Overview

Amazon has refreshed its guidance on keyword match types—broad, phrase, and exact—for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns. The match type you assign determines how tightly a shopper’s search query must align with your keyword before an ad is eligible to show. Understanding these mechanics is essential for sellers who want to balance reach, relevance, and ad spend efficiency.

Key Points

• Broad Match expands visibility — By allowing synonyms, plural forms, and related terms, a broad‑match keyword such as “organic coffee beans” can also trigger ads for searches like “fair‑trade coffee” or “coffee beans bulk,” helping new products get discovered.
• Phrase Match preserves order — When you use phrase match on “wireless mouse,” the ad will appear for queries that contain that exact phrase in the same sequence, such as “wireless mouse for laptop,” while still permitting additional words before or after.
• Exact Match delivers precision — An exact‑match keyword like “stainless steel water bottle” only serves ads when the shopper’s query matches that phrase or a very close variation (e.g., “stainless steel water bottles” or a minor typo), resulting in higher click‑through rates.
• Negative keywords block waste — Adding a negative term such as “free” to a campaign prevents ads from showing on searches like “free wireless mouse,” protecting your budget from non‑converting traffic.
• Match‑type waterfall drives data‑backed scaling — Starting with broad match to collect search‑term data, then promoting high‑performing terms to phrase and finally to exact match, creates a systematic path from discovery to conversion‑focused bidding.

How Keyword Match Types Work

1. Select a match type for each keyword — In the campaign UI, you choose broad, phrase, or exact; for example, setting “yoga mat” to broad match will let the ad appear for “non‑slip yoga mat” and “fitness mat.”
2. Amazon expands or restricts the query pool — With broad match, Amazon’s algorithm adds synonyms and related concepts; with phrase match, it keeps the word order intact; with exact match, it limits exposure to the exact phrase or minor variations.