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It’s because behind the scenes Google is throttling traffic on phrase and especially exact match. They are basically removing exact match without telling anyone because they don’t want the backlash. It’s extremely sneaky and dishonest on their part for doing this, but it’s the reality. This is most likely the main cause. You COULD try switching back to max clicks, expanding your keyword list and such, and this COULD help a bit, but overall this is the main cause. In certain markets, we’re seeing we HAVE to introduce some broad match to be able to hit targets. As a result, you have to then be extremely aggressive with negatives AND introduce and optimize based on OFFLINE data. This will help offset all the junk traffic Google will try to shove down your throat. Hope this helps.
