What are negative keywords?
Negative keywords are a key tool in keyword advertising that you use to control when your ads are not shown. While regular keywords tell Google Ads which searches you want to appear for, negative keywords do exactly the opposite: they exclude specific words or phrases, so you avoid impressions that have no value for your business. This gives you more control over who sees your messages and how your ad budget is spent.
In other words, negative keywords help you keep your targeting precise. When you work with digital advertising, it's not just about attracting as many clicks as possible, but about attracting the right clicks. Negative keywords therefore play an important role in both campaign strategy and optimisation – especially when combined with your overall SEM strategy and ongoing search term analysis.
How do you use negative keywords?
You add negative keywords directly in your Google Ads account at campaign or ad group level. That way, you tell the platform that searches containing the chosen words or phrases should not trigger your ads. These could be words like “free”, “used” or “cheap”, for example, if you work with premium products and want to avoid users who are only looking for low prices.
It's important to review your search terms report regularly to find new words that don't fit your goals. You can also use data from your SEO or content marketing efforts, because organic search data often reveals which searches don't lead to real conversions. When you use this insight proactively, you optimise both your paid traffic and your overall digital visibility.
Why you should use negative keywords
Negative keywords improve your ad performance on several levels. They help you avoid wasted clicks that can eat into your budget, while also strengthening the relevance of your ads. When your ads only appear for the most relevant searches, both click-through rate and conversion rate increase. This means you get more value from your ad spend, because you reach users with clear intent.
You also protect your brand from unwanted associations. Imagine you market exclusive furniture, but your ads appear for searches like “cheap sofas” or “used dining table”. That sends the wrong signal. Negative keywords help you avoid that kind of misunderstanding and ensure your brand comes across in line with the positioning you want.
You can also use negative keywords as a tool to structure your campaign strategy. Combined with smart bid adjustments and ad extensions, you can use them to separate different search intents and create more focused ad groups that target exactly the segment you're aiming for.
What types and variants are there?
Google Ads works with three basic types of negative keywords, which determine how strict your exclusions are:
- Negative broad match – the default setting, where your ad won't show if the search contains all the words from the negative keyword in any order.
- Negative phrase match – more precise control, where the search must contain the exact word order of your negative phrase to be excluded.
- Negative exact match – the narrowest form, where the ad is only excluded if the search matches your negative keyword exactly, with no extra words.
The three match types give you the flexibility to adjust your strategy depending on the campaign's purpose. Broad match can be useful in the early stages, when you want to avoid obviously irrelevant searches, while exact match is better suited if you want to fine-tune an already optimised campaign.
How do you use negative keywords in practice?
The best place to start is with a simple analysis of your search terms report in Google Ads. Here you can see which searches trigger your ads but don't lead to clicks or conversions. These keywords are obvious candidates for your negative list. You can also group negative keywords into themed lists that you reuse across campaigns — for example “price-related”, “job-related” or “informational searches”.
Example:
Also think about how your negative keywords work with your overall ad plan. If you work with both SEM and social ads, you can use insight from both channels to spot patterns in search behaviour. Users often move across platforms, so data from social media marketing can give useful signals about which terms you should exclude from search ads.
What should you watch out for?
The most important thing is to keep your negative keyword strategy dynamic. Search behaviour changes constantly, and words that were worth excluding six months ago can suddenly bring valuable traffic. So set up fixed routines for reviewing and updating your lists. You should also test the differences between match types, so you don't exclude too broadly and lose potential customers.
A good tip is to combine your work on negative keywords with ongoing campaign analysis and ad copy optimisation. That way, you make sure your entire Google Ads effort works together – from keywords and targeting to message and landing page. When everything fits together, you spend your budget more wisely, and your results become both more predictable and more measurable.
