Phrase match, broad match, and exact match

Trying to figure out why matches are moving out of category...

[CernyM]

A few questions.

I've been experimenting with using broad match, exact match and phrase match in different ad groups as a way of increasing my conversions while lowering my costs.

So, I've set up one particular campaign as follows:

KW_Exact_Match [Red widgets]
KW_Phrase_Match "Red widgets"
KW_Broad_Match Red widgets

I've set the max CPC at 0.40, 0.30, and 0.20 respectively.

My average position on each of those ad groups is:

KW_Exact_Match - 7.9
KW_Phrase_Match - 2.9
KW_Broad_Match - 7.0

(Note that I can make no sense of these positions. Over the last two days, KW_Exact_Match has generated 41 impressions and 0 clicks, KW_Phrase_Match has generated 27 impressions and 0 clicks, and KW_Broad_Match has generated 556 impressions with a CTR of 4.6%)

So, I'm looking through my logs, and I'm seeing things like:

Google search phrase: red+widgets+in+somecity hitting my site via the broad match keyword category.

Why is the broad match ad being shown for what should be a phrase match?

I've noticed this in a few different instances, where things are coming in off ad groups I don't expect.

[marek]

I'm not sure about keywords in different ad groups, but if you put all three variations ([red widget], "red widget" and red widget) into one ad group only, the precedence should be taken in the order above. It works for me.

[eWhisper]

If you have all 3 match types, then when someone does a search, G will do a rank check to see which ad to show. As broadmatch has the highest CTR, it'll show that ad more than the others.

At one point in time, I believe it was posted that ties are broken by the highest CPC and not by the highest CTR.

What I think everyone wants to see is,
1. Search done
2. Check exact match, if found, don't check any more words in account.
3. If not found, move to check phrase match, etc..
4. Repeat for broad match