If you run Google Ads for a real estate investing business, you already know how quickly a campaign can burn through money.
In a competitive market, a few clicks can cost more than $100. Generate five or ten of the wrong clicks and you’ve spent real money without getting any closer to a deal.
That’s why keyword targeting—and specifically broad match—deserves attention.
We analyzed more than $85,000 in Google Ads spend and 66,000+ search terms from a real estate investor campaign. One of the biggest things that stood out was how much of the spend associated with search terms we eventually wanted to exclude came through broad match.
But here’s where my view has changed since I first analyzed this data in 2025:
I don’t think broad match is automatically bad.
Google Ads has changed too much to make that blanket statement anymore.
Broad match combined with Smart Bidding, better conversion data, and Google’s newer AI-powered Search features can absolutely have a place in a real estate investor’s account.
The catch is that Google needs good information about what you’re actually trying to accomplish.
And for an investor, a “conversion” isn’t the end goal.
The goal is a qualified seller lead that has a realistic chance of turning into a deal.
That’s the lens I use when looking at broad match today.
What Is Broad Match in Google Ads?
Google Ads currently has three main keyword match types: broad match, phrase match, and exact match.
According to Google’s current keyword matching documentation, broad match allows your ads to appear for searches related to your keyword, including searches that don’t necessarily contain the same words.
Google can also consider signals such as:
- The user’s recent search activity
- Your landing page content
- Other keywords in the ad group
- Your ad assets
That last part is important because broad match today isn’t exactly the same product many of us learned to be suspicious of years ago.
Let’s say you’re bidding on:
sell my house fast
You obviously want searches such as:
- sell my house fast
- need to sell my house quickly
- cash buyer for my house
- sell house as is
- company that buys houses
Those searches may represent homeowners with exactly the kind of problem an investor can solve.
But there’s another side to it.
Google can determine that searches outside the keyword itself are related enough to enter an auction. Some will be great. Some will be questionable. And some can be completely wrong for your business.
That’s the tradeoff with broad match.
You’re giving Google more room to find demand.
More room can create more opportunity, but it can also create more waste.
For investors operating on a limited monthly PPC budget, that distinction matters.
If you want a broader look at how keywords, bidding, campaign structure, landing pages, and conversion tracking fit together, I’ve covered those pieces in my Google Ads for real estate investors guide.
What We Found Analyzing a Real Estate Investor Google Ads Campaign
Let’s get into the actual numbers.
I analyzed a real estate investor campaign in which 88.71% of the campaign’s keywords were broad match.
Across the dataset:
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Total Google Ads Spend | $85,828.81 |
| Broad Match Spend | $64,709.72 |
| Broad Match Conversions | 1,367 |
| Search Terms Analyzed | 66,641 |
| Search Terms Identified for Exclusion | 5,687 |
| Spend Associated With Excluded Search Terms | $17,896.55 |
| Broad Match Terms Identified for Exclusion | 5,020 |
| Spend Associated With Broad Match Exclusions | $12,005.52 |
Those numbers immediately got my attention.
Of the 66,641 search terms analyzed, 5,687 were ultimately identified for exclusion.
That’s about 8.53% of the search terms in the analysis.
More importantly, those excluded search terms accounted for $17,896.55 in spend.
That’s approximately 20.85% of the total spend analyzed.
Now, I want to make an important distinction here because it’s easy to take this data too far.
I previously referred to all of this as “wasted spend.”
Today, I’d be more precise.
It was spend associated with search terms that were later identified for exclusion.
Why does that distinction matter?
Because as investors, we ultimately care about deals.
If a search looks weird but somehow turns into a motivated seller, gets contracted and produces a profitable deal, I’m not going to call that click wasted.
The search term report tells us what somebody typed into Google. It doesn’t tell us the entire story of what happened to that lead afterward.
That’s why Google Ads data becomes much more valuable when we connect it to what happens in the CRM.
We’ll get to that.
Broad Match Accounted for $12,005.52 in Excluded Search-Term Spend
Here’s where broad match really stood out in the analysis.
Of the 5,687 search terms identified for exclusion:
5,020 were associated with broad match.
