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There's a lot of minutiae in managing a keyword campaign. It doesn't seem to be merely an exercise to test your tolerance for tediousness, though – at least it pays off in the end. At SEW Live in Columbus, OH, the panel of keyword campaign experts dropped a ton of tips to act as headlamps as you dig down into the keyword mines.

Note: The information presented here pertains to CPC content (contextual) advertising, not CPC search advertising.

David Szetela, Founder of ClixMarketing.com kick off the session with these tips:

No more than 50 keywords per ad group.

Make liberal use of negative keywords, even if they don't always work because you don't want your ads to appear where the content is irrelevant. 

Ads need to stand out. Yell, don't whisper.

Be more competitive by giving a little. An offer of free shipping can be instant clicker.

Magic keyword ad positions for search results are 1-3. Anything 5 or higher and impressions drop dramatically.

Quality score still counts.

Overall advice: set up separate content campaigns; test multiple ads; monitor closely; start bids low, go high.

Laura Thieme, President and Founder of BizResearch, focused on this advice for measuring keyword ad performance:

The objective of paid search is to increase leads and sales, as well as increase brand awareness. Ultimately, as profits increase, you can lower your customer acquisition costs.

In general, companies put very little budget in towards organic search because paid search is guaranteed, but there needs to be integration of several techniques.

Retailers should use paid search, shopping search, organic, web analytics, and social media in their campaigns.

Publishers should use paid search, organic search, web analytics, and social media.

Insurance and similar services should use paid and organic search, and social media.

Though tedious, always monitor basic KPIs, impressions, Q scores, CTR, average CPC, average position.

Ask which keywords or phrases need to be on 24/7 and which don't.
Prepare weekly, monthly, and annual reports that include data sets.