I am a newb here and have done quite a bit of reading on AdWords and how they work etc. I am aware that longtail keywords are good as it can reduce the PPC cost, and will normally generate more relevant traffic which may convert to higher percentage of sales (in a nutshell). Let's say for instance, I want to do an AdWords campaign for selling iPods. I want to target Canadian buyers so I have the keyword "buy iPod Canada". That is pretty common as I see quite a few ads popup on the sponsored links which I understand would be a bidding war on who pays more per click to get the better spot. Fair enough. But I thought I would put in "buy iPod Canada garbage poop" as a silly example, and I still get sponsored links. I thought an AdWord campaign had to have all those search words in order to display your ad? Obviously one wouldn't put all those other silly keywords into their ad campaign, so are they just putting in the broad "buy iPod Canada" into their campaign and whatever else the Google user puts in surrounding those words may still bring up their ad? And is it because they are paying big bucks to have their ad there for a broad keyword search? I guess the whole idea for a newb to start out with long tailed keywords is to be able to pay a low PPC price and still be able to compete with these people that pay high PPC with broader keywords? Is my understanding correct?
There are 3 options for keywords - exact, phrase or broad match. Exact - is what it says. Phrase - will contain the words in your keyword/phrase, but can also be triggered by search phases that contain your keyword, i.e. can have other words at the beginning or end. Broad - can also be triggered by synonyms or words or phrases that the google also decides mean the same thing. If you use this, you really need to add a lot of negatives, i.e words that you tell google should not trigger your ad.