Google Ads Tip: Use negative keywords

Negative keywords are a powerful tool to optimize your Google Ads campaigns and make them more effective. By using negative keywords, you can avoid unwanted clicks and wasted impressions that can hurt your ad performance and drive up your costs. Here are the most important aspects you should consider when using negative keywords:

1. Identify irrelevant keywords: Examine your search query reports to find out which keywords are irrelevant to your ads. Add these keywords as negative keywords to ensure that your ads are not served for such search queries.
2. Organize your negative keywords: Create separate lists for negative keywords at campaign and ad group level. This will help you manage your negative keywords better and use them more effectively.
3. Review and update regularly: It is important to review and update your negative keywords regularly to continuously optimize your campaign performance. Keep an eye on new search queries and adjust your negative keywords accordingly.
4. Use exclusionary keyword match types: For negative keywords, you can use different match types, such as “largely matching”, “matching” or “exactly matching”. Choose the appropriate match type for your negative keywords to achieve the desired control over your ad placement.
5. Use the Keyword Planner tools: Google Ads offers helpful tools like the Keyword Planner to identify negative keywords for your campaigns. Use these resources to effectively manage your negative keywords and improve your campaign performance.

By using negative keywords skillfully, you can make your Google Ads campaigns more targeted, increase your ad relevance, and minimize your cost of unwanted clicks.

An example

Let’s say you run a handmade leather shoes business and want to create a Google Ads campaign to promote your products.

1. Identify irrelevant search terms: After analyzing search query reports, you realize that your ads have been placed for search queries such as “cheap leather shoes”, “vegan shoes” and “leather shoes repair”. Since your store specializes in handmade, high-quality leather shoes, these search terms are irrelevant to your ads. Add these terms as negative keywords.
2. Organize your negative keywords: create a list of negative keywords for your entire campaign, e.g. “cheap”, “cheap”, “vegan” and “repair”. If you have different ad groups for different product categories, you can also create specific negative keywords for each ad group.
3. Review and update regularly: Make sure you update your negative keywords regularly to optimize your campaign performance. For example, you might find that your ads are also being served for “leather shoes for dogs,” which is also irrelevant to your target audience. Add “dogs” as a negative keyword.
4. Use exclusionary keyword match types: If you add “cheap” as a negative keyword in “largely matching”, your ad will be excluded for all search queries that contain the term “cheap”, e.g. “cheap leather shoes” or “cheap leather sandals”. However, if you add “cheap” as an “exact match”, your ad will only be excluded for the exact search term “cheap”.
5. Use the Keyword Planner tools: Use the Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify more irrelevant keywords that could be hurting your ad performance. Add these keywords as negative keywords to your campaign.