“Technically” you might not need to have dedicated singular and plural BMM keywords to cover the search term(s) that you want to target.

That being said, I do recommend having both singulars and plurals in the ad group to help with analysis and spot QS, CTR and Conversion trends. Google AdWords typically does a good job of assigning clicks and impressions from the singular or plural matched search query version to the corresponding keyword if you have both versions in the ad group and set to the same/similar bid level.

Also, I have seen plural and singular BMM versions in ad groups where one has been deactivated due to the “Low Search Volume” status/filter for longer-tail keywords. So if you only have one version in the AG, and it gets deactivated, you will not be showing up for any of those searches.

As to Quality Score for competing/duplicate keywords, I do not believe that this is the case, and have never seen any evidence that this happens for singular and/or plural versions.

One final note on Quality Score for individual keywords; QS is factored in a few different ways in regards to exact, broad, phrase and BMM keywords and text ads and that the “Visible Quality Score” that is shown in your AdWords account, is not a direct representation of an individual BMM keyword’s matched search query and it’s true QS. The simplest way to put it is that true quality score is not accurately shown in AdWords, but what is shown is only a vague/related number, barely close enough to make optimization adjustments based on. To find out more about this, I recommend that you read Craig Danuloff’s “Quality Score in High Resolution” book (http://www.highresolutionppc.com/). He has done a through job of researching Quality Score and it truly the expert in this.

So to summarize, I would have both ‘+injury +lawyer’ and ‘+injury +lawyers’ keyword versions in the same ad group.

Great post, enjoyed it, shed some light on this sometimes confusing topic!

I’d like to know your perspective of singular and plural forms of a (modified) broad keyword.
For example, if my target is ‘injury lawyer chicago’ would you recommend to add both ‘+injury +lawyer +chicago’ and ‘+injury +lawyers +chicago’ ?

I mean, technically it shouldn’t be necessary because BMM will account for plurals too, right?

But how about the Quality Score and CPC aspect? I believed that if your keyword matches the search query exactly, you get a higher Quality Score and pay a lower CPC? If this is the case then you do want both forms in your list right? (because the client will pay less money for clicks).

However, I believe Google considers these 2 keywords to be duplicates. Would these keywords compete against each other? Is having both keywords active bad for the account from a Quality Score perspective?

Could you share some of your best practices and experiences about this?

The use of BMM in the manner that you want will not work as you cannot use the [] symbols to control your matching options. Google AdWords only recognizes the use of [] for whole exact match keywords and not parts of keywords.

For this situation, you are best off Phrase Matching the company name “a & x” so that it has to be included in the search query. Doing so will match A & X supplies, A & X company, A & X Minneapolis and any other version that contains A & X.

Using the broad modifier but between [ ] works?

I mean, I have a four word keyword like A & X supplies, so +[a & x] +supplies.

This way the name of the company A & X should be always considered together.

Nice analysis on modified broad match, which I’ve found to be particularly rare. I recently did some similar analysis, and like yourself, found that modified broad match tended to deliver promising results. From the 3 AdWords accounts I tested, modified broad match keywords tended to exhibit higher CTRs than keywords without broad match modification:

http://www.calculatemarketing.com/blog/techniques/modified-broad-match-adwords-analysis/

I also found CPCs were typically lower for broad match modified keywords, although Quality Scores were relatively indifferent. Longer keywords, especially those with more plus signs, also tended to perform better than shorter variations.

Guess it’s still early days, but glad to see both of us are getting positive results.

Cheers,
Alan

I appreciate your help!

Thanks,
Ahmed

If I correctly understand what you mean, then this could affect content network campaigns. Since modified broad match has to do with keyword control and match types, this can affect the actual keywords that Google needs to match in order to trigger your content ads. I’ll know more once I examine a few more display network campaigns.

Thanks for a very good summary.. I just have one question which is the effect of BMM keywords on content campaigns running with contextual targeting (not managed placements) so will the new match type affect the Google robots searching for the relevant websites?

Thanks,
Ahmed

It currently depends on what country your AdWords account is set-up for. So if your account is set-up in the United Kingdom, then you already have access to this. If your account is set-up in the US and you just want to target the UK, then this will not be active for you yet.

Also, I am not sure if you have to be physically located in the UK or if your payment option just has to be British Pounds, but having both would be good:)