Is there a rough number of keywords/keyword phrases that you want to bid for. I am realizing that bidding for more isn't necessarily better, as it can lower your CTR. Any input on this?
That's hard to say, as it depends on many factors. I run about 10 campaigns with roughly 40 ad groups. In several of the ad groups I run close to 800 keyword/phrases each but on some I have only 10-20. You really have to look at you ROI and conversion rates and make sure it's worth it sometimes. I focus on getting a decent placement for my best keywords and phrases. I then include a pack of keywords that I think may also convert well and then let it run for a few days, you can then easily filter out and remove the ones that are not getting any impressions or clicks etc.
Just keep seperate words/phrases in different ad groups. It's pretty common for people who are new to AdWords to include dozens and dozens of keywords in each ad group. That, 99% of the time, will end up lowering your CTR for that ad group.
i concur... if you a newbie research your competitors and get a good hefty list of keywords, then over time dwindle those down into a smaller list of keywords and remove your underperforming ones. The ultimate goal is a campaign with high CTRs and good impression counts. You cant really achieve this with non-performing keywords
Or, thousands of terms with low inpression counts and nice CTR's Do you want 1 keyword with 10,000 daily impressions and a 2% CTR or 10,000keywords with one daily impression each and a CTR of 2%?
Liquid Boy makes a good point. When I first started out I got carried away with finding keywords, I ended up using keywords that hardly had anything to do with what I was promoting and wasted a fortune on useless clicks because I didnt watch my adwords account closely enough. Watch your account closely, find out what phrases are working for you and which ones are dragging you down, and over time you will find a nice list of responsive keywords.