Weeding out bad keyword matches

[Tonearm]

How do you guys go about weeding out bad keyword matches? [exact matching] should solve the problem, but then you miss out on longer tail stuff. Broad match coupled with -negative matches should catch the long tail, but there seem to be an infinite number of -negative keywords to add.

How do you guys handle this?

[Tonearm]

I use mainly "phrase match" right now and I do notice that the bad matches seem to manifest themselves for the same keywords over and over. Maybe the solution is to use [exact match] on the keywords that Google tends to stretch out in this way?

[ByronM]

I used wordtracker and find out which keywords generally come about that have no purpose with my ad and put them on my negative list.

Works out great for products that have car, city, company or other common/similar name.

[poster_boy]

there seem to be an infinite number of -negative keywords to add

Well, there can be many, for sure - but utilizing keyword suggestion tools and tracking queries in your log files can catch quite a few. For me, it more than justifies expanding to Phrase or Broad match...

[Tonearm]

Thanks guys. Sounds like that's the preferable method.