When setting up a Google Search Ad Campaign, obviously you can pick what keywords you want to target for the campaign. This tells Google Ads what keywords users type into Google should trigger your ad to display in the Google search results page. 

Choosing search keywords to target is the focus of your search ad campaign. If you look closer you’ll also see something called “negative keywords” next to ‘search keywords’ in your campaign. 

What is a negative keyword and should you be adding negative keywords to your campaign too?

Adding a negative keyword is basically just what it sounds like; it prevents your ad from being shown when someone searches Google using that keyword.

Why do you need negative keywords if you’re already telling Google what search keywords you want your ad to show up under?

This is because search keywords have 3 different match types and most people add keywords to their campaign using broad match type. This means Google will show your ad for search terms it thinks are closely related to your search keywords. 

The problem is, you might not want clicks from some search terms Google thinks is relevant to the search keywords you’re targeting in the campaign.

This is why it’s important, especially during the beginning of the campaign & if you’re using broad match type, to review your campaign’s search terms report to see exactly which search terms are triggering your ad to be shown in the Google SERPs. If you see any that aren’t relevant enough, be sure to add them as negative keywords to the campaign. 

Common keywords you may want to add as negative keywords from the get go:

“how to”

“how do i”

“cheap”

“low cost”

“free”

“job”

These are mostly self explanatory. I add “how to” and “how do i” because usually people performing these types of search queries are just looking for free information. It’s what is considered top of funnel traffic and unlikely to convert very well. If you’ve maxed out your campaigns targeting high intent/bottom of funnel keywords it may make sense to set up a campaign targeting top of funnel keywords like these but if you’re just starting out with a limited budget you’ll want to add these top of funnel keywords as negative keywords to your campaign.

“Cheap”, “low cost” and “free” are meant to weed out tire kickers and people shopping just on price. Unless you’re competing on price, you should probably add these as negative keywords too.

“Job” is added to weed out anyone searching for jobs.