Paid Search
Negative Keyword Strategies for ROI
Negative keywords stop ads showing for searches you do not want. How the match types work, where to apply them, and a routine that keeps waste down.
BenchMarketing editorial team Updated October 2, 2026 3 min readShare
As Google matches keywords to a wider range of searches, negative keywords have become the main way to keep spend on searches that can turn into customers.
How negative match types work
Negative keywords do not expand to close variants, synonyms or plurals the way positive keywords do. You need to add the variations yourself.
- Negative broad: blocks searches containing all the words, in any order. Negative "free software" blocks "software free download" but not "free tools".
- Negative phrase: blocks searches containing the words in that order.
- Negative exact: blocks only that exact search.
Where to apply them
- Account level: terms you never want, across every campaign, including Performance Max. "Jobs", "careers", "salary", "free", "DIY" and similar depending on your business.
- Campaign level: terms that belong in another campaign, for example brand terms in non-brand campaigns.
- Ad group level: to steer a search toward the ad group with the most relevant ad when two could match.
Shared negative keyword lists save time when many campaigns need the same exclusions.
A routine that works
- Weekly: sort the search terms report by cost and add irrelevant searches as negatives.
- Monthly: look for searches with clicks and no conversions over a meaningful number of clicks, and decide case by case.
- Quarterly: review your negative lists for terms that now block searches you want, for example after launching a new product.
Common mistakes
- Adding a single broad negative word that blocks good searches. "Cheap" may block "cheap flights" for a travel agency that sells exactly that.
- Negating a search after a handful of clicks. Give terms enough clicks to judge before excluding them.
- Forgetting negatives when launching new match types. Broad match needs a strong negative list from day one.
Clean search terms raise CTR and conversion rate together. If yours sit below the Google Ads medians of 6.11% CTR and 7.04% conversion rate, the search terms report is a good place to start. See Google Ads benchmarks.
About the figures
Benchmark figures in this article come from the BenchMarketing dataset and update when the benchmark pages do. Each benchmark page lists its sources and period; see our methodology.
Sources
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