How can I use negative keywords in Google Advertising?

Negative keywords are an essential tool in Google Advertising that allows you to exclude specific keywords or phrases from triggering your ads. By using negative keywords strategically, you can refine your targeting and prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant or unwanted searches. Here’s how you can use negative keywords in Google Advertising:

1. Identify irrelevant or unwanted searches: Review your search term reports and analyze the search queries that triggered your ads. Look for keywords or phrases that are irrelevant to your products or services, or those that are unlikely to result in conversions.
2. Compile a negative keyword list: Create a list of negative keywords based on the irrelevant or unwanted searches you identified. These can be specific terms, broad terms, or even phrases that are not relevant to your business.
3. Add negative keywords at the campaign level: Sign in to your Google Ads account, navigate to the campaign you want to add negative keywords to, and go to the “Keywords” tab. Scroll down to the “Negative keywords” section and click on the “+Keywords” button. Enter the negative keywords you want to add and select the appropriate match type (broad, phrase, or exact).
4. Add negative keywords at the ad group level: If you want to exclude certain keywords from specific ad groups within a campaign, go to the ad group you want to edit and follow the same steps mentioned in the previous point.
5. Use different match types: When adding negative keywords, you can choose between broad match, phrase match, or exact match types. Broad match negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing for any search query that contains the specified terms. Phrase match negative keywords will exclude searches that contain the specified terms in the exact order. Exact match negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing only for the exact term or phrase you specify.
6. Regularly review and update your negative keyword list: Continuously monitor your search term reports and add new negative keywords based on the searches you want to exclude. Likewise, review your existing negative keyword list periodically to ensure it remains up to date and relevant to your campaign goals.
7. Use negative keyword lists: Google Ads also allows you to create negative keyword lists that can be applied to multiple campaigns or ad groups. This streamlines the management of negative keywords across your account and ensures consistency.

By effectively using negative keywords, you can improve the relevance of your ads, reduce wasted ad spend on irrelevant searches, and increase the overall efficiency of your Google Advertising campaigns. Regular monitoring, analysis, and refinement of your negative keyword list are crucial for ongoing campaign optimization.

8. Use different match types strategically: Consider using a combination of match types for your negative keywords to have more control over which searches trigger your ads. For example, if you add a broad match negative keyword like “free shoes,” it will prevent your ads from showing for any search query containing those terms. However, if you add an exact match negative keyword like “[cheap shoes],” it will only exclude searches that exactly match that phrase.
9. Employ negative keyword research tools: Utilize keyword research tools, such as the Google Ads Keyword Planner or third-party tools, to identify potential negative keywords. These tools can help you discover common search terms that may be irrelevant to your business and add them as negative keywords to prevent your ads from appearing for those searches.
10. Consider variations and plurals: Think about variations and plurals of your negative keywords. While Google’s algorithm does account for some variations automatically, it’s a good practice to explicitly add them as negative keywords to ensure your ads don’t show for related terms. For example, if your negative keyword is “blue shoes,” you may want to consider adding “blue shoe,” “shoes in blue,” and other variations to cover different search queries.
11. Regularly review search term reports: Regularly review your search term reports to identify new keywords that trigger your ads. Look for terms that are irrelevant or not aligned with your campaign goals, and add them as negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for those searches.
12. Monitor and refine your negative keyword list: Continuously monitor the performance of your campaigns and make adjustments to your negative keyword list based on the data. Remove or modify negative keywords that may be blocking relevant searches or preventing your ads from reaching your target audience.

Remember, the effectiveness of negative keywords relies on proper analysis, optimization, and ongoing refinement. By actively managing your negative keyword list and ensuring it aligns with your campaign objectives, you can enhance the targeting precision of your ads and improve overall campaign performance.

8. Use campaign-level negative keywords: In addition to adding negative keywords at the ad group level, consider adding campaign-level negative keywords. This allows you to exclude certain keywords from all ad groups within a specific campaign, ensuring consistency and preventing unwanted clicks across multiple ad groups.
9. Leverage the “Search Terms” report: Regularly review the “Search Terms” report in Google Ads to identify new search queries triggering your ads. Look for irrelevant or low-performing keywords and add them as negative keywords. This helps refine your targeting and ensures your ads are shown to the most relevant audience.
10. Use negative keyword lists: Google Ads allows you to create and manage negative keyword lists. This feature allows you to apply a set of negative keywords across multiple campaigns, making it efficient to maintain and update your negative keyword strategy. You can create lists based on different themes or categories and apply them as needed.
11. Consider keyword match types: When using negative keywords, consider the match types you want to apply. Broad match negatives will exclude any search query containing the specified terms, while phrase match negatives will exclude searches that include the phrase in the specified order. Exact match negatives will only exclude searches that exactly match the specified keyword or phrase.
12. Monitor and optimize your negative keyword list: Regularly review the performance of your negative keywords and refine your list over time. Keep an eye on your campaign’s impression share and click-through rate (CTR) to ensure your negative keywords are effectively filtering out irrelevant searches and improving overall campaign performance.
13. Utilize keyword research tools: Use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or third-party tools to identify potential negative keywords. These tools can help you uncover related terms that may be irrelevant to your business and add them to your negative keyword list.
14. Consider customer feedback and industry knowledge: Listen to customer feedback and consider industry knowledge to identify terms that are commonly associated with irrelevant or undesirable searches. Incorporate this information into your negative keyword strategy to improve targeting and ad relevance.

Remember, negative keywords are a powerful tool to refine your targeting, reduce wasted ad spend, and improve the overall performance of your Google Advertising campaigns. Regularly review and update your negative keyword list based on campaign data and user behavior to ensure your ads are reaching the most relevant audience.