Paid Search
Negative Keywords: The Cheapest Hour in Your Ad Account
Negative keywords take one weekly report and one list, and they’re the best-returning hour you can spend in most small Google Ads accounts.
If you do one thing in your Google Ads account this month, make it this. Open the search terms report, sort by cost, and read the top fifty.
You’ll find money spent on searches you’d never have bid on: job seekers, students doing homework, people in a state you don’t serve, somebody looking for a free version of what you sell. Each of those cost you a click, and most are still costing you one every week.
Keywords and search terms are different things
This trips up almost everyone who runs their own account. Your keyword tells Google what you want to show up for. The search terms report shows what people typed before they clicked, and with broad and phrase matching (which Google keeps loosening) the two can be far apart.
You bid on "commercial plumbing." You get charged for "plumbing apprenticeship," "how to fix a commercial toilet," and "plumbing supply store." Google decided all three were related, and you paid for each of them.
The search terms report shows what your keywords bought.
The categories worth blocking, in order
Free, DIY, and how-to
Anyone typing "how to," "DIY," "free," "template," or "tutorial" plans to do it themselves. Block those modifiers everywhere and you’ll cut waste in nearly any account.
Jobs and training
"Jobs," "salary," "hiring," "career," "apprenticeship," "certification," "course," "school," "training." Job seekers search a lot and buy nothing.
Competitors and brands you do not carry
Unless you’re running competitor campaigns on purpose, competitor names cost a lot and convert poorly. The same goes for brands you don’t stock.
Geography you do not serve
Location targeting leaks, especially near a state line, and much of Southeast Ohio sits near one. Add the cities and states you don’t want as negatives instead of trusting targeting alone.
Wrong intent entirely
Used, rental, wholesale, parts, repair: whichever of these isn’t your business. A company that sells new equipment and burns budget on "used" searches is one of the most common patterns we see.
Where to put the list
Build a shared negative keyword list at the account level for the universal ones: jobs, free, DIY, the states you don’t serve. Apply it to every campaign. Keep campaign-level negatives for terms that are wrong for one campaign and right for another.
That distinction matters more as you grow. "Repair" might be a negative on your installation campaign and a core keyword on your service campaign. Put it at the account level and you’ve switched off a whole line of business.
Match types, briefly
| Type | Written as | Blocks |
|---|---|---|
| Broad negative | plumbing jobs | Any search containing both words, in any order |
| Phrase negative | "plumbing jobs" | Any search containing that exact phrase |
| Exact negative | [plumbing jobs] | Only that exact search, nothing else |
Broad negatives do most of the work. Take care with single common words. Adding "service" as a broad negative to block "customer service jobs" will also block "plumbing service," which is what you sell.
Make it a weekly habit
Check weekly for the first couple of months, while the account is young and the waste is concentrated. Once the obvious patterns are blocked and you’re picking off stragglers, monthly is enough.
The work adds up over time. An account with two years of disciplined negative keyword work gets a cost per call that a new account can’t match on the same budget. That’s also the argument for owning your ad account instead of letting an agency hold it. The list is the asset, and it stays behind if the account does.