AdWhiz
Back to Glossary

Negative Keywords

Definition

Negative keywords are terms you add to your Google Ads campaigns to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. They act as filters that block unwanted traffic, reduce wasted spend, and improve campaign efficiency by ensuring your budget only goes toward clicks from qualified prospects.

How Negative Keywords Work

When you add a negative keyword, Google Ads will not show your ad for any search query containing that term (depending on the match type). Negative keywords support three match types: broad (blocks any query containing all negative terms in any order), phrase (blocks queries containing the exact phrase), and exact (blocks only the exact query). Unlike regular keywords, negative broad match does not include close variants. You can add negatives at the campaign level, ad group level, or use shared negative keyword lists across multiple campaigns.

How to Find Negative Keywords

The Search Terms Report is your primary source for finding negative keywords. Sort by cost or impressions to find the biggest offenders. Look for patterns: job-seeking queries ('jobs', 'salary', 'careers'), research queries ('free', 'DIY', 'how to do it yourself'), and competitor brand terms you do not want to bid on. Industry-specific irrelevant terms vary: a B2B SaaS company should negate consumer terms, while an e-commerce store should negate wholesale or bulk queries. Build a starter list of 50-100 negatives before launching any campaign.

Common Negative Keyword Mistakes

The most dangerous mistake is adding overly broad negatives that accidentally block valuable traffic. For example, adding 'free' as a broad negative could block 'free trial software' queries that are actually high-intent. Always check your negative keywords against your target keywords for conflicts. Another mistake is setting and forgetting: search behavior evolves, so review and update your negative keyword lists monthly. Finally, do not rely solely on exact match negatives since irrelevant queries come in countless variations.

Negative Keyword Optimization with AdWhiz

AdWhiz's audit automatically analyzes your search terms data and identifies negative keyword opportunities you have missed. The AI groups related irrelevant terms into themes and recommends both specific negatives and shared lists. For existing campaigns, AdWhiz estimates how much budget could be saved by implementing the recommended negatives. This is often one of the highest-impact findings: most accounts waste 15-30% of budget on search terms that should be excluded.

Frequently Asked Questions

Most well-optimized accounts have 100-500 negative keywords across campaign and shared lists. Start with 50-100 before launching and add more weekly based on search term data. There is no penalty for having many negatives as long as they do not conflict with your target keywords.

Campaign-level negatives block terms across all ad groups in that campaign. Ad group-level negatives only block terms for that specific ad group. Use campaign-level for universally irrelevant terms and ad group-level for funneling traffic to the right ad group within a campaign.

Yes, if you add negatives that conflict with valuable search terms. For example, negating 'cheap' might block 'cheap flights' queries that convert well for a travel site. Always cross-reference negatives against your converting search terms before adding them.

Set it up once. Let it run.

Connect your ad account and let AI handle the rest — bidding, budgets, keywords, and creative testing. Free to start.

Leave your email and our team will help you set up and troubleshoot.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.