Negative Keyword Strategy: The Complete Guide to Eliminating Wasted Ad Spend

Negative keywords tell Google Ads which search queries should not trigger your ads. They are the most underused yet most impactful tool in any PPC manager's arsenal. While positive keywords attract potential customers, negative keywords act as a filter — blocking irrelevant traffic before it costs you money.

Consider this: if you sell premium leather shoes and bid on "leather shoes," your ad might show for "cheap leather shoes," "leather shoe repair," or "how to clean leather shoes." None of these searchers are likely to buy your premium product, but every click costs you the same.

According to Google's documentation on negative keywords, properly implementing negative keywords is one of the most effective ways to improve campaign relevance and reduce wasted spend. In practice, we have seen accounts recover 10-30% of their monthly budget simply by implementing a thorough negative keyword strategy.

Finding the right negative keywords requires a combination of proactive research and reactive analysis. Here are the most effective methods:

Search Terms Report Analysis

Your most valuable source of negative keywords is your own account data. The Search Terms Report shows you exactly what people are typing when they see and click your ads. Review this report weekly and flag any terms that are:

• Completely unrelated to your product or service
• Informational rather than commercial (e.g., "how to," "what is," "tutorial")
• Related to products or services you do not offer
• Job searches or career-related queries
• Competitor brand names (unless you intentionally target them)

Brainstorm Common Irrelevant Terms

Before your campaigns even launch, you can preemptively add negative keywords that are commonly irrelevant across most industries:

• Job-related: jobs, careers, hiring, salary, internship, resume
• Free-seekers: free, cheap, discount, coupon, sample, trial
• DIY/Educational: how to, tutorial, course, class, training, certification
• Wrong intent: review, comparison, vs, alternative, complaint

Of course, some of these might be relevant for your specific business — only add what truly does not apply.

The key to maintaining negative keywords at scale is organization. Rather than adding negatives ad-hoc to individual campaigns, build themed shared lists that can be applied across your account.

Recommended List Structure

• Universal Negatives — Terms that are never relevant to your business (e.g., "free," "jobs"). Apply to all campaigns.
• Industry-Specific Negatives — Terms related to your industry but not your offering (e.g., a web design agency might negate "web design tutorial").
• Service/Product Exclusions — Terms for products or services you do not offer but that are related to your keywords.
• Geographic Negatives — Location terms for areas you do not serve.
• Campaign-Specific Negatives — Terms that are relevant to some campaigns but not others (used to control traffic routing between campaigns).

Google Ads allows you to create shared negative keyword lists that can be applied to multiple campaigns at once. This saves time and ensures consistency across your account. You can apply a shared list across up to 20 campaigns simultaneously.

Just like positive keywords, negative keywords have match types that determine how broadly they block search queries. Understanding the differences is critical:

Negative Broad Match (Default)

Blocks your ad when the search contains all of the negative keyword terms in any order. For example, the negative broad match "free trial" blocks "free product trial" and "trial free," but not "free" alone or "trial version."

Negative Phrase Match

Blocks your ad when the search contains the exact phrase in the same order. The negative phrase "free trial" blocks "get free trial" but not "trial free offer."

Negative Exact Match

Blocks your ad only when the search exactly matches the negative keyword. Use this when you need precision — for example, blocking "[leather shoe repair]" without blocking "leather shoe repair kit."

Important: Unlike positive keywords, negative keywords do not include close variants, misspellings, or synonyms. You need to add each variation explicitly. For comprehensive coverage of best practices, check out our PPC audit checklist.

Campaign-Level Traffic Sculpting

Use negative keywords to control which campaign receives which traffic. For example, if you have separate brand and non-brand campaigns, add your brand terms as negatives in the non-brand campaign to prevent keyword cannibalization.

Tiered Match Type Strategy

Start with broad match negatives for clearly irrelevant terms, then use phrase or exact match for terms that are only irrelevant in specific contexts. This gives you the widest coverage without accidentally blocking good traffic.

Competitor Keyword Routing

If you bid on competitor names, use negatives in your main campaigns to ensure competitor queries route to your dedicated competitor campaign (where you can control messaging and bidding independently).

N-Gram Analysis

Break your search terms into individual words and two-word combinations, then sort by frequency and cost. This reveals high-impact single-word negatives you might miss reading individual search terms. AI-powered tools like AdWhiz perform this analysis automatically as part of their audit process.

A negative keyword strategy is not a one-time setup — it requires ongoing maintenance. Here is a schedule to follow:

• Weekly: Review search terms report for new irrelevant queries. Add 5-10 new negatives per week is typical for active accounts.
• Monthly: Audit your negative keyword lists for accidental over-blocking. Check if any negatives are preventing good traffic from reaching your ads.
• Quarterly: Review shared lists and reorganize as your business evolves. Remove negatives that are no longer relevant.

The easiest way to stay on top of your negatives is to make search term review part of your regular Google Ads audit routine. Whether you do it manually or with an AI tool, consistent attention to search terms is what separates efficient accounts from wasteful ones.

Ready to see what negative keywords your account is missing? Run a free AdWhiz audit and get AI-generated negative keyword recommendations in under 60 seconds.