Keywords in Google Ads are a tool that helps businesses reach and connect with target customers, increasing the visibility of ads when users perform search queries. However, in some cases, ads displayed to users who do not have a need for products or services not only waste budget but also affect the effectiveness of Google Ads campaigns. Negative keywords are an effective tool to help prevent ads from being displayed for irrelevant queries, improve campaign performance, optimize costs and increase conversion rates for ads. If you do not know how to find and exploit the power of negative keywords in Google Ads most effectively, follow the article below from Soc Lua!
What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
It is a type of keyword match that advertisers add to a campaign or ad group to prevent a keyword or phrase from triggering an unwanted ad. Simply put, it is a keyword that you do not want to advertise when users search. However, this type of keyword will help your business's ads have more opportunities to reach potential customers, increase conversion rates and optimize budgets.
When setting up negative keywords for a Google Ads campaign, the ad will not be displayed when users use those keywords to search. This helps the ad to be displayed to users who are really interested in the product or service, while improving campaign performance and saving advertising budgets. Adding a word or phrase to the negative keyword list means that the ad will not appear to target customers who do not have a need for the product or service but have queries similar to the added negative keyword.
With search campaigns, adding negative keywords to ads is very important because if you choose the wrong negative keywords, it will affect the range of potential customers and sales. Therefore, you should search for keywords that are not related to your business, run ads that appear when customers search, to add to the ad.
Unlike search ads, in display or video campaigns, negative keywords will work differently. Negative keywords will prevent ads from being displayed to websites or videos that are not relevant or that potential customers are interested in. Ads will not be displayed on the page when the customer's search keywords are not clearly on the website or the content is closely related to the excluded negative keyword group. Moreover, the maximum number of negative keywords that can be added is 5000, so sometimes ads can still appear in some locations that already have negative keywords.
Although Google Shopping Ads campaigns do not use keywords to target ads, you can use this type of keyword to prevent ads from showing when you do not want them to. After adding negative keywords to the campaign, depending on the keyword match type selected, the system will filter out inappropriate queries so that ads are not shown to customers. On the other hand, you can enable automatic negative keywords so that the AutoAds system will compare customer queries with the words you just added and add them to the negative list.
Benefits of using negative keywords to run Google ads
By searching and adding negative keywords in Google Ads, your business's ads will receive the following benefits:
Improve search quality
By using negative keywords at the campaign and ad group level to run Google Ads, businesses can prevent ads from being displayed to users who do not have a need for products or services. This means that your ads will only appear to truly interested customers, increasing the ability to reach the right target audience.
Save advertising budget
When using negative keywords, you can prevent ads from being displayed for unrelated queries. Not displaying ads to people who do not need products or services will help businesses save costs and increase conversions. You can ensure that your Google Ads budget will only be spent to reach real potential customers.
Improve Quality Score and Increase CTR
Google evaluates the quality of your ads based on many factors, including CTR. By removing relevant keywords from your ads, your ad's quality score will improve. Furthermore, adding negative keywords to your ads will increase the relevance to the user's search query, increasing the click-through rate of your ads, improving campaign performance and reducing advertising costs.
Create relevant ad groups
By removing keywords that are not related to your business, products and services from your ads, you can increase the relevance of your ad groups. This means you can create relevant ad groups that convey the desired message related to the keywords that customers search for, increasing click-through rates and improving ad performance.
Increase conversion rates and improve your competitive position
Negative keywords will ensure that your ads will not show for phrases that you know will not generate conversions. Then your ads have a better chance of being shown to potential customers who are more likely to buy, increasing conversion rates, and increasing sales and profits. In addition, using negative keywords also helps you eliminate unnecessary competitors. You can block their ads from being shown to your customers by adding negative keywords related to them to your ads.
Popular types of Google Ads negative keywords
There are many ways to classify negative keywords in Google Ads, including negative keywords at the campaign level and the ad group level. If you do not want your ads to be shown for queries containing certain keywords, add phrases to the campaign's Google Ads negative keywords. These keywords will then be applied to ad groups. For negative keywords at the ad group level, the purpose is the same as negative keywords at the campaign level, but it is only applied to that ad group. In addition, negative keywords added to Google ads also include the following types:
Broad match negative keywords
This is a type of negative keyword that helps limit the display of ads for users searching for keywords containing this negative keyword. This is the default match type that the system applies to newly added keywords without any adjustments. When using this match type, as long as the query contains enough words in the negative keyword phrase, regardless of the order, the ad will not be displayed. However, if the search content contains one or more phrases in the negative keyword, the ad can still be displayed.
