Module 3 · Lesson 3
Keyword Targeting & Match Types
What you’ll learn
- Exact, phrase and broad match — what each really captures
- Why Walmart’s matching is stricter than Amazon or Google
- How to research keywords with Walmart’s Keyword Planner
- How to cut wasted spend on irrelevant terms
Manual campaigns give you three match types to control how loosely or tightly a keyword catches shopper searches. Choosing the right one per keyword is the difference between precise, profitable spend and money leaking into irrelevant clicks.
The three match types
Exact
Matches your keyword in the exact order, with almost nothing extra. “women swimming dress” catches that phrase. Tightest control, highest intent, your graduated winners live here.
Phrase
Matches your phrase with words added before or after. “best women swimming dress” qualifies. A middle ground of reach and relevance.
Broad
Matches related terms in any order, including synonyms. “swimming costume for women” can match. Widest reach, most discovery, loosest control.
A useful mental model: broad to discover, exact to scale. Broad and phrase find new terms; exact locks down the ones that convert.
Walmart matching is stricter than you expect
Coming from Amazon or Google? Walmart’s match types are tighter. The platform heavily favours listings that actually contain the exact phrase in their content — so your listing copy directly affects what you can match. One convenience: Walmart auto-extends singular to plural (bidding “tennis shoe” also serves “tennis shoes”).
Researching keywords the Walmart way
Walmart’s built-in Keyword Planner (and suggested-keyword tools) reads a rolling 120-day window and scores terms on two axes worth understanding:
- Item Keyword Frequency — your relevance: how often your product already shows up for that term.
- Traffic Keyword Frequency — demand: how much shoppers actually search that term.
Reading the two together
- High relevance + high demand — your best opportunities. Target these aggressively.
- Low relevance + high demand — tempting, but fix your listing first, or you’ll pay for clicks that don’t convert.
- High relevance + low demand — cheap, easy wins worth holding, just limited in volume.
Keyword intent skews differently on Walmart
Walmart shoppers lean toward known national brands and value-seeking. Generic “best [category]” searches often behave differently here than on Amazon — don’t just paste your Amazon keyword list across.
Cutting wasted spend
Not every matched search deserves your money. To trim the losers:
- Use negative keywords where available in your Ad Center to exclude clearly irrelevant terms.
- Where negatives are limited, lower the bid on poor terms until they stop winning — the practical equivalent of switching them off.
- Tighten loose broad/phrase keywords toward exact once you know what actually converts.
Walmart has been expanding these controls, so check exactly what’s available in your account rather than assuming — the levers evolve.
Quick recap
- Exact, phrase and broad control how tightly a keyword matches — broad to discover, exact to scale.
- Walmart matching is stricter than Amazon and rewards exact phrases present in your listing.
- The Keyword Planner scores relevance (Item Keyword Frequency) vs demand (Traffic Keyword Frequency).
- Chase high-relevance/high-demand terms; fix listings before chasing low-relevance ones.