The search terms report shows the actual terms that people searched for that triggered your ad and led to a click.
The search terms report can help you to get more ideas for terms to add as negative keywords. As you browse the report, you may spot some search terms that are related to, but aren’t exactly, what you sell.
This article shows you how to use the search terms report for negative keyword ideas that help you better target customers interested in your product or service.
- While the search terms report is only available for Google Ads campaigns, you can use it to get negative keyword ideas for your campaigns on other advertising platforms.
- By default, negative keywords added to a search campaign from the search terms report are added as exact match. To change the match type, use the appropriate symbols.
Before you begin
Keep in mind that negative keyword match types work differently than their positive counterparts and don’t match to variants. If you’re new to negative keywords, learn more About negative keywords.
Instructions
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a Google Ads client account.
- From the page menu on the left, click Keywords.
- To see search terms for all of your keywords, click Search terms in the expanded menu.
- To see search terms for only a select group of keywords, click Search keywords in the expanded menu, then select the checkboxes next to the keywords you’d like to see search terms for. Then click Search terms in the blue menu bar that appears above the table.
- Select the checkboxes next to the search terms that you'd like to add as negative keywords, then click Add as negative keyword. By default, negative keywords that are added to a search campaign from the search terms report are added as exact match. To change the match type, use the appropriate symbols.
From here, you can add negative keywords to an ad group or campaign, an existing negative keyword list, or a new negative keyword list.
Add negative keywords to an ad group or campaign
- Select Ad group or Campaign. Each negative keyword will be added to the ad group or campaign associated with the corresponding search terms.
- Click Save.
Add negative keywords to an existing negative keyword list
- Select Negative keyword list.
- Choose an existing negative keyword list from the dropdown.
- (Optional) Apply the negative keyword list to all of the campaigns associated with the corresponding search terms by selecting the Add to campaigns checkbox.
- Click Save.
Add negative keywords to a new negative keyword list
- Select Negative keyword list.
- Select the checkbox for Save as new list and apply negative keywords, and then enter a name for your list. The list will be applied to all campaigns associated with the corresponding search terms.
- Click Save.
Keep in mind
Make sure that your negative keywords don't overlap with the keywords that you want to serve. This will cause your ad not to show.