Google Ads Negative Keywords Tutorial

If you don’t completely understand negative keywords yet, check out our video and the article below. We cover negative keywords in Google Ads and make them easy to understand.

What are Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords are used to completely exclude certain words, keywords, and phrases so your search ads do not show for specific search queries. In addition, you can use negative keywords for your Display campaigns and Video campaigns to improve your targeting. Negative keywords are used to optimize your campaigns and improve your targeting in Google Ads.

Google Ads Negative Keywords Video

How to Add Negative Keywords to Google Ads

You want to start by opening up your Google Ads account and opening your campaign. Then, you can follow the step-by-step process below to add Google Ads negative keywords to your campaign or your account.

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Add Negative Keywords to a Search Campaign

1. Open a search campaign in Google Ads.
2. Click on the Keywords tab to see the keywords you are targeting.
3. Click on the ‘Negative Keywords’ tab to see or add additional negative keywords.
4. Click on the ‘+’ button to add new negative keywords to your campaign.
5. Enter the negative keywords and click on Save.

Create a Negative Keyword List

Rather than adding negative keywords directly to a campaign, you can create lists in your Shared Library and use them across multiple campaigns. In addition, you can add new negative keywords to a list that you have already applied to a campaign.

1. Click on the tools icon on the top bar of your Google Ads account.
2. Click on Negative Keyword Lists under Shared Library.
3. Click on the ‘+’ button to create a new keyword list to exclude from your campaign.
4. Click on an existing list or scroll to the bottom of a new list to apply it to one or more campaigns.

Add Negative Keywords to a Display or Video Campaign

1. Open a display campaign or video campaign in Google Ads.
2. Click on the Keywords tab to see the Display/Video keywords you are targeting.
3. Click on the ‘Negative Keywords’ tab to see or add additional negative keywords.
4. Click on the ‘+’ button to add new negative keywords to your campaign.
5. Enter the negative keywords and click on Save.
6. Only negative broad match keywords will be used for Display and Video campaigns.

Negative Keyword List For New Campaigns

I listed 55 keywords below that I use for new campaigns. They generally hurt campaign performance because it includes people who are not actively looking to purchase products and services. You can find additional negative keyword ideas from Techwyse and Webmechanix if you want to expand this list.

• • About
  • Affordable
  • Amazon
  • Article
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Case Study
  • Cheap
  • Classes
  • Clubs
  • Code
  • Comparison

Conference

• Courses
• Craigslist
• Definition
• DIY
• Documents
• Ebay
• Employers
• Employment
• Examples
• Forums
• Free
• Guide
• Guides
• Hiring
• Hobby Lobby
• How Can
• How Does
• How To
• Images
• Internship
• Jobs
• News
• Newsletter
• Open Source
• Overstock
• Presentations
• Price
• Quotes
• Reports
• Reviews
• Salary
• Templates
• Training
• Tutorial
• University
• Used
• Video
• What Are
• What Is
• Where Can

How To Use This List: Add the negative keywords from the list above with 1 word as a broad match type and add negative keywords with more than 1 word as a phrase match type. Do not use specific words or phrases if they apply to your campaign type.

How Do I Find Negative Keywords?

Go to your Google Ads account, open a search campaign, and click on the Search Terms Report to find negative keyword ideas. If you want to find existing negative keywords, you will click on the Negative Keywords Tab or open a Negative Keyword List. The Search Terms Report is the best way to find ideas that will help you optimize your Google AdWords search campaigns. For Display and Video campaigns, you would use words that are unrelated to your targeting to include in your negative keyword lists.

• Exclude terms that are unrelated to your products and services.
• Exclude words and phrases that are hurting your conversion rate and increasing your cost per conversion.
• Exclude words that are unrelated to your current targeting on the Display Network and Video Network.

5 Negative Keywords Best Practices

You can add negative keywords in your Google Ads campaigns and Bing Ads campaigns to avoid showing for certain search terms. There are plenty of strategies and ultimately you want to use them to optimize your Pay-Per-Click Advertising campaigns.

1. Create negative keyword lists that you can use for Google and Bing.
2. Start new campaigns with negative keywords to avoid searches that are unlikely to convert.
3. Understand negative phrase match and negative broad match keywords and how they work.
4. Use your Search Terms Report to find negative keyword ideas.
5. Add negative keywords to your campaign on a weekly basis.

Negative Keyword Match Types

There are three negative keyword match types in Google Ads. You can use negative broad match keywords, negative phrase match keywords, and negative exact match keywords in your campaigns. They all perform a little differently so I explained them below.

Broad Match Negative Keywords – If you want a specific search word to be excluded from your campaign, you would use broad match negative keywords. In order to use these types of keywords, you do not need any modifier around your broad match keywords. I generally use broad match keywords to exclude specific words from my search campaign. It can be helpful to exclude people looking for reviews, templates, or free products and services.

Phrase Match Negative Keywords – If you want a search phrase to be excluded from your campaign, you would use phrase match negative keywords. In order to use these types of keywords, you would use quotes around your “phrase” match keywords. I generally use negative keywords with the phrase match type to ensure that specific search terms are not being targeted in my campaign.

Exact Match Negative Keywords – If you want a specific search query excluded altogether, you would use exact negative keywords. In order to use these types of keywords, you would use brackets around your [exact] match keywords. I generally use negative keywords with the exact match type to ensure that my Ad Groups are targeting the best possible keywords and there is no overlap.

What Are Negative Keywords?

If you have more questions, you can see our guide to answer that question. You can prevent your advertisements from entering the ad auction by excluding certain terms or phrases altogether from your campaign. When it comes to optimizing your campaigns, it is a best practice to exclude search words and search queries from a search campaign.

Bing Ads Negative Keywords

You can watch our video below or read our Microsoft Advertising AKA Bing Ads negative keywords article to learn more. If you are running Google Ads campaigns and you import them into Bing Ads, it will also import your negative keyword lists. Generally, I will keep my lists up to date on Bing Ads and Google Ads. In addition, you can use the list above for new campaigns in your Microsoft Advertising account.

In Summary

There are plenty of strategies when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads campaigns. One of the best practices is to use the strategies above for your search campaigns and display campaigns. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section.