Say the most popular phrase I would bid on is "wet widgets".
Then there are probably 100s of different variations such as:
blue wet widgets
red wet widgets
green wet widgets
nice wet widgets
used wet widgest
on and on and on ...
Now, do I just bid on the term "wet widgets" without the quotes, so it will show for any phrase that has wet widgets in it, or do I go in and bid on every phrase I can think of that contains wet widgets, using exact matches?
In my case aside from a few negative keywords already in place, I want my ad to show for every other phrase containing wet and widgets ... so am I still better off using exact matches and bidding on each individual phrase rather than just wet widgets which would be displayed for all? If so, why?
Thanks!
That depends on your market and what your competition is doing. For example, if red wet widgets are more popular than blue wet widgets, then the average CPC may be higher for red ones. If you don't break out the red from the blue, then you may pay the more expensive red wet widget CPC on your blue wet widget clicks. However, if your close competitors haven't bothered to break them out -- If they don't bid separately on red and blue wet widgets -- then that will determine your minimum bid to get above them on blue wet widget clicks as well as red ones.
Since I don't know the wet widget business very well and don't know if there is likely to be a big difference in red and blue click CPCs, while you may not have experience with Adwords, the best thing to do may be to start simple, bidding on "wet widgets", a few color variants, and a "safe" low monthly spend, set your bids to get the average position you want, and then watch the campaign stats until you can determine if you actually need different bids for the red, blue, and green wet widgets. You may eventually get comfortable enough to "set and forget" your bids, but that won't be true for anyone initially, so a little experimentation is inevitable.
Personally, I break them out separately -- In one campaign, there is a two-to-one cost difference between the plural and singular of one of my main keywords. But I'm not in the wet widget business.
The bottom line on CPC is Return On Investment. Your investment includes both your money budgeted for clicks, and the time it takes to set up and maintain your campaigns. You can often save money by targeting specific phrases with separate bids, but it takes more of your time to do so. So, bid separately if it makes sense after taking that into account.
Jim
I want my ad to show for every other phrase containing wet and widgets
Are you sure? If you use broad match wet widget, your ad may show for absolutely irelevant queries like wet blah blah without widget etc.
Your desission should depend on competition. If your market is more competitive and CPC/position is an issues, you should prefer more phrase or exact matches over one broad match. This way you increase your chances to get better position for less money, because you CTR will be higher.
On the other hand, if your market is less competitive, you can go with broad match unless your CTR is too low to keep the phrase alive (0.5% limit).
