Unlike Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing only has two match types available for advertisers to choose from. You have an advanced match type option and a standard match type option. That’s it.
The advanced match type is a bit of a misnomer. It’s the default, which means it isn’t all that advanced. And it is the equal to Google AdWords’ broad match. That is, it matches search queries for broad search terms, which might capture more traffic, but some of that traffic might be irrelevant. For example,
“felt hat” might match results for “felt cowboy hat”, “felt fedora hat”, or “felt pillbox hat.” None of that will target your specific target market if you are trying to reach people interested in felt bowler hats.
When you use the advanced match type on Yahoo! you have to give it some excluded keywords to narrow your matches a little more. So you might exclude the keywords “cowboy”, “fedora”, and “pillbox” so that people interested in those hats don’t see your ad advertising bowlers.
The standard match type narrows your match types to the exact phrase that someone is searching for. So you would include “felt bowler hat” and people who use that exact phrase will see your ad. People who don’t use that phrase won’t see your ad. Note that this match includes both plural and singular so if you do use “felt bowler hat” then it will match the singular “hat” and the plural “hats.”
