Of course he and many others can advertise on Google without understanding match types. The point of the service provided by Google is that it's on the whole, significantly easier than "traditional" ad buying. Regardless of the repercussions, AdSense let him buy ads without that understanding.
With this kind of fervor, I have to presume you're either genuinely very, very bad at providing people with advice or, what I presume to be the case, angry or pessimistic about something else entirely.
Frankly I think you owe the comment an apology for your tone regardless of the validity of your opinion on what training ought to be necessary before using a particular web app.
What the hell gave you that impression?
He does not owe any appologies. He is completely right. How to have a discussion where one side doesn't know anything but pretends that it does and lectures the side that actually knows?
Being able to google every problem programmers face has given them the false sense that everything is very easy. You just need to read a couple of articles on the front page of google and you're done.
(Edit: Your post has me confused because you start off talking about tone and than you fail to take your own advice about reasonable discourse.)
Your assumptions however are way off...I would never criticize someone for something remotely excusable, but advertising on Google without taking 2 minutes or less to learn something as fundamental as match types is about as reckless as buying a rolex on the streets from a guy on a manhattan street corner and than feeling ripped off...Some things, like match types, fit into the category of reckless despite how easy you want to think running Adwords is.
My frustration is that so many people waste so much money on digital advertising because "they think they can do it themselves."
This specific guy was sharing advice warning people about adwords wasting his money. Adwords didnt waste him a penny, his unwillingness to do less than 2 minutes of preperation or asking a pro led to that...
Even with over a decade experience, I still learn new things about Adwords almost daily...The idea that people think that its simple and they can run it themselves is frustrating, but to not even know about match types, I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or laziness.
Adwords is an auction. When my competitors choose to waste money, My costs get driven up. It hurts everyone but Google...so take the 2 seconds to read up on how to do it or dont complain and tell the world it doesnt work.
Or ask me, Im happy to help with basic strategy for free, its in my best interest for my competitors to run advertising that is accountable to a bottom line and thay doesnt compete in irrelevant query auctions.
You're not very nice, calling me arrogant and/or lazy.
It was simply a false assumption that the matching would be strict by default. And possibly a mistake that a lot of people are making, considering all the companies that are advertising for themselves.
You might be right about other companies making those same assumptions...I would love to understand more about their thought process. When you started with adwords, did you consider hiring a pro or run a few searches for beginner tips or did you just follow the onboarding to get started? I am not asking to prove a point, I am asking to get an idea about what a newbie might assume when getting started with Adwords.
I would never try to fix my cars engine on my own, nor would I fix my sewer line. I would probably atleast watch a youtube video before changing my oil...I genuinely want to understand what people think when they assume they can run adwords on their own without researching how to do it effectively?
It was not clear in your previous comment that "very closely related variant matching" included as well not so closely related variants like synonyms and related searches, given that you said it meant "plural to singular."
> Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned if you don't specify another match type (exact match, phrase match, or negative match). The Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on relevant variations of your keywords, including synonyms, singular and plural forms, possible misspellings, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), related searches, and other relevant variations. To help deliver relevant matches, this match type may also take the customer's recent search activities into account.(https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497828)
Edit: The critique above may not be fair because your point seems to be that "broad match" is not the default setting (so you really think that the default shows only very closely related variants and not synonyms or related searches). However, if this is what you really meant then you seem to be wrong.
That is not true except with broad match. you are confusing broad match with close variant matching. close Variant matching on phrase and exact match only triggers really close variants, like I indicated. There are also adwords scripts that give you even more control http://www.brainlabsdigital.com/adwords-scripts-reversing-th...
As far as broad match being default. I suppose you are technically right... However, anyone that gives control to Google about how they spend your money is begging to lose money.
Never ever ever use the default settings of an ad platform...it's basically inviting them to take all your money without showing results.
Probably it's good advice to never used the default settings. And maybe it's ok to ignore what is the default. But I find really amusing that you, an expert with over a decade of experience, is telling people that they "shouldn't be spending money on search advertising without taking the 2 minutes to understand match types" (implying that it was his fault and not Google's because "if you run broad match keywords and dont use negatives, you run the risk of wasting lots of money...but it's hardly a default setting") while stating as a fact that the default is something different from what it actually is.
Broad match is really not a default in the traditional sense...it is a default if you are too lazy/arrogant/dumb to understand how Google serves ads in the most basic way before flipping the switch on.
If you are too lazy to google Adwords Beginner or read Googles getting started documentation, you only have yourself to blame. Understanding match types is absolute fundamentals day one stuff.
Yes, if you want to be completely blind, you get backed into a default, but you only have yourself to blame if that happens...it is so fundamental and easy to discover that I just cant reconcile a rational scenario with not knowing enough to not end up defaulting to broad match with no idea that there is even a thing called match types.
Edit: just to add to this, I was being literal when I mentioned 2 minutes...it literally does not take more than 2 minutes to learn how Google matches ads to queries...
Edit2: I realize I am being a little defensive and unforgiving. The truth is, I can see plenty of people making this mistake...just assuming that its super easy to advertise...I guess I get a little emotional because its such a easy thing to learn. Its like my mom asking me a technical question that I simply Google and tell her the answer...she could have easily googled it herself :) understandable but frustrating!