How exact match works
Wrapping a keyword in square brackets tells Google to show the ad only for searches that mean the same thing. In practice that covers a good deal more than the words you typed. Misspellings, singular and plural forms, accents, stemmed endings, added or dropped function words, reordering that leaves the sense intact, implied words and straightforward paraphrases all qualify, because they are treated as close variants of the same request.
What does not qualify is a change of intent. Adding a word that turns a buying search into a job search, a training search or a request for something free creates a different meaning, and an exact keyword will not be eligible for it. Where an account holds the same term in more than one match type, Google generally prefers the closest match available, so an exact keyword usually picks up the searches that match it precisely.
Why exact match matters
It is the tightest control the keyword system still offers. On terms where you already know the intent converts, exact match keeps spend pointed at that intent and keeps the reporting clean enough to read. Brand terms are the obvious case: you want to appear when somebody types your name, and you do not want that budget bleeding into loosely related searches.
It is also the most reliable basis for comparison. Because the pool of searches behind an exact keyword is narrow, a change in its cost per click or conversion rate usually means something real happened in the auction, rather than that the mix of searches shifted underneath you.
Common mistakes with exact match
Believing the brackets are a literal filter is the main one. They stopped being that when close variants were extended to exact match. If a specific wording must never trigger your ad, the only reliable instrument is a negative keyword.
The second mistake is building the whole account on exact. It buys the searches you already predicted, and nothing else, so the account stops learning. New wording, new problems customers describe in their own words, seasonal phrasing — none of it arrives.
The third is the old habit of splitting every exact keyword into its own ad group for control. Since variants are matched on meaning, that structure mostly multiplies the admin and thins the data each ad group has to work with.
How to act on it
Reserve exact match for terms your own data has already proved, and for your brand. Let phrase or broad keywords do the discovery, then promote the search terms that convert consistently into exact keywords of their own so they get deliberate bids and clear reporting.
Keep reading the search terms report even for exact keywords, because variants will appear there and some will need excluding. This matters in Nepal and in any market where names are transliterated: a business name can be spelled several ways, and exact match will cover most of them, including a few you would rather not pay for. Review the list, add the unwanted spellings as negatives, and let the rest run.