Does the clickthrough rate for your ad campaigns match the quality of the actual traffic? Have you ever felt like your ad spend is filtering into an empty junk pile? Despite the common ad problems, negative keyword optimization is proving to be incredibly useful.
What are Negative Keywords?
We have already established the general concept of negative keywords and their potential to enhance your campaign’s performance.
Consider Negative Words, the same as a bouncer at your online store keeping you from window shoppers and only getting in on VIP experiences.
In the absence of a productive list of negative keywords, Google and Microsoft advertising campaigns become overpriced as they require payment for clicks that never generate revenue or produce desired outcomes. This is where Negative Keywords come into play.
Negative Keywords can help you avoid unnecessary clicks and save money on useless ad campaigns.
By using negative keywords, you can optimize your search and we’ll show you what can happen if you don’t!?
What are the benefits of using negative keywords?
Certain benefits have been highlighted as follow. Why use negative keywords Allow us to expand on the practical applications of negative keywords in your campaign.?
Traffic Control
Does your service offer a course, or are they looking to buy one? One is of great importance, but the other requires a fraction off your budget and has no effect.
Enhance CTR
Eliminating irrelevant traffic on your site leads to increased user traffic. Why? Lowering the frequency of your ads for people searching for less relevant questions is responsible for this. Why? Over time, your CTR will increase if you do it correctly.
Status of CPC
It is natural to expect a decrease in cost per click when you reduce unnecessary traffic and increase CTR. As a bonus, you’ll also get higher ROI! By reducing irrelevant clicks and optimizing for the keywords that are most popular, you can save money on both fronts.
Increased Ad Rank and Quality
Your ads and campaign’s relevance are heavily influenced by the Why use negative keywords you include. The point of your attention is to remove irrelevant things.’ If you use the negative keyword effectively, your ads will only be shown to relevant users, which will result in a higher quality score and better correspondingly improved d rankings. Why? Your dedication leads to the achievement of optimal quality scores and ad relevance.
Levels of negative keywords
Negative keywords that are not relevant to this account level will be applied across all campaigns.
It’s an excellent method for reducing clicks on common search queries that you may have previously ignored.
An entire campaign is covered by these negative keywords. Your ads won’t be displayed for any specific campaign if a negative search term is used, regardless of its size.
The specific ad groups for which negative keywords are applied are the ones affected.
More detail: You can choose to be very specific about your target.e. By using different advertising groups, traffic can be divided into similar but very distinct landing pages.
Red, blue and white are the primary colors featured in a campaign for living room paint colours. By using negative keywords like “blue” and, “white”, you can avoid being shown ads for red colours in the red ad group. Eliminate the target keywords from your negative keyword list and utilize them in other campaigns for a tailored approach. This method is effective.
Types of Negative Keywords
Phrase Match
Keywords matching with negative phrases block people who are searching for the exact keyword phrase with additional words that may be included before or after the term. Why is this? ‘Facial and back massage’ or even shoulder massage may be included in your ad, but not for searches like naturopathy.
The safest choice is to use phrase match, as the search query must include the keyword in the text that was searched. This decreases the likelihood of concealing ads from multiple searches while also limiting the target audience for your advertisement.
Broad Match
With broad match negative keywords, you can avoid showing ads for searches that contain all the words in your keyword phrase, regardless of their sequence. Your ad may still be displayed for certain words within the phrase, like ‘running shoes’ or – “you can choose to display your product in these categories.”.
Negative broad match keywords should be avoided as they can limit your reach, even more so than the exact and phrase match negative keywords. Verify the variants have been researched before assigning specific keywords, ensuring that you don’t see any related topics or subjects with the negative keyword.
Exact Match
Search engines that use negative exact match keywords will not display your ad in searches that include the keyword phrase without any variation. When searching for your negative exact match keyword, ‘winter holidays’ only, your ads will not be displayed on search results pages of users searching “wInter Holidays.”. Even if you search for other forms of the term ‘winter holidays’, your ads may still be displayed.
