Google Ads Negative Keywords: How to Reduce Wasted Spend

If you are running Google Ads, you are likely focused on finding the right keywords to target. But successful PPC management is just as much about what you don't target.

Negative keywords are the filter for your campaigns. They allow you to eliminate irrelevant impressions and improve the quality of your traffic. For example, adding "cheap" as a negative keyword allows luxury retailers to avoid clicks from those unable to afford their products.By preventing your ads from showing for searches that won’t lead to a sale, you boost your Click-Through-Rate (CTR), improve Quality Scores, and lower your costs.

Here is a guide on how to deploy them effectively.

The "Search Term Report": Your Negative Keyword Goldmine

You might be wondering, "How do I know which negative keywords to add?" The answer lies in your Search term report. While you bid on specific "Keywords," the Search Term Report shows you the actual queries users typed into Google that caused your ad to trigger. You will often find that Broad and Phrase match keywords matched with search terms you never meant to target. I recommend running this report weekly to find queries that do not apply to your business. While reviewing this report for negatives, you can also look for high-performing queries you haven't targeted yet and add them as positive keywords to expand your reach.

Include Negative Keyword Variations

When you bid on positive keywords, Google’s AI is helpful—it expands your reach to misspellings, plurals, and close variants. Negative keywords work differently.

The Google system does not expand negative keywords for you. If you add the negative keyword "job," your ad might still show for "jobs." To be effective, you must include singulars, plurals, synonyms, and other variations.

Example: If you are a plastic surgeon, adding "pic" as a negative won't block "cosmetic surgery pics." You must add "pic," "pics," "photo," "photos," "picture," and "pictures".

Negative Keyword Match Types

Just like positive keywords, negative keywords have match types that control how they filter traffic.

1. Negative Broad Match (Default) Blocks searches that include all the words, in any order. For example, the negative keyword free will block searches like: free software, trial free software, software trial free.

2. Negative Phrase Match Blocks searches that contain the exact phrase, in the same order. For example, negative phrase keyword "free software" would block search try free software but would NOT block free trial software.

3. Negative Exact Match Blocks searches that contain the exact phrase, in the same order. For example, negative exact keyword [free software] would only block search free software but your could still show on any of the variations like: free trial software, try free software, software try for free.

Account-Wide Negatives

For years, advertisers struggled to apply negatives to automated campaign types like Performance Max or Smart Shopping. Now, you can apply Account-Level Negative Keywords. This is the most scalable way to protect your brand safety across Search, Shopping, and Performance Max inventory.

Where to find it: Navigate to Tools -> Shared Library > Exclusion lists > Negative keyword lists.

This is the best place to add global exclusions that apply to your entire business, such as:

• Job Negatives: career, careers, job, jobs, training, internship (to avoid job seekers).

• Account Negatives: free, cheap, scam, scams (if you sell premium products and wish to exclude people looking for free and cheaper items).

• Kids Negatives (kid, kids, child, children (if you focus on adult customers)

Campaign Level vs. Lists

While account-level negatives are great for "universally bad" terms, some of your work will happen at the campaign level. You may want to use campaign-level negatives when a keyword is relevant for one product line but not another.

Example: If you have a campaign for "Running Shoes" and another for "Hiking Boots," you should add "hiking" as a negative keyword in the "Running Shoes" campaign to keep your ad groups tightly themed and relevant.

Brand Negatives in Non-Brand Campaigns

As a best practice, I suggest separating your Brand traffic (people searching for your company name) from Non-Brand traffic (people searching for your products). To do this effectively, you can add your brand name (and misspellings) as negative keywords in your Non-Brand/General campaigns.

Why do this?

1. Budget Control: It ensures your "General" campaign budget is spent on acquiring new customers, rather than paying for people who already know you.

2. Data Accuracy: Brand terms usually have a very high ROAS. If they are mixed into your general campaigns, they can inflate your performance data, making your prospecting efforts look more successful than they actually are.

Summary

• Don't rely on Google: Add plurals, singulars, and misspellings for all negatives.

• Use Lists: Create shared lists for efficiency.

• Protect your Funnel: Negative out your brand name in general search campaigns.

• Review Weekly: Check your "Search Query Report" regularly to find new irrelevant terms to add to your negative lists,