Amazon PPC Match Types: Broad, Phrase, Exact, and the 4th Type Amazon Hides

When you set up Amazon ads there are three match types Amazon tells you about and one it does not, and that hidden one is becoming the most important quickly. A match type is simply how Amazon treats the seed keyword you enter as a target. Getting them right lets you steer toward different goals: more revenue, more profit, higher organic rank, or new keyword discovery.

Which Ad Types Do Match Types Apply To on Amazon

Amazon has three major ad types, but match types only apply to two: Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. Both let you target keywords, categories, or products. Sponsored Display is the exception, because it does not target keywords at all, only categories, products, audiences, or remarketing. So whenever we talk about match types, we mean Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands.

To find them, click Sponsored Products, add your product, go to targeting, click manual targeting, then keyword targeting. You will see broad, phrase, and exact, plus the fourth that does not appear as an option.

The Amazon PPC Match Types

Exact Match

Exact match means your ad shows only when someone searches that exact term. Amazon has no leeway to show you for anything else. You can still put multiple exact keywords in one campaign, for example wooden phone holder, travel phone holder, and phone holder, and Amazon will show you only for those exact terms.

One caveat: in 2024 and 2025, Amazon stopped making exact match truly exact. It will mostly show you for your term, but it now gives itself some leeway to swap words, so an exact target of “wooden phone holder” might still show for “wooden phone stand.”

When to use it:

1. The keyword is already proven profitable. If you found a term through an auto-targeting campaign and its search-term report shows high conversion, low ACoS, and profitable sales, move it into an exact match campaign (or a campaign where you keep adding your best-performing exact terms).
2. It is a keyword you must rank for. For a top term that is highly relevant, high traffic, high converting, and earns a strong click-through rate, build a single-keyword exact match campaign so you can fine-tune and control that one keyword for organic rank.

On a single-keyword exact match campaign, the most important control is your bid adjusters, which change your bid by placement. To rank aggressively, raise your top-of-search adjuster, since top of search has the highest click-through and conversion rates and drives rank the most, but it is also the most expensive. If it is too expensive for that keyword, raise the adjuster on a cheaper placement like rest of search or product pages instead.

Phrase Match

Phrase match shows your ad for any search that includes your keyword in that order. If you target “phone holder,” Amazon can show you for wooden phone holder, phone holder for travel, or kids phone holder.

This is actually the least popular and least important match type, because broad match and the broad match modifier are more powerful. Its main use is discovery: if you know a root term is good, phrase match can surface longer-tail keywords built on it. But as you will see, the broad match modifier does this better.

Broad Match

Broad match is the loosest match type. Target “phone holder” and Amazon may show you for “phone holder” but also for “iPhone stand,” even though that phrase shares no words with your keyword, because Amazon treats it as related. You supply a seed keyword and give Amazon wide leeway to test equivalent terms. It sits somewhere between keyword targeting and auto-targeting.

Use broad match to discover new terms in a more controlled way than auto-targeting, by seeding it with words or root keywords you already know matter for your niche. When you download your reports, you see the actual search terms Amazon matched you to, not just your seed.

Here is the part that surprises people: broad match sometimes outperforms exact match on the very same term. For one of our partners at Sophie Society, the term “pancake batter dispenser” ran a 56% ACoS on exact match but a 20% ACoS on broad match. The reason is that platforms across the board, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, and Google, are moving toward AI-based targeting, and broad match gives Amazon’s algorithm more buffer to show your ad when it is likely to perform best. It feels like taking your hand off the wheel, but it can work better.

The 4th Match Type: Broad Match Modifier

To access the hidden match type, select broad match, then use a plus sign before a word when you enter your terms. The plus sign forces Amazon to include that word:

• +phone holder: Amazon must include “phone” but can be flexible on “holder,” so it might show you for phone holder, phone stand, or phone prop.
• +phone +holder: Amazon must include both words, but they can appear in any order and do not have to be next to each other (for example, “holder for phone for kids”).

This matters when you know something about your product that Amazon does not yet, like a specific audience or avatar. If moms are a key buyer, you can add “+mom” or “+women” to make sure those terms show up. Because the modifier gives you this control while still letting Amazon find new terms, phrase match becomes much less necessary.

A quick setup note: In the video I demonstrate the plus-sign modifier inside the Sponsored Products setup. Amazon moves features around and adjusts how match types behave over time, so before you build, confirm in your own campaign where the plus-sign modifier lives and how broad match is behaving. The strategy holds either way: use broad match to give Amazon controlled leeway while seeding the words you know matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• Match types apply only to Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, not Sponsored Display
• Exact match is no longer perfectly exact; use it for proven-profitable terms and single-keyword ranking campaigns
• Phrase match is the least important type now that the broad match modifier exists
• Broad match can beat exact match on the same term (56% vs 20% ACoS in one real example) because it gives Amazon’s algorithm more room to optimize
• The plus-sign broad match modifier gives controlled flexibility; confirm the current setup in your own campaign before relying on it

Related Guides

• Amazon PPC Targeting Guide: Keywords, Products and Audiences
• Top 5 Amazon PPC Campaigns That Are Actually Working in 2026
• Amazon PPC Bidding and Budget Strategy
• 12 Amazon PPC Mistakes We Find in Almost Every Account Audit

Ready to Put Match Types to Work?

At Sophie Society, my team and I use all four match types across 800+ brands and $5M/Month in ad spend. If you want us to take over your PPC and grow you profitably, apply to work with us.

Free Resources

• Amazon PPC Keyword Research guide: How to find the keywords you will target with these match types
• Sophie Society case studies: Real partner PPC results
• My full match types video: The walkthrough this guide is based on, plus my video on the search query performance report in Brand Analytics

Based on my video: “Amazon PPC MATCH TYPES – Full Guide to Boosting Profit w Match Types”.