A larger budget provides greater flexibility with exact match terms, but using negative match options like broad and phrase match is more advantageous for targeting the wrong audience and increasing ROI. Additionally, both narrow and term matches are less competitive.
Where to Find Negative Keywords
Observe Low-Performing Keywords
View your search query in Google Ads‘ Reporting section, located under “Reporting” The search results for your ads based on the keywords you’re targeting will be displayed, making it simple to identify negative keywords and include them in your list when irrelevant keywords start appearing.
Adding negative keywords like “in home senior care” to your campaign for hospice services could be a smart move.
To ensure accurate matching, Google does analyze a user’s past searches to identify potential matches.
Increase Keyword Research
Keyword research that relies on seed keywords may reveal keywords that you have no intention of ranking for. When you search for keywords related to the seed keyword, Google may also show your advertisement on a wide range of match setting searches.
Best Practices for Using Negative Keywords
- Your bidding keyword would be in opposition to your negative keyword if this were done. Verify if any negative keywords are already present in your list and could be hindering your bidding efforts by double-checking. Do this?
- Segmenting your negative keyword lists is crucial. Organizing your campaign with negative keyword lists can help you stay organized and identify the list to which your campaigns should be linked. Furthermore, by adding or removing negative keywords from a list, it becomes easier to scan for the source of additions or deletions. Refer to our post on 9 types of negative keywords list.
- Make sure to include the appropriate list of negative keywords in a newly launched campaign. If the list is not chosen correctly, it would be too late to reach its intended audience. Using the appropriate list can lead to increased sales and qualified leads. You can find out more about achieving success with your negative keyword research by reading our post.
- Finding negative keywords can be done easily with the help of Google Keyword Planner. The process of identifying and adding negative keywords to your list requires manual effort. This process can be time-consuming for those with extensive accounts.
- You can use an automation tool to save time and money by identifying numerous negative keywords in one shot. The Negative Keywords Tool is an automation tool that can help identify keywords that are not relevant. For accounts with ad spend below $10,000 per month, the tool is now free. Decrease your search ad spend by 10-20% while receiving free content.
- Avoid re-incorporating negative keywords in your campaign if they have already been included on an associated list. The system can keep track of where negative keywords have been added while minimizing unwanted clutter.
Examples of Negative Keyword Usage
Online shopping
- Users searching for “free,” “cheap,” or “discount,” are likely to find “used,” secondhand, “prevised,” and “DIY” to be freer than buying a new product.
- People often use terms such as “review,” “forum,” and “blog,” or “wiki” to describe someone who is just looking for information rather than something to buy.
- If you don’t sell those brands, blocking them can prevent fraudulent clicks.
- When advertising a product, the terms “jobs,” “career,” and “hiring” are insignificant as they indicate job seekers.
Service industries
- The use of tools like DIY, instructional, and guide methods hinders individuals from utilizing the service independently instead of seeking professional assistance.
- Free or paid services can hinder people from seeking free assistance.
- When someone posts “Reviews, Opinion and Forum” it usually means they are collecting data and not seeking employment.
Software companies:
The “free trial” option is only relevant if you explicitly want to avoid people from using it for free access or attempting to sell your product.
- Identify and block searches for illegal software downloads using the terms “crack,” “torrent,” or “keygen,” as well as “pirated.”.
- Unless your campaign is focused on hiring or developing, the terms “Jobs,” “developer,” and “API” are generally not applicable.
- The terms “login,” “support,” and “help” are used to indicate current customers seeking assistance, not those who have recently joined.
Real estate:
- If you are selling properties, the terms “rental,” “lease”, “apartment” and “for rent” hold no weight.
- Disable foreclosures, auctioned properties and bank-owned assets if you don’t deal with them.
- Individuals searching for real estate careers or agent training are impeded from accessing the field of “jobs” and “agent training”.
Final Words
The use of negative keywords can be carried out at different levels of your account, providing time-saving management and tailored campaign optimization.