What are negative keywords?

Negative keywords are terms for which you indicate in Google Ads that your ad should specifically not appear. They work like a filter: if someone searches with a term you have excluded, your ad is not shown and you therefore pay nothing. That way you prevent your budget from leaking into searches that have nothing to do with your offer.

Why are negative keywords important?

When you advertise on broad search terms, you often come up for queries you did not intend. If you sell a paid service, for example, you do not want to appear for people searching for free, job or training. Every click on such an irrelevant query costs money with no chance of a customer. In B2B that is extra painful, because costs per click are often higher there and every wasted euro is one that does not go to a real enquiry. By excluding those terms, you keep your traffic more relevant and your budget more effective. The full approach is covered in our guide on negative keywords.

How do you find negative keywords?

The best source is the search terms report in your account. There you see the actual queries your ad appeared for, and not just the keywords you bid on. By going through that report regularly, you discover which irrelevant terms are soaking up clicks. You add those to your list of negative keywords. This is not a one-off action, but maintenance you keep doing structurally. You can also set negative keywords at different levels, from an entire campaign to a specific ad group, and even on shared lists you reuse across multiple campaigns.

What does it deliver?

Well-maintained negative keywords make sure your budget goes to the right people: visitors with real buying intent. That improves your relevance, often also your cost per click, and ultimately the quality of your enquiries. At Customer Impact we see this as the basic hygiene of every campaign. We do not steer on as many clicks or impressions as possible, but on enquiries and revenue, and that starts with not wasting money on the wrong queries. We work exclusively in B2B, never for webshops, and keep your campaigns honestly measured against real customers. What that costs in your situation, you will find via our pricing.