How to use negative keywords to improve your Google Ads ROI

We already told you about keywords in Google Ads. They are the magic keys 🔑 that open the door to your campaign to the right people. The user types what they need into the search engine, the algorithm analyzes the keywords and ads appear.

Which ads a user sees depends on which keywords advertisers are bidding on. It's very simple, isn't it?

Yeah, but no. In addition to the keywords that your Google ad should appear for, you can also choose the ones that it should never appear for. These are the negative keywords, and they are hugely important to your ROI . Today we're going to learn a little more about them.

What are negative keywords?

Negative keywords are added to PPC campaigns to limit the display of ads when someone performs a search with them. They can be individual terms or entire phrases. When someone includes them in their search, your ads won't show.

Negative keywords are an effective method to better target campaigns by excluding certain terms and phrases that are not relevant to your business.

For example, if you offer luxury furniture, you wouldn't want someone looking for "cheap furniture" to come across your campaign. Why? Because there's a chance that, if they click on your ad at all, they'll quickly find out that you don't offer what they're looking for.

The result - wasted money per click and lower conversion rate or low CTR (if no click is achieved), and hence - poor Quality Score, which affects the cost and success rate of the entire campaign.

Fortunately, all this can be avoided thanks to negative keywords.

🎞For Display and Video campaigns, using negative keywords can help you avoid targeting irrelevant sites or videos.

Types of negative keywords according to their relevance to consumer demand

Negative keywords can match user search in the usual three ways.

Negative Broad Match

By default, negative keywords use broad match. This means that if they are contained in a user search, no matter what order they are in, your ad will not show.

For example, if you add "second hand furniture" as a negative keyword and someone searches for "second hand furniture", they won't see your ad.

Negative Phrase Match

In this case, your ad will not show if the search contains the negative keywords in the same order as you typed them. This is true even if the search is an entire phrase with other words in it.

For example, going back to the "second hand furniture" example, when you search for "cheap second hand furniture", your ad will not show up.

It will show up, however, if the word order is reversed in the search .

Negative Exact Match

Here, your ad won't show if the search contains your negative keywords in the same line without any additional words in the phrase.

In the "second hand furniture" example, this means that your ad won't show up in a search for "second hand furniture", but it will show up in a search for "cheap second hand furniture".

How to use negative keywords

Negative keywords can be added at any level in your Gooogle Ads account structure. This gives you more fine-grained control over the searches your ads come up in.

• At the account level, negative keywords will apply to all campaigns in your account. This is useful if you have a list of terms that are not relevant to your business as a whole.
• At the campaign level, negative keywords apply to all ad groups in the campaign.
• At the ad group level, the negative keywords apply to all ads in that group and campaign.

Benefits of negative keywords

The path to high return on your ads is through well-optimized campaigns, and choosing the right negative keywords is crucial. Here's how they will help you:

• You save money on random clicks from disinterested people who won't buy anything from you.
• You increase click-through rates (CTR) and conversions (conversion rate) because your ads will only be seen by people who have relevant searches, and that increases the likelihood of completing an order.
• Improve the quality score of your account by controlling the consistency between user searches and landing pages. A higher quality score leads to better positioning of your ads and better cost per result.

How to make a list of negative keywords

Do research with Google Keyword Planner

When selecting negative keywords for your campaigns, choose terms that are similar to the keywords you're bidding on but not relevant to your target audience.

Search terms report

An invaluable assistant in preparing keyword lists is the search terms report. It lets you know what users were searching for when they saw your ad. When you spot words in the list that aren't relevant to your products or a specific landing page, add them to your negative keyword list at the account level or just for a specific ad group.

Search by hand and use the Autocomplete function

An easy but useful way to find negative keywords is to try how the search engine works yourself. Type in your search and Google's algorithm will show you a list of commonly used combinations involving your keywords. This will help you understand what's being searched for the most and see which specific phrases aren't relevant to your business and your ad campaigns.

A good practice when using negative keywords is to add both singular and plural when the case allows. Test all three ways of matching to the search - broad match, exact match, and negative match - because all three provide different control options.

In the list of negative keywords, you can also add keywords that you are bidding on, but have a lot of impressions, and a low conversion rate and quality score.

Keep an eye on the campaigns, their results and reports. Update your negative keyword list regularly so you don't miss out on the opportunities for closer targeting they give you.

Negative keywords may seem like a drop in the Google Ads ocean, but they are a valuable assistant and an important tool for improving your advertising ROI . Use them wisely and remember that if you go under, we'll get you out. Just say "ADvantage, ADvantage" on the radio and request a consultation.