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Stop wasting budget on irrelevant clicks. Learn 7 proven methods to find negative keywords in Google Ads, from search terms reports to competitor analysis and AI tools.
Daniel BenítezMarch 11, 202613 min readNegative keywords are the most overlooked profit lever in Google Ads. Every irrelevant search query that triggers your ad costs you money and teaches Google's algorithm the wrong lessons about who your customers are. The average Google Ads account wastes 20-30% of its budget on irrelevant clicks that could be prevented with proper negative keyword management.
The challenge is not understanding that negative keywords matter — most advertisers know that. The challenge is systematically finding them before they drain your budget. This guide covers seven methods, from basic to advanced, that will help you build a comprehensive negative keyword strategy.
The Search Terms Report is your primary source for negative keywords. It shows the actual queries people typed before clicking your ad. Google Ads > Keywords > Search Terms gives you this report, though Google now hides a growing percentage of queries under 'Other search terms' for privacy reasons.
Do this weekly for the first month, then biweekly. New irrelevant queries appear constantly as Google expands match types, especially with Broad match keywords.
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Audit my account freeDo not wait for your budget to get wasted. Before launching any campaign, research the keyword landscape to identify obvious negatives. Use Google Keyword Planner: enter your target keyword and scroll through the suggestions. Any suggestion that is clearly irrelevant to your offer becomes a negative.
Google Ads occasionally suggests negative keywords in the Recommendations tab. These can be useful but require careful review — Google's recommendations are optimized for Google's revenue, not necessarily your profitability. Accept negative keyword recommendations that clearly match irrelevant queries, but verify each one against your actual business context.
Every industry has a standard set of negative keywords. For example, almost every B2B advertiser should exclude 'jobs', 'careers', 'salary', 'internship', and 'training'. Every paid product should exclude 'free', 'open source', and 'crack'. Start with these industry baselines and customize from there.
Create shared negative keyword lists in Google Ads (Tools > Shared Library > Negative Keyword Lists) and apply them across all relevant campaigns. This prevents you from having to add the same negatives to every campaign individually.
Google Analytics reveals what people do after they click. Connect Google Analytics to your Google Ads account and look at the Acquisition > Google Ads > Search Queries report. Filter for queries with high bounce rates (above 80%) and zero goal completions. These are queries where people clicked, saw your page, and immediately left — a strong signal of irrelevance.
N-gram analysis breaks search queries into individual words and word pairs, then counts how often each appears. This reveals hidden patterns that are invisible when reading queries one at a time. For example, you might not notice that the word 'template' appears in 47 different search queries that cost you 340 euros last month with zero conversions.
This method is particularly powerful for accounts with Broad match keywords, where the variety of triggered queries is enormous and manual review misses patterns.
Modern AI tools can analyze your search terms data and identify negative keyword opportunities that humans miss. AI excels at pattern recognition across thousands of queries, finding semantic clusters of irrelevant traffic and suggesting negatives you would not have thought of.
AI tools can also predict which queries are likely to be irrelevant based on their similarity to known irrelevant queries in your account. This proactive approach catches wasted spend before it happens, rather than waiting for the Search Terms Report to show the damage.
Just like regular keywords, negative keywords have match types that control how broadly they block queries. Using the wrong match type is a common mistake that either blocks too little (wasting money) or too much (losing good traffic).
Negative keyword management is not a one-time task. New irrelevant queries appear every week as Google broadens match types and user behavior evolves. The most profitable Google Ads accounts we manage have a disciplined weekly or biweekly review process.
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Daniel BenítezFounder of AdPredictor
Daniel Benítez ran paid media and demand generation at Product School, Hispasec and Fivestars before building AdPredictor. He started it because of what he kept seeing in real accounts every week: plenty of data and no clear decision. He writes about what can be checked inside an account, not about theory.
See their LinkedIn profileNegative keywords are your most underused lever for cutting wasted spend and improving Quality Score. Here's a complete strategy guide, match type rules, and a starter list of 50+ negatives you should add today.
Learn how to analyze your Google Ads search terms report to find wasted spend, discover new keywords, and improve campaign performance. Includes step-by-step analysis framework.
A systematic framework to raise your Google Ads Quality Score from 4-5 to 8-9. Covers ad relevance, expected CTR, and landing page experience with real examples.
Full topic guide
Search Terms Analysis in Google Ads: Turn Raw Data into Optimizations →Master Google Ads search terms reports: identify converting vs. wasted queries, tag by intent, build negative keyword lists, and optimize match types.
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