Google Ads seems to have launched a beta campaign setting named “broad match keywords.” It seems this setting removes the match types, specifically phrase and exact match keywords and converts them into broad match.

PPCGreg posted about this on Twitter, he said, “Broad Match keywords – campaign setting: “Enabling this setting will convert all existing phrase and exact match keywords into broad match and ensure all keywords added also use broad match.”

Here is a screenshot of that setting:

Google posted on the help document for this setting that “enabling the broad match campaign setting applies the following logic to existing similar keyword selection rules:”

• Even though all keywords are set to broad match, they will behave as if there was both a broad match and an exact match version of each keyword.
• If you upgrade exact match keywords with the broad match campaign setting, searches that are identical to those keywords will continue being served out of the same campaign.
• If you upgrade other keywords, they will now be on the same level as exact match keywords on searches that are identical to those keywords.
• Enabling broad match campaign setting simplifies testing upgrading campaigns that contain exact match keywords to broad match.

Forum discussion at Twitter.