PPC-long tail kwds snuffed by broad match competition

[auctarb]

Scenario:
Attempt to rank high in High competition, high traffic subject matter (i.e. car insurance), without bidding high and with few adword competitors in google PPC.

Strategy:
Use creative long tail kwd strings in "" or [], like "need high cost car insurance peddler in east memphis connecticut"

Problem:
Page is loaded with ads by people apparently using just the broad match phrase: Car Insurance.

Question:
Is long tail kwd strategy just good for organic SEO or is this example (car insurance) just too populated to make a difference?

Thanks!

 

[barman]

the problem with long tail is that 50% of all searches have never been searched for before... so there's no way to really account for all the possible searches that are going to happen. In any case, if you're all about the long-tail, you'll need a massive list of keywords and prolly need to get up on google API to put all that shit together.

Exact match proooooobably won't work for the long tail, but what the fuck do i know.

 

[auctarb]

I took about 4 verb synonyms and a two word noun on a very popular subject, permutated them, and came up with about 600 keywords. Phrased matched the whole list so to stay focused but not to filter out anything else a searcher may add. And you're right, many of those keywords may never be used during the campaign. I was hoping that just a handful would be used that were not being duplicated by other adword'ers. Then I did a few random searches on some of these 6 word keyword strings and found several pages of (mostly the same) ads, on each search. It became clear that those ads were using the two word noun as a broad (albeit, very expensive) match. Blew my whole plan!

 

[barman]

don't forget your negative match too... that could help significantly