Coming to an AdWords account near you soon is Google’s latest matching option: automatic matching.

Currently in beta, automatic matching will allow Google (with your ‘permission’) to show your ads on the Google network for any search queries it believes to be relevant but that aren’t already being captured with your current keywords.

It works like this: first, Google analyses your keywords and performance data in your AdWords campaign plus the content of your landing pages. It then decides when, and if, to show your ads for search queries it believes to be relevant but that would otherwise not trigger your ads.

Google claims that automatic matching will only show your ads for queries that are likely to have a high Click-Through Rate (CTR). Importantly they also reckon it’ll only match where you can get a Cost Per Click (CPC) that is similar to, or less than. the average CPC of your ad group. Also any ad impressions accrued through automatic matching will not affect your AdWords quality score which is good news for your ad rankings.

Automatic matching won’t kick in if you have all of your keywords covered nor will it if you always spend to your maximum daily budget. This is because it makes use of any underspend you have: for example if your daily budget is £100 and your average daily spend is £80, automatic matching may start to spend some of that remaining £20 for you. Because it only works on campaigns that have sufficient underspend, it won’t take budget away from your campaign keywords and negatively impact your current traffic levels.

Clearly, automatic matching is Google getting ticks in two boxes:

• A greater pool of related ads to draw from in response to search queries and…
• more revenue for Google as it mops up budget from all those underspent accounts!

Not unreasonable. Google is a business after all. But is automatic matching a good thing for advertisers? Possibly, if it does what it says on the tin – more traffic within your existing budget – then it’s just one more tool in the paid search arsenal. It may even uncover some over-looked keyword ideas that turn out to be winners. Just keep a close eye on their PPC performance and on their conversion performance.

It’s unclear if automatic matching is to be opt-in or opt-out in the final release. I would be concerned if it ended up being opt-out: even though those in the know could make an informed decision whether to use it and keep tabs on its performance, it will catch out the unwary who will burn their underspend without their explicit agreement to do so. Come on Google, go for opt-in!

Hopefully I’ll get beta access to automatic matching soon so I’ll have a chance to take it for a spin and report back.