Adding all three matches useful?

If I add the following to my adgroup is that useful?

1. phrase match
2. exact match
3. broad match

e.g.

1. search engine marketing
2. [search engine marketing]
3. "search engine marketing"

which one the following will fire first?

 

exact > broad > phrase

 

I have:

Exact Matched Campaign > Exact Adgroups > [keyword]


I only use Broad + Phrase for finding new keywords. If somebody types in:
Big Blue Widgets

and your "Blue Widgets" picks it up ... just simply create a new exact keyword: [big blue widgets] - simple!

It's the exact matches that should be doing most of your business. If not now, then definately at some point in the future once your broad matches have been exhausted.

 

How would you be able to tell what the "end" word is?

Your phrase match "Blue Widgets"....triggers someone who types "big blue widgets"...how would you know the 1srt word was "big?"

 

Using a mix of all 3 is good. Exact matches can get your ad more highly placed and tend to convert better. You still need broad and phrase to capture other searches though and also as muchacho said to find new keywords. You can't predict every search term so broad is good to pick up stragglers.

 

For a start, any broad matches I have (and phrase) belong in their own campaigns. So if I am selling Widgets I will have:

Widgets - Exact
Widgets - Broad
Widgets - Phrase

All my ads in Broad + Exact have ?kw={keyword}
at the end. The above tells me which keyword in my account was triggered and my logs tell me which keyword/phrase was actually typed in by the searcher. All I have to do is look for instances of the above to find out.

There will be easier ways of doing this, but as I'm not PHP/ASP savvy I don't know a way of passing the variables into a database. If I could, then all I'd have to do is go to the database say every week and have the searches which I don't have in my account, displayed in a nice list for me. Now wouldn't that be nice!

 

how much lower should you bid for an exact match, than the broad match?

 

For me, it depends on budget and it depends on the campaign. It also depends on how much you want some more long tailed keywords.

If your budget is low and you are happy to pick up more keywords 'now and then', your bids will be very low. If it's your aim to use your broad matches to find out as many more keywords as possible, in a short spac of time, your broad matched bids will be higher.