Keyword match types control which customer searches your Amazon ads are eligible to appear on. Get them wrong and you are either missing buyers you should be reaching, or spending budget on searches that will never convert. Get them right and match types become one of the cleanest levers in your entire PPC setup.
This guide covers exactly what each match type does, the tradeoffs between them, and how to use all three together without letting any of them drain your budget.
The three match types
Amazon Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands both support three keyword match types: exact, phrase, and broad. Each one defines a different relationship between the keyword you bid on and the search query a customer actually types.
| Match type | Your keyword | Would show for | Would NOT show for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact | [cast iron skillet] | "cast iron skillet", "cast iron skillets" | "best cast iron skillet", "cast iron pan" |
| Phrase | "cast iron skillet" | "best cast iron skillet", "cast iron skillet 12 inch" | "cast iron pan", "skillet cast iron" |
| Broad | cast iron skillet | "cast iron skillet", "iron skillet", "cast skillet pan" | Unpredictable. See below. |
Exact match
Exact match is the tightest of the three. Your ad shows when someone's search query matches your keyword exactly, in the same word order, with no extra words inserted between them. Amazon does allow close variants of exact match keywords, so plurals, misspellings, and minor word order variations can still trigger your ad, but the search intent must be very close to your keyword.
What this means in practice: exact match gives you the most control over which searches you pay for. The tradeoff is reach. You will not show up for related searches unless you specifically bid on them.
When to use it: exact match is where you put your budget once you have already confirmed a keyword converts. It is not a discovery tool. If you have search term report data showing "ceramic nonstick pan 10 inch" consistently drives purchases at an ACoS you can live with, exact match on that term lets you bid aggressively on it without that budget going to adjacent searches you haven't vetted.
Think of exact match as your harvest layer. The work of finding which terms convert happens in broad and phrase campaigns. Exact match is where you capture the yield.
Phrase match
Phrase match requires your keyword to appear as an unbroken sequence within the customer's search query. Additional words can appear before or after the phrase, but the words in your keyword must stay in order and adjacent.
Example: if your phrase match keyword is "cast iron skillet," your ad can show for "best cast iron skillet for camping" or "10 inch cast iron skillet" but not for "cast skillet iron" (words out of order) or "cast iron pan" (different word).
Phrase match is useful when you know the intent behind a search but want to capture the range of ways people describe it. Someone searching for "12 inch cast iron skillet" and someone searching for "best cast iron skillet for beginners" have meaningfully different searches, but both contain your core phrase and both have related intent. Phrase match reaches both.
When to use it: phrase match works well for keywords where word order matters for intent but modifier words around the phrase are acceptable. It is a middle layer between broad's discovery and exact's precision.
Broad match
Broad match is the widest net. Amazon shows your ad when a search query contains all the words in your keyword in any order, including close synonyms and related terms. The exact set of queries broad match triggers can surprise you.
That surprise cuts both ways. Broad match surfaces search terms you would never have thought to bid on that turn out to convert well. It also generates a long tail of irrelevant queries that consume budget without producing sales. This is why broad match campaigns require active search term report management and a clear strategy for adding negative keywords. The wasted spend guide covers the pattern in detail: most Amazon ad waste flows directly from broad match campaigns that were never pruned.
When to use it: broad match is a discovery tool. Use it when you are launching a new product and do not yet know which specific terms buyers use to find it, or when you want to systematically expand your keyword list from real search data rather than guessing. Treat every broad match campaign as an ongoing research project, not a set-it-and-forget-it spend line.
How to use all three together
The most effective accounts use all three match types, but in a specific structure. The flow goes like this:
Run broad or phrase match campaigns to collect search term data. Review the search term report weekly. When you find queries that convert at an acceptable ACoS, add them as exact match keywords in a separate campaign with a higher bid. Add poorly performing queries as negative keywords to stop wasting budget on them. Repeat.
This structure gives you two separate things working at once: the broad/phrase layer keeps finding new buyers, and the exact layer captures the high-intent searches you have already validated. Over time, the exact match list grows into a highly tuned set of terms where you know the unit economics work. The discovery layer keeps feeding it.
Match types and campaign structure
A common mistake is mixing match types within the same campaign. When broad, phrase, and exact match keywords compete for budget inside the same campaign, you lose visibility into which match type is actually driving performance. The campaign structure guide covers this in depth, but the short version: keep match types in separate campaigns so you can bid and budget them independently.
Separating by match type also makes it much easier to apply rules. When exact match campaigns have predictable search coverage, you can set performance rules that react to their ACoS and spend patterns with confidence. A mixed-match campaign has too much variance to respond well to rule-based bidding.
The search term report is non-negotiable
Match types only work well if you are actively reviewing where your money is actually going. Amazon's search term report shows you the exact queries that triggered your ads and the performance data for each. For broad and phrase match campaigns, this report is the core of your management workflow.
The most common pattern in underperforming accounts: broad match keywords were added at launch, budgets ran out quickly, and nobody ever looked at where the spend went. Running the PPC audit checklist before adding any automation to your account includes a search term report review as one of its 10 points specifically because unreviewed broad match is one of the most reliable sources of preventable waste.
Negative keywords work alongside match types
Negative keywords are the other side of the match type equation. They tell Amazon which queries should never trigger your ads, regardless of what match type is running. Negative exact blocks a specific search term. Negative phrase blocks any query containing that phrase.
Broad match without negative keywords is like running water without a drain. The discovery value is real, but so is the waste. A well-managed broad match campaign is one where negative keywords are added continuously as the search term report reveals where spend is going that should not be going there.
Frequently asked questions
What are the three Amazon keyword match types? Amazon has three keyword match types for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands: exact match (ads show only when the search query matches your keyword exactly, in the same order), phrase match (ads show when the search contains your keyword as a contiguous phrase, with words allowed before or after), and broad match (ads show when all words in your keyword appear in any order, plus related terms and synonyms).
Which Amazon match type should I start with? Most sellers start with broad or phrase match to discover which search terms actually convert, then graduate their best performers to exact match campaigns. Exact match is where you put your budget once you know a keyword works. Starting with exact match is only sensible if you already have strong search term data from prior campaigns.
What is the difference between phrase match and exact match on Amazon? Exact match shows your ad only when someone searches your precise keyword in the same word order, with no extra words in between. Phrase match requires your keyword to appear as an unbroken phrase within the query, but allows additional words around it. Exact match gives you more control and typically a higher conversion rate. Phrase match gives you broader reach while still keeping the keyword in order.
How do negative keywords work with Amazon match types? Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing on searches you do not want to pay for. They work alongside match types, not instead of them. If you run a broad match keyword and your search term report shows irrelevant or low-converting queries, you add those as negative exact or negative phrase keywords. This lets you keep broad or phrase match for discovery while blocking the specific waste.
Once your keyword structure is clean and your exact match campaigns have predictable coverage, Off Hours performance rules give you a way to let bids and budgets adjust automatically based on the ACoS data those campaigns generate. Start a free 14-day trial.