Gogle search ads - what works?

1. I would go with exact match if I have insights into keywords that make sense for my product. I’ve seen broad match really catch some random words, so if you choose that, ensure you consistently monitor what keywords your ad is firing the most on 2. No experience with this but I guess you should be able to see a preview at least? I’d personally be okay with Google optimising my creatives, because it probably doesn’t affect much, except giving me the highest CTR copy

Broad match would eventually burn more and create a better visibility for your product but not necessarily quality users. It gets very random and throws a lot of junk users into your website. Impressions and clicks on your ads will look super-attractive but you will have a tough time educating the customer later which is only going to further increase your costs. Broad match is a double edged sword. I would suggest for a phrase match or exact match, since you're optimising already for purchase as conversions. You will have a better CTR and high intent users clicking onto it. Over a period of time you can have the account level CPA and switch to tCPA instead of maximise conversions as well if you want to reduce burn. Hope you're also importing the offline conversion data (CRM) to your ads account and helping it learn better.

You can use broad match while keeping a tight track on negative keywords, as a lot of broad is gonna attract trash traffic, keeping a track search terms regularly