That means broad match accounted for approximately 88.27% of the terms identified for exclusion.
Those broad-match exclusions were associated with $12,005.52 in spend, representing approximately 67.08% of all spend associated with excluded terms in the analysis.
That’s significant.
But there’s another number we have to consider:
88.71% of the campaign’s keywords were broad match in the first place.
So I wouldn’t take this dataset and say:
Broad match causes 67% of Google Ads waste.
That’s not what the data proves.
What it does show is that this particular account gave Google a lot of targeting freedom, and a meaningful amount of money ended up going toward searches we ultimately didn’t want to continue paying for.
For an investor, that’s where I’d start asking questions.
Are we feeding Google the right conversion signals?
Are we reviewing search terms frequently enough?
Are our negatives keeping up with the traffic?
Is broad match finding incremental motivated sellers, or is it simply buying more traffic?
And most importantly:
Are the additional leads turning into real opportunities?
Broad Match vs. Phrase Match vs. Exact Match for Motivated Seller Leads
I don’t believe investors should build campaigns around the idea that one match type is always “best.”
Each gives us a different amount of reach and control.
| Match Type | What I Like About It | What I Watch Closely |
|---|---|---|
| Broad Match | Can uncover searches and seller intent we didn’t anticipate | Irrelevant traffic and lead quality |
| Phrase Match | Good balance between expansion and control | Can still match beyond the exact wording you expect |
| Exact Match | Useful for proven, high-intent keyword themes | Less opportunity for discovery |
| Negative Keywords | Helps prevent repeat spending on unwanted searches | Overdoing negatives can block legitimate sellers |
One thing worth understanding is that Google’s definition of match types has evolved.
Google explains in its keyword matching documentation that phrase match can reach the searches eligible under the equivalent exact match keyword plus additional searches, while broad match can reach those searches plus additional related queries.
So running broad, phrase and exact versions of every keyword isn’t necessarily the strategy it once was.
I still like control—especially when working with an investor who doesn’t have an unlimited budget—but I don’t want control simply for the sake of control.
I want profitable motivated-seller opportunities.
If broad match produces them at an acceptable cost, I’ll use broad.
If exact and phrase produce better leads, I’ll put more emphasis there.
The data should make that decision.
The Real Metric Isn’t Cost Per Click—or Even Cost Per Lead
This is one of the biggest mistakes I see when people evaluate PPC for real estate investors.
They stop at the lead.
Let’s say Campaign A generates seller leads for $100 each and Campaign B generates them for $150.
Which campaign is better?
At first glance, Campaign A.
But what if Campaign A produces 30 leads and only three are genuinely workable?
Meanwhile, Campaign B produces 20 leads and eight become qualified opportunities?
Now the economics look completely different.
That’s why I want to look farther down the funnel:
Search → Click → Lead → Qualified Lead → Appointment → Offer → Contract → Deal
Not every investor tracks every stage perfectly. That’s fine.
Start with what you can reliably measure.
But the closer you can get your Google Ads data to actual deal quality, the better decisions you can make.
This is also why broad match can be misleading when evaluated purely on Google’s front-end metrics.
It might generate more conversions.
Great.
What kind of conversions?
Was it a homeowner who inherited a house two states away and needs to sell?
A landlord who’s done dealing with tenants?
Someone with a vacant property that’s been sitting for a year?
A homeowner who needs retail price and isn’t actually interested in an investor offer?
Or someone looking for a real estate agent, an apartment, a job or the value of a house they have no intention of selling?
Those aren’t equal leads.
If you want to understand the seller side of this equation more deeply, I’ve also written about what motivated house sellers are and why they sell.
Broad Match Works Differently With Smart Bidding
This is where the 2026 conversation about broad match needs to be different from the conversation we were having several years ago.
Google specifically recommends pairing broad match with Smart Bidding.
In Google’s guide to broad match and Smart Bidding, Google explains that Smart Bidding sets bids at the individual-auction level based on how likely a query is to achieve the advertiser’s goal.
That’s an important difference.
We’re no longer simply telling Google:
Here’s a broad keyword. Show my ad for anything you think is related.
