How to Avoid Google Adwords Negative Keyword Mistakes

Have you been spending too much on Google Ads without getting results? You might be y making mistakes unknowingly that are increasing your budget.

As PPC consultants, we see improper usage of negative keywords in many accounts. So, what are these Google ads’ negative keyword mistakes? Well, let’s start our journey and learn more.

Common Google Ads Negative Keyword Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

1.    Misplacing Negative Keywords

Although every PPC consultant will tell you to use negative keywords, you need to develop a well thought out negative keyword strategy. This means adding negative keywords in an efficient matter to your campaigns and ad groups.

It is important to note that there are campaign and ad group-level negative keywords.

Many advertisers create confusion by adding negative keywords as both campaign-level and group level. Consequently, you will find other advertisers using only ad group or campaign level. You must stick to one strategy and be aware of where you are adding each negative. If you are adding negatives carelessly it makes it much harder to see what is actually going on. And this will be significantly less efficient.

How do you avoid this mistake? Well, first classify your search terms as either irrelevant, relevant, or most relevant keywords. The most relevant keywords are the ones that are likely to convert. Block out or eliminate any word or phrase that is too broad because it is irrelevant to you. Then determine if this negative keyword should apply to the whole campaign or only the ad group level. If the keywords applies to the whole campaigns add this as a “campaign negative”, if this should only be blocked from one ad group, add this as a “ad group negative”.

2.    Having Little Understanding of How Negative Keywords Matches Work

Well, Google Ads can be very tricky, and we have all been there. However, with time, you can learn how they work, and negative keywords are one of the foundational aspects of Google ads. Negative keyword matches can be tricky at first, but are very simple to understand after a quick lesson.

So, how do you solve this problem? Learn the negative keyword matches and their types and use them appropriately. There are three negative keyword matches types:

• Negative Exact
• Negative Phrase
• Negative Broad

Negative exact means that the searcher will not see the ad if the search query exactly matches the negative keyword.

A negative phrase means that the ad does not show up if the query search contains the exact negative keyword phrase within the search. But it must be in the same order.

Negative broad means that the ad will never show up when the search query contains the negative keyword in any order. Note that this does not include misspellings or synonyms.

3.    Not Updating the Negative Keywords Often

Google does not limit the number of negative keywords one should have, which means you can add up to 5,000 keywords in the list for every campaign you run. Besides, you can apply the keywords to all the campaigns if your campaigns relate to similar keywords.

This means you should be monitoring your search terms daily and blocking out the irrelevant searches.

Other Common Mistakes: 

• Setting positive keywords as negative keywords and vice versa
• Not using the negative keywords at all

It is good to be thorough and vigilant when looking for negative keywords in your campaigns. You might see some search terms that you never expected. Which means if you do not monitor this, your campaign budget can get higher without tangible results. A quality Google AdWords management agency can help you with this. Or you can apply these principles to your own campaigns.