keyword exclusions
Negative keywords tell Google Ads which searches your ads must not show on: "free", "jobs", "training", "reviews", or off-target intents. Every click avoided on a worthless search is budget handed back to the searches that convert.
A concrete example
Example
A plumber running on "plumber" also pays for "plumber salary" and "plumber training" searches. By excluding "salary", "training", "jobs" and "free", they reallocate that budget to real service requests.
Why it matters
The search terms report almost always reveals 10 to 30% of spend going to queries with no buying intent. The weekly review of that report, adding negatives as you go, is the best time-to-result optimization of any ad account.
Frequently asked questions
- How often should I add negatives?
- Weekly during a campaign's first month, then at least monthly. Searches evolve constantly: new parasite terms appear, and every week without a review is budget leaking away.
- Where do I find the terms to exclude?
- In the Google Ads search terms report: it lists the real queries that triggered your ads. Anything with no chance of becoming a customer (curiosity, jobs, off-target competitors, freebie hunting) goes negative.