Achieve Positive Results with Negative Keywords
If your business advertises on Google, knowing about negative keywords is a “must”!
It’s a smart feature in Google Ads that lets you increase your return on investment and ensures a narrow focus on relevant keywords.
It's a crucial feature for your ad budget!
Why is it important to keep track of negative keywords?
As we mentioned earlier, negative keywords help you increase your return on investment with greater certainty and focus exclusively on search terms that are relevant to your campaign and interested users. This way, you can target your campaigns and ensure they aren't affected by other traffic.
So you should welcome negative keywords with open arms, since they ensure that your ad budget isn’t wasted on clicks where the user has a completely different search intent than what your campaign is aiming for. Improved targeting means a higher return on investment and genuine potential customers. That doesn’t sound too bad, if we do say so ourselves.
So how do you create negative keywords?
If you’re sitting there thinking that setting up negative keywords sounds a bit overwhelming, all we can say is: “Don’t worry.” Fortunately, it’s actually pretty straightforward.
When you create your campaign in Google Ads, you should add keywords to a “Negative Keyword List,” which is then linked to the specific campaign, list, ad group, or ad. This allows you to exclude searches where you don’t want a specific type of search—for example, interrogative searches (question words).
The Difference Between a Campaign, a List, and an Ad
You add your negative keywords at different levels—whichever makes the most sense for your Google Ads. In most cases, all of the levels listed below are used across your ads.
- Campaign – If you want specific search terms for different ad groups across the campaign, you should set up your negative keywords at the campaign level.
- List – A super-handy feature that lets you create and save lists of negative keywords, which you can later apply across your Google Ads account.
- Ad – Here, you’re working at the most granular level, where you really fine-tune each individual ad group. It’s time-consuming, but it can save you a lot of money and prevent unnecessary ad spend if the negative keyword is specific to that ad group.
The Difference Between “Broad Match,” “Phrase Match,” and “Exact Match”
When you create negative keywords, you can also choose which match type the search term should fall under—either “broad match,” “phrase match,” or “exact match.” We’ll go over these three different match types for you now.
Broad negative match
A “broad match” is the most common type when you create negative keywords. It excludes searches that include all of your negative keywords—even if they appear in a different order than the one you specified. However, your ad may still appear if the search contains only some of your search terms.
In the example below, which uses the negative keyword “running shoes,” you can see how a negative broad match will trigger your ad.
Negative phrase match
A “negative phrase match” is used relatively rarely, as it excludes the exact search terms in the same order. If the user’s search contains other words, your ad may still be visible unless all the search terms are included in the same order.
You can see an example of a negative phrase match below.
Negative exact match
“Negative exact match” is a combination of the other two match types. This means your ad will not appear if the search contains the exact search terms in the same order and without any additional words. However, if the search includes additional words in combination with your negative match, the ad will still appear.
The example below shows a negative exact match in action.
How do you choose the right negative keyword and search match?
You’re venturing into deep waters when you start working with negative keywords. That’s because setting up the wrong search terms can have major consequences for your ad spend. One of the few ways to avoid this is by using something as simple as your own common sense and assessing for yourself what makes the most sense for your Google Ads.
When you create search terms, you can also think of negative keywords that are similar to the search terms you’ve chosen. For example, if your store sells new shoes, it’s a good idea to exclude the keyword “used shoes.” That way, your ads won’t be shown to customers who want to buy used shoes, and you’ll avoid unnecessary clicks.
So it’s all about understanding the thought processes of your target audience and considering what they would search for on Google to find your products, while also considering search terms that have nothing to do with your company’s services and products.
Negative keywords have both advantages and disadvantages…
Negative keywords are generally a really smart feature in the Google Ads toolkit. But benefits rarely come without a few drawbacks. We’ll list them for you.
Benefits
- Negative keywords improve the quality of the traffic coming to your website.
- Gives you the opportunity to increase the average time visitors spend on your site.
- Your business saves money.
You increase your ROI and lower your cost per conversion.
Disadvantages
- Too many negative keywords can limit your campaign, causing it to reach fewer users/customers
- Negative keywords do not match close variations, so your ads may still appear for searches or pages that contain close variations of your negative keywords.
General negative keywords you should consider adding to your Google Ads account
- “Employment” and “job”-related keywords.
Unless your business is in the recruitment industry, your ads should, in most cases, be aimed at attracting new customers, not new employees. Job seekers often use Google to find job openings in their industries and click on companies’ ads. For this reason, you should set up job-related keywords as negative keywords.
- Information and facts related to search terms.
Many people turn to the internet to find “how-to” guides and other information. Unless you provide this content, you might want to consider adding these terms as negative keywords so you don’t waste your ad budget on people who are just looking for information rather than potential customers in the market with a clear search intent.
- Search terms such as “free” and “cheap.”
If your business does not offer free products or services, these should be negative keywords. If your products or services are premium quality, you obviously won’t want to be associated with keywords like “cheap.” This is an important internal decision for your business, and you should define it early in the setup of your Google Ads campaign.
- Keywords that your competitors use.
Your competitors’ search terms can be really useful if you’re willing to invest your advertising budget in them. If a potential customer searches for your competitor’s name, your ads can appear, allowing you to convert traffic to your business through competitor searches. It’s a smart move, but it’s a risk you have to be willing to take!
- Searches that don't convert.
If a keyword isn't converting after a long period of time, it might be a good idea to pause it.
Do you need help setting up negative keywords?
Our experienced PPC specialists are here and ready for a consultation session where you can work together to identify which negative keywords you should include in your Google Ads!
Fill out the contact form or call us at 70 60 50 28!
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