Broad match, phrase match, or exact match? Content ads or not?

We are tackling Adwords more seriously. What is your experience with broad match, phrase match, and exact match?

Also what is your experience with content ads? To date one of the best things we got out of content ads was finding direct sites that merited getting links from or trading links due to the volume of visits from those specific sites?

All experience appreciated!!!

Dave

I use exact and manage thousands of keywords with excel.... these make for some REALLY interesting reports plus the ability to ditch any KW that doesnt pay.

I want ALL of the data.

Thanks EGOL:

I've reviewed old threads to pull from others comments, experience and advice. Just looking for more comments. What you say makes sense to me.

What about content ads? Do you run them along with google?

Dave

Yes, and that is where keyword level tracking saves me an awful lot of dough.

What is keyword level tracking?

Dave

Because i am using exact match i have to enter each and every keyword into adwords... I could simply enter "widgets" and let the ad run for all variants... but instead run exact match to get the breakdown on

red widgets
widgets red
wooden red widgets
red wooden widgets

etc

So "keyword level tracking" is acccounting for each keyword phrase.

From what I've read in the past experienced webmasters tend to go with specific words/phrases rather than broad match. I totaled about two hundred phrases that I'm targeting based on review of my logs, plus adwords suggestions plus reviewing competition. To date I've been using broad match....its not that specific obviously.

Love to hear what others have to say.

I'm still curious, do you run content ads out of google or not...and if so, do you check back on the content hits to determine what works or doesn't work?

Dave

Gotta keep this thread alive...see what other's experience is.



Dave

I only use "phrase" match. Target countries I know have the potential to buy or find my product useful and tend to stay away from the content network. Also I make sure to use every possible permuation of my keywords. Example:

red solid widgets
solid red widgets
red widgets
red widgets solid
widgets red
widgets red solid
etc.
etc.

Once they run for about 2 months I clean up the list. Also try running about 6 different creatives for about 2 weeks so you can see what title and description works best.

Here are some tips I posted awhile back. Maybe you've seen them already:
http://forums.seochat.com/showpost.php?p=182023&postcount=5

Thanks for your quick response PK. I'll check this out and your old post.

Dave

If you advertise using Google adwords then you should find the following free tool useful. It will format your list of keywords adding quotes and brackets, saving lots of time.

http://www.keywordsmaker.com/

Thanks Shaffer; I'm building my exact match now. Have about 150 terms.

Dave