Keyword Selection: Targeted or General?

Today I'll field a question sent to me over the weekend by Kyle. Kyle's question is:

"Overall have you found ads to be better performing (Conversion Rate
Wise) if the ads are extremely targeted or more general? For example
say I'm advertising widgets with the goal of selling them a widget. My
keywords could be Blue sparkly widget, brown matte widget, sports
widget, etc.... Would I be better off creating an Adgroup for each
Keyword with an ad title like "Buy Blue Sparkly Widget" or by creating
one Adgroup for all keywords with an ad title like "Buy Widgets Cheap". "

As a general rule the more targeted you can be your keyword selection, matching and landing pages the better your conversion rates will be. I would suggest creating ad groups for each base keyword and using exact match within those ad groups. Using the terms you posed in your question my first ad group may look like something like this:

[blue sparkly widget]
[blue sparkly widgets]
[buy blue sparkly widget]
[buy blue sparkly widgets]
[order blue sparkly widget]
[order blue sparkly widgets]
[cheap blue sparkly widget]
[cheap blue sparkly widgets]
[affordable blue sparkly widget]
[affordable blue sparkly widgets]
[discount blue sparkly widget]
[discount blue sparkly widgets]

I'm sure you could add to that list using more specific terms from your particular industry. The list above is just a start to help get your creative juices flowing. The key is to be as targeted as possible with your keywords and to take the person clicking on your ads directly to your blue sparkly widgets page.

Have PPC questions? E-mail me at info @ ppcdiscussions . com and I'll answer them here.