I just got out of the Broad Matching & Other Ad Targeting Options which discusses when to use the new Broad Match options given by Google and Overture and when to go for the standard options.
Broad match, for those of you who dont know what it is, is the ability to type in a broad keyword and let the technology match more specific keywords for you. For example, if you want to rank well for "cheap", it will figure to rank you well for "discount", "low cost" and "not expensive" as well. Saves you huge amounts of time when managing your PPC campaigns.
John Slade from Overture spoke first on how it works and showed it off on Overture. Richard Holden did the same, but he did it for Google. He went into the different match types (broad, exact, phrase, negative, negative exact). He also discussed how Google's Broad match is smarter b/c they utilize their Google search to match up broad matches on a daily basis. (not much time so skipping a bit).
Patricia Hursh from SmartSearch gave a two case studies on how Broad Search helped her clients. One point is that broad search for both Google and Overture do not work globally across their distribution network. Also overture always lists broad match under exact matches.
Matt Van Wagner from Find Me Faster gave a nice presentation on the differences between Google and Overture. Basics are: Google ranks based on Bid X CTR; Overture ranks based on Exact -> Phrase -> Broad and then bid. Important to keep in mind. He went into more topics but again, not much time - so i am only giving you the take aways.
Finally Kevin Lee from Did-It said the same thing everyone else did but added. It is a good idea to use broad match to see what you can use for your exact matches. You do a broad match and then you look at your referrals logs and see the full query, then optimize your campaigns for the best keyword phrases. Google rewards you for high CTR (remember, Google ranks based on bid X CTR).
Nice session for you PPC heads.
