Negative keywords are search terms for which you do not want your Google Ads to be displayed. Negative keywords can help you to increase the performance of your ads in the long run and avoid wastage. What does this term mean and how do the keywords to be excluded work? We explain it to you!

What are negative keywords?

Surely you have heard about the so-called negative keywords or keywords to be excluded. These keywords are search terms for which your ads should NOT appear. Especially when optimizing SEA campaigns, the negative keywords are an important adjustment screw to avoid irrelevant clicks and non-targeted impressions and to adjust your campaign even better to your campaign goal. By reducing wastage, you in turn increase your quality factor and can keep your click prices low. There are many good reasons not only to focus on a good keyword setup, but also to use exclusionary keywords at campaign or ad group level.

Imagine you want to optimize your store for golf supplies, i.e. clubs, tees, golf clothing etc.. If you don't use negative keywords, your ads on the topic of "golf accessories" will certainly also be played out for search queries that are less concerned with the sport and more with the popular VW Golf model. However, if you categorically exclude this topic at campaign level, you significantly reduce wastage, lower your average CPC, increase your quality factor and, at the end of the day, achieve significantly more conversions in your store. So if you use Google Ads for your online store, you should definitely use negative keywords. In summary, negative keywords help you improve your Google Ads campaigns by:

1. Increase the relevance of your ads

You can avoid having your ads triggered for searches that don't match your target audience or offer. For example, if you sell shoes, you can add "repair" or "cleaning" as negative keywords to exclude users searching for these services. This way you make sure that your ads are only visible to potential customers who are interested in your products.

2. Increase the click-through rate of your ads

You can use negative keywords to segment your campaigns by topic or brand to increase relevance and click-through rate. For example, if you have a campaign for Adidas shoes, you can add other brand names like Nike or Puma as negative keywords. This way you avoid your ads being displayed to users searching for other brands and increase the chance that they will click on your ads.

3. Reduce the cost of your ads

You can use the search query report in Google Ads to see which search queries triggered your ads and which of them are irrelevant or unwanted. Then you can add them as negative keywords to optimize your campaigns. This way you save money that you would otherwise spend on useless clicks and you can use your budget more efficiently.

4. Simplify the management of your ads

You can also create a list of keywords to exclude and assign them to multiple campaigns. This way you save time and avoid mistakes when setting up your campaigns. For example, you can create a list of common negative keywords that should apply to all your campaigns and then add them with one click.

Consider negative keywords already in the research

Of course, you can start your advertising campaign with a classic keyword setup first, and then after a few weeks look at the search terms for which your ads are delivered and define negative keywords on this basis - however, it makes much more sense to consider excluded search terms already during your keyword research. When creating your setup, simply ask yourself which products or services you do not want to advertise. If you come across these products and services during your research, you can immediately add them to your list of negative keywords.

In addition, depending on the topic, it can be useful to start a small Google search yourself and look at ads and organic search entries for certain keywords. This way you understand even more how potential customers search for your services or products and can refine your setup of negative keywords.  

How to use negative keywords effectively for your Google Ads campaigns

So far so good - but if you want to make the negative keywords work for you in perfection, you should not stop reading yet! Because even with keywords to be excluded, you can use Google's general keyword options "Broad Match", "Phrase Match" and "Exact Match" to define the exclusion of search terms even more precisely.

1. Choose the right match types for your negative keywords

Just like for normal keywords, you can choose between Exact Match, Phrase Match and Broad Match for negative keywords. However, Google applies the match types for negative keywords more strictly than for normal keywords. This means, for example, that an Exact Match negative keyword excludes only that exact term and not synonyms or variants. So if you add "doughnuts" as an Exact Match negative keyword, your ads won't be played for "doughnuts", but possibly for "pancakes" or "doughnuts". To avoid this, you should either exclude all synonyms or variants as well, or use a different match type.

• Broad Match" keyword option
  First, let's take a closer look at the "Broad Match" keyword option. This option allows you to prevent your ads from being delivered to irrelevant search ads that contain every word in any order of your keyword phrase. In this case, if your Broad Match negative keyword is "golf clubs", your ads will not be delivered to your search query containing the word "golf clubs" under any circumstances, no matter if it is "golf clubs left-handed" or "golf clubs set". Since these negative keywords can severely limit your reach, you should be careful when using them.
• Keyword option "Phrase Match"
  If you don't want to limit your reach quite so much, using the keyword option "Phrase Match" is a good alternative. Because with this you exclude the ads for search queries where your negative keyword is supplemented by some preceding or following words. For example, if your negative keyword is "golf club", then your ad would not be delivered to search queries like "golf club near me".  
• Keyword option "Exact Match"
  ‍The last keyword option available for negative keywords is "Exact Match". This option prevents your ads from being displayed for queries that contain your keyword in its original form, without additional words or other variations. For example, if your keyword to be excluded is "golf socks colorful", then your ad would never be delivered to this exact search query.

In the following example, we outline once again how an ad is played out based on the negative keywords set, using the example keyword "shoes jogging". The core of our presentation is the example from Google itself, which can be found here.

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2. Regularly check the search query report

The search query report shows you which search queries triggered your ads and how they affected your performance. You should check this report regularly and look for new negative keywords to add. This way you'll make sure that you're always up to date and don't get any unwanted clicks.

3. Avoid too broad or too narrow negative keywords

Selecting the right negative keywords can sometimes be a challenge. A negative keyword that is too broad could prevent the ad from being displayed for relevant search queries. A keyword that is too narrow could allow too many irrelevant clicks. You should therefore always check the impact of your negative keywords and adjust them if necessary. A good way to do that is to use the Keyword Planner feature in Google Ads. With it, you can see how different negative keywords affect the search volume and cost of your campaigns.

4. Use negative keywords in combination with other optimization measures

Negative keywords are an important tool for optimizing your Google Ads campaigns, but they are not the only one. You should also consider other factors such as well-written ad copy, your bidding strategies, your target audiences, and your landing pages. Only by aligning all of these elements and testing and improving them regularly can you realize the full potential of your campaigns.

Our conclusion: researching negative keywords pays off!

Of course, adding negative keywords to your setup requires extra effort - but in the long run, your investment will pay off! Especially if you have a limited advertising budget, where every euro should be used optimally, negative keywords can help you to increase your ad quality, avoid wastage and lower your CPCs. Just give it a try and slowly approach the negative keywords with their different keyword options. If you are interested in more tips & tricks to increase sales in your online store, just follow the link below:

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sources:

https://www.sem-deutschland.de/adwords-agentur/adwords-glossar/negative-keywords/
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7102995?visit_id=638024757912871580-1387063879&rd=1
https://www.innovationvisual.com/knowledge/negative-keywords-google-ads

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