Pet Supplies: when the data disagreed with exact match

The product was already number one in its niche, with advertising built mostly on broad match. The client asked for a move to exact match: a sensible request, and one that sounded safer on paper.

It is a reasonable request. Exact is more controllable, and control is usually what an account is missing.

What we expected

The product had been running long enough that the broad campaigns had accumulated real search-term data. Our assumption was that this was enough to move the main structures onto exact with high-frequency terms and keep performance.

What actually happened

In the very first stages of the migration it became clear that traffic on exact was considerably more expensive.

By the next stage, something less obvious emerged: efficiency was not merely failing to improve. Taking conversion and exact-match bid levels together, the account was heading for worse performance than it had on broad.

What we did about it

We reversed the migration back to broad structures and worked on negatives instead, tightening what broad was allowed to match rather than replacing the match type.

The reversal worked. Sales rose 97%, ACoS fell 15%, and profitability improved 13%.

The point of publishing this

There is genuine truth in the idea that exact structures are more controllable and often more efficient. It is repeated as a rule because it is usually right.

The useful part of this case is not that broad beat exact. It is that the team noticed early when a reasonable plan stopped being reasonable, said so, and reversed work the client had specifically requested.