We’re potentially telling Google:
Here’s the universe of searches you can explore. Use the conversion information I’m giving you to determine which auctions are worth entering and how aggressively to bid.
That’s much more powerful.
But there’s a catch.
Google Will Optimize Toward What You Tell It Is Valuable
This is the part investors really need to understand.
If every form submission is treated as a valuable conversion, Google sees those conversions as the outcome we’re asking it to pursue.
Google doesn’t sit in your acquisitions meeting.
It doesn’t hear your acquisitions manager say:
“That lead wanted full retail.”
It doesn’t automatically know that another lead had no equity.
It doesn’t know a phone call was somebody trying to rent one of your properties unless you’re feeding meaningful downstream information back into the system.
It knows the conversion signals we provide.
That’s why I’d rather teach Google:
This became a qualified seller
than simply:
This person submitted a form.
And if we can reliably push measurement farther down the funnel, even better.
Why Offline Conversion Data Matters for Real Estate Investors
This is probably one of the biggest opportunities in PPC for serious real estate investors.
Google offers enhanced conversions for leads, which can use hashed first-party lead information alongside offline conversion data to improve attribution between an ad interaction and what happens after somebody becomes a lead.
Think about why that’s useful for our industry.
A motivated seller fills out your website form.
That conversion gets recorded.
Then your acquisitions team contacts the seller.
Maybe the seller becomes qualified.
Maybe an appointment gets set.
Maybe you make an offer.
Maybe the property goes under contract.
Those events happen after the Google Ads conversion.
If all Google ever receives is the initial lead, there’s a lot of valuable information missing.
The more accurately we can connect advertising to meaningful downstream outcomes, the better our ability to answer questions such as:
- Which campaigns generate qualified sellers?
- Which keywords generate appointments?
- Which search themes produce contracts?
- Which markets produce better lead quality?
- Are cheap leads actually helping us buy houses?
- Is broad match finding opportunities we wouldn’t have captured otherwise?
That’s the level I want an investor to get to.
Google has also changed parts of its enhanced-conversion and offline-conversion infrastructure in 2026, so if you’re already importing offline data, review Google’s current enhanced conversions update before assuming an older setup is still the right implementation.
Negative Keywords Still Matter—a Lot
AI hasn’t made negative keywords obsolete.
I still consider search-term reviews one of the most important parts of managing motivated-seller campaigns.
Google’s own documentation recommends using the Search terms report to see which searches triggered ads and using that information to refine keyword targeting.
For an investor campaign, I’m looking for searches where the underlying intent doesn’t match what we’re offering.
Depending on the business, that can include themes around:
- Real estate jobs and careers
- Licensing and education
- Rentals
- Agents and Realtors
- People trying to buy rather than sell
- Unrelated property services
- Research with no meaningful seller intent
- Searches outside the investor’s actual service
I intentionally don’t recommend taking somebody else’s 500-word negative keyword list and blindly uploading it.
That’s dangerous.
A keyword that is garbage for one investor can be useful for another.
Think about something as simple as inherited house.
For an investor targeting probate and inherited-property situations, that can be excellent intent.
For another campaign or ad group, the surrounding query could be purely informational.
Context matters.
I use negatives to stop paying repeatedly for patterns we’ve already determined aren’t valuable—not to make the campaign so restrictive that Google can’t find anybody new.
What About AI Max for Search Campaigns?
This is another reason I wouldn’t publish the old “broad match is bad” argument in 2026.
Google now has AI Max for Search campaigns.
According to Google’s AI Max documentation, AI Max is an optimization layer for Search campaigns. Its search-term matching can use broad match and keywordless technology to find additional relevant queries.
It can also use asset optimization features such as text customization and Final URL expansion.
In other words, Google Search is moving toward more automation and more interpretation of intent, not less.
That doesn’t mean I recommend turning every automation setting on and hoping for the best.
Quite the opposite.
For investors, I think automation makes good inputs, good tracking and good oversight more important.
If you want to test AI Max, Google also offers AI Max experiments, which gives advertisers a way to evaluate it rather than simply applying it blindly across an existing Search campaign.
That’s generally how I prefer to approach major changes anyway:
Test. Measure. Look at lead quality. Then decide.
