[yahelc]

Adwords worked best for me by crafting ads targeting specific niche specializations that would grab long tail traffic. In my case, it was converting websites to WordPress. I didn't need every single person looking for WordPress work; 50 clicks per day worked out just fine for my capactiy.

By some optimizing, keeping my bids low, and disabling Content Network, I was able to get CPA to ~$10; as long as I was converting more than 10% of my leads (which I was), I came out significantly ahead.

[aantix]

Did you rely on any particular tools for optimization? How did you decide which initial words to target? Was it solely based on pricing?

[yahelc]

Just Adwords and Google Analytics.

Web Development keywords tend to be expensive, so it was cheaper to focus on many long tail terms rather than compete for "wordpress", "web development", etc.

I started out with hundreds of terms related to building and converting sites to WordPress , and used Adwords and Google Analytics data to kill off any term that was costing me significantly without bringing in any leads.

Incidentally, I started out with Content Network enabled, but found that it brought no leads and cost more than search clicks. Not sure if that was click fraud or what, but killing Content Network was the best optimization decision I made.