently had enough wherewithal to realize the potential for ads to, at least occasionally, appear for irrelevant searches, so session-based broad matching has no bearing on a keyword’s quality score. In addition, some advertisers have found that session-based broad match provides an opportunity to broaden the reach of their search campaigns. So love it or hate it, session-based broad match is here to stay; learning to work with it is essential for successful AdWords campaigns.