Does match type alter content network ad serving?

[esllou]

I wanted to ask something I've always been unclear about.

Let's say I have a campaign running on the content network targeting: repair blue widgets

Will that add appear on pages (or even sites!) where all of those three words appear, but not necessarily together?

If I then target the keywords "repair blue widgets" or even [repair blue widgets], should I expect the ads to appear on far fewer sites?

...or does match type have no real bearing on the content network?

[netmeg]

No bearing. AdWords matches to sites in the Content Network by theme, which it gets from the keywords and the ad group name. So you don't need to worry about match types, and I for one don't usually worry about getting both plurals and singulars, stemming, or any of that stuff. As long as the theme of ad group is pretty clear, I let AdWords do its thing.

(And in case it doesn't, I catch it with Placement reports and add negative sites)

[esllou]

Great, thanks. It sounds as though I can simplify my content-only campaign which is currently split into about 15 ad groups! It was a clone of a search-only campaign but doesn't seem as though I need that level of fragmentation.