When Would I Use Broad Match for a Real Estate Investor?
I’d be more comfortable expanding into broad match when I have several things working in my favor.
First, I want solid conversion tracking.
Second, I want enough meaningful conversion data for Smart Bidding to work with.
Third, I want a good negative-keyword foundation and an active search-term review process.
Fourth, I want landing pages and ad groups that clearly communicate the intent we’re after.
And finally, I want some way to evaluate lead quality beyond Google’s conversion count.
If those pieces are in place, broad match can be an interesting way to find additional motivated-seller demand.
When Would I Be More Conservative?
I’d generally want tighter control when:
- The budget is limited
- The account has very little conversion data
- Tracking isn’t trustworthy
- Search terms are consistently drifting into irrelevant intent
- Lead quality is poor
- The market has very expensive clicks
- The investor can’t absorb a learning period
- We’re entering a new market and don’t yet understand its search behavior
If you’re spending $3,000 a month, wasting $1,000 while Google “figures things out” feels very different than it does in a mature, high-volume account.
Real estate investing is a cash-flow business.
Marketing dollars aren’t theoretical.
That budget could be going toward direct mail, SEO, cold calling, another market, another acquisition channel—or simply staying in the bank until we can deploy it more effectively.
That’s why I don’t like one-size-fits-all PPC advice.
What I’d Do Differently With This Campaign Today
Looking back at this dataset, I would not simply take the $64,709.72 spent on broad match and move most of it to phrase and exact.
That was too simplistic.
Instead, I’d break performance down by search theme and downstream lead quality.
I’d want to know:
- Which broad-match search terms actually produced qualified sellers?
- Which resulted in appointments or offers?
- Which resulted in contracts?
- Which search themes repeatedly spent money without producing quality?
- Were there gaps in the negative-keyword strategy?
- Was Smart Bidding optimizing toward meaningful conversions or just lead volume?
- Were calls being evaluated alongside forms?
- Did certain markets perform differently?
- Did broad match uncover profitable searches that weren’t already in the account?
Only then would I decide where to pull back and where to expand.
That’s a much better use of the data than saying broad is bad and exact is good.
A Better Google Ads Strategy for Motivated Sellers in 2026
If I were building or restructuring an investor campaign today, I’d think about it in this order.
1. Start With Seller Intent
Don’t start with a giant keyword list.
Start with the homeowner.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Someone searching sell my house fast is telling us something very different from somebody searching what is my house worth.
Both searches involve selling real estate.
They don’t necessarily represent the same intent.
That’s why understanding motivated seller behavior is as important as knowing how to use Google Ads.
2. Build Around Proven Search Themes
Identify the searches and seller situations that make sense for the business.
Then organize campaigns and ad groups in a way that keeps the keyword, ad and landing-page message aligned.
That relevance matters not just for conversion rate but also for how Google evaluates the experience. I’ve covered that relationship in more detail in my guide to Google Ads Quality Score for real estate investors.
3. Use Match Types Based on Their Job
Exact and phrase can give us control around established search themes.
Broad can give us discovery.
Negative keywords give us another layer of control.
I don’t need every keyword to perform the same job.
4. Give Google Better Conversion Signals
Don’t optimize blindly toward every button click or low-quality form completion.
Determine which conversion actions actually represent business value.
Where possible, connect qualified lead and offline outcomes back to the campaigns producing them.
5. Watch the Actual Search Terms
Don’t assume because the campaign has conversions that the traffic is clean.
Review what people are actually searching.
That’s how this $85,000+ dataset revealed the issue in the first place.
6. Evaluate Lead Quality
Talk to acquisitions.
Look at the CRM.
Listen to calls.
Ask why leads are being marked dead.
Google Ads performance shouldn’t exist in a silo from the rest of the investing business.
7. Scale What Produces Opportunities
Once a campaign consistently produces qualified opportunities at economics that work for your business, then start thinking about additional reach.
That might mean broad match.
It might mean more budget.
It might mean another market.
But scaling should be based on evidence, not on a recommendation sitting inside the Google Ads interface.
