Bing Ads Makes Close Variants On Exact Match Permanent In U.S.

That test didn’t last long. A month ago, Bing Ads announced that it would test close variants on exact match in the U.S. As of yesterday, the switch has been flipped and close variants on exact match keywords are here to stay.

Close variants include search queries that are close but not exact matches to the keyword such as misspellings, plurals, abbreviations and word blending. Here are specific examples from Bing:

Earlier this month, Bing rolled out close variants on broad match modifier keywords, also only in the U.S. While many advertisers likely assumed Bing Ads was already using close variants on broad match modifier keywords, last month’s move marked its first foray into using close variants on these two match types. It followed on Google’s controversial decision to remove any ability to opt out of close variants in AdWords.

Bing Ads is maintaining the choice to opt out of the close variants setting at the campaign level (Advanced Settings > Keyword Matching Options). Again, this only applies to U.S. advertisers, but I would expect close variants to extend to other markets in the near future.

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About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.