How to Use Negative Keywords to Boost Your Google Ad Search Campaigns

Running a successful Google Ads search campaign is as much about the search terms you don’t appear for as those you do. Marketers are often so fixated on finding the best value keywords (that are the least competitive) that they forget one of the best tools in their arsenal: negative keywords.

In fact, almost half of advertisers don’t use negative keywords in Google Ads campaigns, skyrocketing their costs with no added benefit.

Negative keywords allow you to refine your campaign, honing in on your target market and dropping costly search terms wholly unrelated to your business.

In this guide, I explain what negative keywords are, why they’re important, and how they can help optimise your campaign (saving you a small fortune in the process).

What are negative keywords?

Negative keywords, in a nutshell, are keywords that stop your ad from appearing in certain search queries. By excluding these search terms from your campaign, you can focus on the keywords that matter to your customers.

As Google explains:

“Better targeting can put your ad in front of interested users and increase your return on investment (ROI).”

Creating a negative keyword list is a little tricky. It’s all about choosing what not to target. You’ll want to look for search terms similar to your keywords that aren’t related to your specific product.

Negative keyword examples

Let’s run through an example:

Say you sell mountain bikes; you may want to add keywords relating to other types of bikes:

• BMX
• Racing bikes
• Road bikes
• Motorbikes

Types of negative keywords

For search campaigns, there are three types of negative keywords: broad match, phrase match, or exact match. Each of these types of negative keywords works differently – and can be used for different goals regarding the words and variations you wish to exclude.

Negative broad match

The default for negative keywords. If you select this option, your ad won’t show for search terms containing all your negative keyword terms, regardless of order. Your ad can still show if the search term contains some of your keyword terms.

Negative keywords don’t match close variants or other expansions. So, if you exclude the negative broad match keyword glasses, ads won’t show when a user searches for wine glasses but will appear for “wine glass.”

Here’s an example:

Negative broad match keyword: wine glasses

Negative phrase match

With negative phrase match keywords, ads won’t show if the search term contains the exact keyword terms in the same order. Additional words can be added to the keywords as long as all keyword terms are present in the same order. The keywords can also have additional characters added to a word.

Negative phrase match keyword: wine glasses

Negative exact match

For negative exact match keywords, the ad will only show if the search term contains the exact keyword terms, in the same order, with additional words. Your ad can therefore show if the keywords are present alongside extra words.

Negative exact match keyword: wine glasses

How to use negative keywords in Google Ads

To add negative keywords to your search campaign, go into Google Ads Editor. Scroll down to the “Manage” bar, and select “Keywords and Targeting.” Inside, you’ll see a selection of keywords and targeting options, including “Keywords, Negative.”

Follow these steps:

• Click “Add Negative Keyword”
• Select the level you want to assign the negative keyword to – that could be the ad group selected or the campaign of your choice
• Begin to add and edit the type of negative keywords you wish to include. You can also select the match type.
• Build a list of negative keywords
• Once completed, click “Post” to ensure the changes are live on your account

You can also add negative keywords directly in the Google Ads platform, within the Keywords area. You can also add negatives via the search term report by selecting the keyword you’d like to add, then selecting ‘Add as negative’.

Identifying and building a negative keywords list

Building a negative keyword list is an ongoing activity for Google Ads marketers. The more negative keywords you add, the more precise your Google Ads search campaign becomes – and it’s likely to lower the overall cost.

Failure to create a negative keyword list can result in your campaign wasting its money on a few expensive keywords that yield little reward. Here are some tips and tricks to consider:

• Manual search. Run a search in Google for your top ten positive keywords. See what Google recommends, and identify any search terms you’d want to avoid. For instance, if you’re an online tutor in the UK, avoiding search terms like “online tutoring Canada” or “online tutoring jobs” is key.
• Brand names. Certain brand names are often closely associated with a product. These keywords are typically costly, and you want to avoid appearing for them.
• Locations. If your business is location specific, then you might want to add other locations as negatives. For example, if you are a hairdresser in Southampton, you’d want to add other city names into your keyword list to avoid showing for searches such as ‘hairdresser Guildford etc.
• Expensive keywords. Depending on your budget, certain highly expensive keywords could be added to your negative keywords list. Better to spread your ad spend over more keywords than only appearing a handful of times for very expensive keywords.
• Mine your Google Ads search terms report. Going through your Google Ads search terms reports is perhaps the best way to identify negative keywords. Look for keywords for which you appear which don’t have the right search intent – or are unrelated to your product or service. Perform this check monthly to continue to refine your campaign.

Negative keywords are the secret to optimising your search campaigns

Just started building a negative keyword list? You’re already doing better than almost half of all marketers. Just remember to keep on at it – it’s not a ‘one and done’ type of job!