How to Use Negative Keywords to Reduce Ad Spend
Negative keywords are an essential tool for refining campaign performance, improving campaign targeting, and minimizing irrelevant traffic. However, excessive use can limit ad reach and block valuable searches.
To avoid blocking valuable search queries, regularly monitor the Search Query Report to identify terms that trigger ads but don’t align with user intent. Then, use negative keywords at the account, campaign, or ad group level to balance precision with reach.
1. Reduce Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
By excluding irrelevant search queries, marketers can improve their Quality Score and increase ad position, resulting in lower CPCs. Using negative keywords is an effective way to reduce wasted spending on clicks that don’t result in conversions, while increasing the reach of your ads to users who are actually interested in your products or services.
Negative keyword lists can be created at the account, campaign, or ad group level. Applying them at the account level blocks all terms irrelevant to your business, while campaigns allow you to refine exclusions with specific objectives, like targeting premium buyers. Ad group-level negatives are the most granular, blocking queries relevant only to a single ad set.
To create a comprehensive list of negative keywords, marketers should start with their Search Term Report and then use tools that can identify synonyms and related searches to expand the negative keyword list. Additionally, they should regularly review and optimize their negative keyword lists to keep pace with performance over time.
2. Increase Quality Score
Ensure your ads are only shown to users who can actually convert by using negative keywords to prevent irrelevant searches from triggering your ads. This helps improve your quality score, which in turn reduces your CPCs.
Negative keyword lists need to be constantly reviewed and optimized as search query performance evolves. By regularly reviewing search term reports and implementing negative keywords, you can keep your campaigns performing optimally without wasting spend.
Brands often make the mistake of creating a negative keyword list and walking away, leaving their campaigns to run unattended. This can lead to overblocking and reducing visibility, and can ultimately cost you more money in the long-term.
Adding negative keywords at the campaign level tells Google that you don’t want your ads to show up for queries matching that particular group of words, regardless of where in the account they occur. This gives you greater control over where your ads are showing, and can be especially useful in Performance Max (PMax) campaigns.
3. Reduce CTR
By excluding irrelevant search queries, negative keywords reduce the number of clicks that waste your budget and improve CTR (which also improves Quality Score). This enables you to maximize ad spend on users with the right intent, improving overall campaign performance.
However, improper use of negative keywords can restrict ad reach, limit your potential audience and result in fewer clicks (often at higher CPCs). Excessive use of broad match negative keywords blocks a lot of user queries without much context; using exact match negatives sparingly is better for precision control. Negative keywords should be used strategically at the account, campaign, and ad group level to balance accuracy with efficiency.
For example, mobile measurement partners a travel agency would want to avoid matching ads with searches for bundled vacation packages that include airfare. They could add the terms 'airfare' and 'bundled vacation' to the list of negative keywords to ensure ads don't show for these searches while still allowing them to appear for users seeking standalone accommodations.
4. Reduce Cost-Per-Sale (CPS)
By excluding irrelevant search terms, you prevent ads from being triggered for users who are unlikely to convert. This saves you money on clicks and improves CPC, allowing you to maximize your budget for high-performing keywords.
The best way to identify negative keywords is by reviewing user queries in your Search Terms Report. Using a tool like Optmyzr's Negative Keywords Finder can make this process faster by automatically breaking down search terms into individual words, identifying which ones are wasteful or have low conversion potential, and then enabling you to add them as negative keywords (at the query, word, campaign, or account level) with a single click.
Regularly review your negative keywords to ensure that they align with evolving campaign goals. It's also a good idea to optimize for seasonality by adding or removing negative keywords depending on the peak times of your business model. By keeping negative keywords updated and relevant, you can reduce unnecessary ad spend and get more value out of your budget.