Keyword research and match types
You can have perfect ads and flawless landing pages, but if you're bidding on keywords nobody is searching for, you're throwing money away. Keyword research is where search strategy starts: understanding the exact language your buyers use when they're ready to buy, and building a keyword strategy around those terms rather than guessing what sounds right.
This article walks through researching keywords, choosing the right match types (exact, phrase, broad match) to control which searches trigger your ads, and building a negative keyword list that prevents your ads from showing on irrelevant searches. Get this right and your cost per qualified lead drops significantly. Get it wrong and you waste half your budget on clicks that go nowhere.