Phrase match negative keywords
If using the negative keyword type, the ad will not be displayed when the customer's search content contains the exact keyword phrases but must be in the same specified order. Although the customer's query may contain other keywords, the ad will not be displayed even if the query contains a phrase that matches the negative keyword arranged in the same order. Phrase match negative keywords help you exclude broader keywords and be careful if the keyword is not accented because in some cases you can negate variations of your main keyword.
Exact match negative keywords
When choosing this type of negative keyword, the ad will not be displayed when the customer's query matches 100% with the negative keyword added by the advertiser. This is a safe form of negative keyword matching and is recommended for use in advertising to help improve campaign performance, reach the right target customers and optimize costs.
How to find negative keywords for Google Ads
Currently, the Google system accepts 3 symbols in negative keywords: ampersand (&), punctuation marks (á), and asterisks (*). Every time you deploy an advertising campaign on Google, you can search for negative keywords in many ways and synthesize them into a list, and then add them to the ad. The following are commonly used methods of searching for negative keywords:
Use Google Ads' keyword planning tool
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool from Google that can be used to discover new keywords and view keyword search volume. With this method of finding negative keywords, go to Tools and select Keyword Research Tool. Then enter the keyword you want to come up with ideas for the system to filter out related keywords. At this point, you will have a list of Google Ads keywords including main keywords and negative keywords to choose from to achieve your advertising goals. On the other hand, you can use Google Search Console to view the search term report to provide you with more information about the keywords customers search for to find negative keywords.
Use other keyword research tools
In addition to using the Google Ads keyword planner, you can use other keyword search tools such as Keywordtool.io, Keywords Finder, SEMrush, and Ahrefs, ... Each tool will have its unique features and different uses, so you should learn to choose and use the right tool.
Use the search term report on the Google Ads account
Only accounts that have run Google Ads for a long time can use it to search for negative keywords. That account will collect and compile data about the queries that customers search for to trigger display ads. Through this, you will be able to outline the portrait of your target customers to know which keywords users are using to access your ads. In addition, you will find negative keywords that trigger ads to exclude.
How to Add Negative Keywords in Google Ads Effectively
After finding the negative keywords, add them to the ad group, campaign and negative keyword list by accessing your Google Ads account. Next, select the Keywords section and go to Negative keywords. Now click on the (+) sign and add individual negative keywords or create a new list. Now add the negative keywords to the campaign or ad group and select the specific campaign or ad group.
Here, add the keyword list to the table, each keyword must be on a line and make sure that the keyword does not match the selected campaign's affirmative keyword for the ad to display. After adding the negative keywords, select a match type for each keyword by using the appropriate symbols. Unlike search campaigns, in display and video campaigns, exact match is applied by default to all negative keywords. Next, select Save to new or existing list and enter a name for the new negative keyword list and finally click Save.
If you already have a negative keyword list and want to use it for multiple campaigns, select Use negative keyword list and then select the campaign you want to apply the list to. Here, check the negative keyword list you want to use for that campaign and then click Save.
If you want to edit, delete or download negative keywords in Google Ads, select Keywords in the menu bar and click Negative keywords. To edit negative keywords, move to the right side of the negative keyword, click the pencil icon and select Edit. Now edit the negative keywords, and if you want to change the negative keyword match type, click the drop-down menu to select a new match type for that keyword and then click Save.
When you want to delete negative keywords, select the drop-down box next to the keywords you want to delete and then select Delete. To download negative keywords, click the 3-dot icon at the top of the table and click the download button. Next, choose the appropriate download format for your report. You can send the keyword report to email as a .CSV, as a spreadsheet, or schedule the report to download automatically.
To effectively deploy advertising campaigns on Google, in addition to choosing the right keywords and creating attractive advertising content, adding negative keywords will help prevent ads from showing for irrelevant queries, saving costs. With the above sharing, you have learned the role of negative keywords in Google Ads and how to search and use them effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can use negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant search queries or reaching target audiences that have no need for your products or services, helping to avoid wasting budget and increase conversion rates. Google provides negative keyword match types including broad match, phrase match and exact match for advertisers to choose according to their purposes. To add negative keywords to your advertising campaign, log in to your Google Ads account, select the campaign and click on the Keywords tab, select + Keywords and select Add Keyword. Then enter the keyword and select the appropriate match type and save.
If you want to optimize the negative keyword list in Google Ads, regularly monitor the performance of negative keywords, add new keywords and remove ineffective keywords. You should use the negative keyword list to manage more effectively. To edit a keyword, move to the right of the keyword, select the pencil icon and click Edit. Click the downward-pointing triangle and select a new match for the keyword and click Save. If you want to remove a negative keyword, select the option list box next to the keyword you want to delete and click Remove.
