Advertisers BEWARE - your phrase match and exact match keywords can trigger from entirely different terms

Hello Darin,

I have actually spent many hours adding negative keywords to clean up this mess. I'd like to pose another specific instance to you that I feel is deeply troubling. Our exact match branded keywords are also triggering "similar keywords". My understanding of exact match is that it is an EXACT MATCH and may substitute plurals or misspellings. But to specifically swap for a similar keyword for a branded term defeats the purpose of exact match and creates a mess where there shouldn't be one. I'm attaching a screenshot. 

Now you can check with your technical team and I'm sure come back to me and say the same thing, that the system is meant to do that. But I am looking for some acknowledgement that this system is flawed and is not serving your customers well. Ok sure, phrase match terms can trigger similar keywords, but exact match?? What benefit is there to have it work this way. Broad match is the way people mine for similar keywords. I don't want them ever showing up for exact match.

You can go ahead and say "oh it's only 10 clicks" etc, but this issue encompasses in it's entirety hundreds of dollars of wasted spend on my account. There are many many keywords this is happening on, and some with a CPC that is $2.00+  it doesn't take much for this to add up. 

I'm not done with this issue and will continue to bring it up with my Bing rep. IT NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Hello HeatherPaske,

This same algorithm is applied to both phrase and exact match types. It's called "enhanced exact" and "enhanced phrase" matching, this is why you're seeing the word "American" being very closely associated with "USA". Once again, the matching happens under very specific scenarios, however if you're seeing unwanted search terms delivering your ad(s), the best option is to add negative keywords.

Thank you for choosing Bing Ads!

Darin P.

Bing Ads Support

Just to provide an update here for other advertisers learning about this - I've been officially told THIS IS THE INTENDED functionality for Bing and that I just need to add negative keywords. I find this to be a very bad choice for Bing, it almost seems like a very misguided way to try to differentiate themselves from AdWords at their customers' expense (and their profit).

The worst case I found of it was close variation terms being used for branded keywords that were exact match only. So my brand term is [usa military medals] and I'm seeing impressions and clicks for the query american military medals. Bing is automatically un-branding my terms for me. 

That seems absolutely ridiculous. Any advertiser can easily set up broad match or broad match modifier keywords on their account if their aim is to trigger synonyms or similar terms for further refining. When you apply this same logic to phrase and exact you are leaving customers with no options to finely tune their keywords FROM THE START. Instead what happens is customers WASTE MONEY for clicks that they did not want. They have to wait for those waste clicks to come through and THEN apply negative keywords post wasted spend. What a way to inspire confidence in your service. 

For reference this is what AdWords says about close variations and what I had believed was also Bing's policy as it seems much more efficient and logical: 

"So that you don't miss out on potential customers, we'll show your ads for close variations of your phrase and exact match keywords to maximize the potential for your ads to show on relevant searches. Close variations include misspellings, singular forms, plural forms, acronyms, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), abbreviations, and accents. So there's no need to separately add close variations as keywords.

For example, if your phrase match keyword is "kid's scooter," you'd still want to show your ad when someone searches for "kids scooter" or "kid scooters."

Keep in mind that even though we show close variations of your phrase and exact match keywords, these match types still give you more control than broad match. That's because broad match keywords also show for synonyms and related searches, which aren't considered close variations."https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en

Darin,

I have contacted support and this is the information I was given - that close variations are not just grammatical, but can be "similar keywords" even for phrase and exact match. I was very surprised to learn this, and was directed to leave feedback and suggestions. It seems contradictory to the information in the documentation which only accounts for grammatical similarities, and also to the very concept of choosing specific phrases and exact match keywords. 

It seems that a broad match modifier would be more effective than phrase and exact. The point of using phrase and exact is to be very specific and not have to dig into an exhaustive list of negative keywords. I'm really hoping an expert can clarify for me if support is wrong and there is a technical issue, or if this is actually how it is supposed to function. If it is really supposed to be this way I'm going to be considering shaving down our advertising budget on Bing quite a bit.

Great, thank you for that service request HeatherPaske!

I sent this issue up to our technical support team to look into this. I will follow up with you via email through this service request the moment I'm given a response.

Thank you for choosing Bing Ads!

Darin P.

Bing Ads Support