The Importance of Negative Keywords within Google Ads

Negative keywords play a significant role in the success of any marketing campaign because they help advertisers target the right people who are interested in their ads. It is a type of keyword that hinders your ad from being initiated by a specific word or phrase. When setting up your first ad campaign, you should consider applying negative keywords as they save on budget, thus increasing your Return on Investment.

When using negative keywords, it is essential to note that they can appear in two different ways. Negative keywords can be placed at the campaign level, meaning you don’t want your ads to appear on particular keywords available on Google on any given search. For example, let’s say you’re operating a fashion store, and you would like to show up on Google searches. You can send a message to Google and tell them not to show your ad anytime people are searching for the keyword “store.” The second kind of negative keyword is that you can add them at the ad group level, meaning negative keywords shouldn’t be used for that specific ad group.

Ways in which negative keywords are used

Let’s discuss two ways in which negative keywords are often used.

a) Traditional use

This is the most common use. In this, you should make use of Google search query to identify new negative keywords but be keen to specify match type.

b) The protective use

The protective use focuses more on identifying the number of times your link is being clicked and the rate of conversion, which in turns minimizes pay per click. In this, you apply negative keywords not because you don’t want to bid on particular terms but because you want them being initiated from a specific campaign.

How to Find Negative Keywords

The best way to come up with relevant negative keywords is by understanding actual questions asked by different users and the criteria they use to search for keywords on Google. You can achieve this through the Google Ads Keyword Planner and search term report.

Finding Negative Keywords with Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner will assist you to come up with the best keyword to bid on without omitting the most important keyword. It can also help you find essential keyword ideas that you can apply. For example, when you search a term like “bags,” you will find so many keywords related to that particular keyword and each has information on their search. Most of them belong to the competitors. If in any case, you come across words that don’t apply to your business, you can use them as your negative keyword list.

Finding Negative Keyword with the Search Term Report

Search Term Report is much better as it helps in coming up with a catalog of both constructive and negative keywords. It gives a comprehensive report of the most used terms by people on the Google search to trigger your ad. It also gives the kind of queries that people typed to initiate your ads. This method is more reliable compared to the Keyword planner as it provides a more robust and consolidated report. The data obtained from the report can further be refined to show which keywords have a high number of users clicking the link and conversion rates. Also, the report helps in providing data, which helps in reducing pay per click, thus an increase in Return on Investment.

How do you Add Negative Keywords to Your Google Ads Account?

When you are on your campaign level, you should have a list of Negative keywords which will help you maximize profits and minimizing expenses. Here are some guides which will assist you to come up with a substantial catalog of negative keywords.

a) Embracing facts About Negative Keywords.

You should by now agree that negative keywords are a big deal to your business as they save on costs. More time and efforts should be applied when creating your overall list of negative keywords. You should think of increasing your negative keyword list as this may help in recovering thousands of dollars lost in Google when you are not using the negative keywords.

Additionally, you should also improve your keywords by coming up with relevant keywords which will help improve your ad performance. Research more on how to identify keywords that aren’t meeting your goals and objectives, work on your keyword match type to show your ads for more relevant searches. Also, you should delete all the terms in your list that aren’t useful for your account.

Conclusion

Negative keywords are one of those marketing features which are so crucial in an ad campaign, but most advertisers ignore them. When used correctly, they can help in minimizing all the unnecessary costs and maximize your ad performance. Also, by using relevant negative keywords, you can save millions of money used on Google every year.