If you’d rather have someone manage this process, you can learn more about my PPC management for real estate investors and how I approach campaign strategy, search terms, bidding, tracking and ongoing optimization.
So, Is Broad Match Wasting Your Google Ads Budget?
Maybe.
But broad match itself isn’t enough information to answer the question.
In the campaign analyzed here, $12,005.52 in spend was associated with broad-match search terms that were identified for exclusion.
That’s a meaningful amount of money.
It’s also why I still watch broad-match traffic closely.
But I wouldn’t use that finding to tell every investor to shut off broad match.
The better questions are:
What searches is broad match actually finding?
What are those searches costing?
What kind of sellers are they producing?
Are those sellers becoming qualified opportunities?
And are any of them turning into deals?
If broad match is producing a pile of cheap form fills that acquisitions can’t do anything with, I don’t care how good the Google Ads conversion column looks.
On the other hand, if it’s uncovering motivated sellers we weren’t reaching through our existing keywords and those leads are turning into opportunities at an acceptable cost, I’m not going to shut it off just because the keyword says “Broad.”
That’s the difference between managing Google Ads around platform metrics and managing it around an investing business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is broad match bad for real estate investors?
No. Broad match isn’t automatically good or bad. It gives Google more flexibility to find related searches, which can increase reach but can also expose the campaign to less relevant traffic. For investors, it should be evaluated based on search-term quality, qualified seller leads, cost per opportunity and ultimately deal economics.
Should real estate investors use phrase or exact match instead of broad match?
Phrase and exact match can provide more control and can be especially useful around proven high-intent seller searches. However, using them exclusively may reduce your ability to discover additional relevant demand. I prefer to let campaign data and lead quality determine the mix rather than choosing a match type based on a blanket rule.
Does broad match work with Smart Bidding?
Yes. In fact, Google recommends pairing broad match with Smart Bidding. Smart Bidding can evaluate auctions individually and adjust bids based on predicted conversion performance. The quality of the conversion goals you’re feeding the system is therefore extremely important.
What negative keywords should real estate investors use?
There isn’t one universal negative keyword list for every investor. Common areas worth reviewing include jobs, education, rentals, agent-related intent, buyers and unrelated property services. But negatives should be based on your actual business and search-term data. Adding somebody else’s list without reviewing it can accidentally block valuable seller traffic.
How often should I review my Google Ads search terms?
It depends on spend, traffic and account maturity. A new or high-spend campaign generally deserves closer attention because it can accumulate expensive search terms quickly. The important thing is having a consistent process for reviewing Google’s Search terms report and acting on patterns in the data.
What’s more important: cost per lead or lead quality?
For real estate investors, lead quality should always be considered alongside CPL. A $75 lead that never becomes a real opportunity can be more expensive than a $150 lead that has a realistic chance of becoming a contract. I want to know the cost of generating qualified opportunities, not just form submissions.
How do I know if Google Ads is actually working for my investing business?
Don’t judge the campaign by clicks and leads alone. Connect marketing data to your acquisition process as far as your tracking allows: qualified leads, appointments, offers, contracts and deals. Ultimately, Google Ads needs to contribute to profitable acquisitions, not just make the advertising dashboard look good.
Final Thoughts: Broad Match Isn’t the Strategy—It’s a Tool
The biggest thing I’d change about my original analysis is the conclusion.
I still believe the data uncovered a real problem.
We analyzed 66,641 search terms and more than $85,000 in spend, and $12,005.52 was associated with broad-match search terms that were ultimately identified for exclusion.
If that were my money, I’d want to know why.
But in 2026, I wouldn’t respond by automatically moving every dollar from broad match into phrase and exact match.
I’d dig deeper.
I’d look at the search terms. I’d look at the leads. I’d talk to acquisitions. I’d find out what became qualified, what got an appointment, what received an offer and—where we have enough data—what turned into a contract.
Then I’d use that information to make the campaign smarter.
That’s where Google Ads for real estate investors is headed.
More automation doesn’t mean less management. It means the quality of your data, strategy and decisions matters even more.
Broad match can waste money when it sends the campaign in the wrong direction.
It can also uncover motivated sellers you wouldn’t have reached otherwise.
Our job is to know the difference.