Question

Is it correct to have adgroups for a singular & plural exact match keyword? My campaign is setup with SKAG but i noticed today that one of my ads was showing for the wrong search. For example a search for [running shoe] showed an advert from my [running shoes] campaign. I thought i had the exact match as a negative in each campaign to stop this happening but form some reason one of them is now missing and when i try to add it again it says i cannot negative a keyword i am targeting, even though i'm not targeting it in this adgroup. Has google changed something? Thanks!  

Answer 1

Exact match changed ages ago, I think in 2018. Everything is now "close variations of" BMM changed in September 2019 ish if I remember correctly

Comments

@killer4150 ✔️ This

Answer 2

Exact match will pick up that word/phrase as well as the plural versions of it. There isn't anything that you can do to stop it unless you have a phrase that excludes it like [restaurant marketing agency] vs. [restaurants near me]. If you exclude that group, then the other should still appear.