Semi-N00b Question: Google Search Term Question

In Google Adwords: Keyword Tool you want to check mark the box for EXACT!

Match Type: [Exact]

Now no one is going to go into Google and search for your term like this:
"weight loss"
[weight loss]

They're going to search for it like this:
weight loss

But EXACT searches gives you an EXACT idea of just how many times your highly targeted keyword is searched for every month. Actually, it's well known that the Keyword Tools' numbers are a little off... But they are good numbers to follow.

Depending on your product I always look at the Local Monthly Searches, not Global, because I don't really care about anything else but Google.com searches... That's just me though.

Local = Your native country (USA it sounds like)
Global = The entire world

Don't pay attention to how many RESULTS come up when you search for your term. You're not competing with a billion pages, you're competing with the first 10 or 20 pages... That is your competition.

Look at those pages and determine how easy or how hard it will be to outrank them. Reverse engineer their backlinks. If they don't have a good Meta Description, you make sure you do. If the term isn't in any <h1><h2><h3> tags, you make sure you do. Look at keyword density, backlinks, PR, etc...

Hope this breaks it down a little for you.

CHEERS!

Let's take an example of the search phrase: "shopping deal"
1. Broad search: Your text ad in adwords will show not only for keyword "shopping deal" but also for keywords like "shopping", "deal" , "hot shopping deal", "shopping weekend deal" . As you can observe the targeting of keywords is very liberal and the marketing budget can be exhausted very quickly.
2. Exact search: The ad will show only and only for the keyword [shopping deal]. Though this is the exact target keyword, but it is very restrictive in nature and one would need to add too many keywords of similar nature and if one does not, then its a missed opportunity.
3. Phrase search: However if you want to be slightly liberal and target all keyphrases which has the phrase "shopping deal" then its better to opt for phrase search. So the ad will show for key phrases like "hot shopping deal", "shopping deal Chicago", etc. Phrase search along with the appropriate negative keywords is pretty effective.
4. Negative keywords: One should include negative keywords like free, jobs, etc. Like if you are selecting keywords related to buying of some software, then you would want -free as a negative keyword. This will ensure that any users searching for the key phrase along with the word free in it are not shown the text ad.