If you have been managing campaigns for a while or trying to make your advertising investment profitable, you will know that Google Ads can be a bottomless pit if you do not set limits.
Often, when auditing accounts that come to our Google Ads agency in Spain, I find a common pattern: companies paying for clicks from people who will never buy from them.
The reason? Poor or non-existent use of negative keywords in Google Ads.
I am Misael Echeverría, Search Engine Marketing Lead at WeLoveWeb, and I must confess that throughout my years optimizing accounts across all types of sectors, I have learned that what you decide not to show is almost as important as what you decide to bid on. In this article, I want to share my personal methodology with you so you can stop wasting money and start attracting high-quality traffic. Let’s get to it.
Why are negative keywords the lifeblood of your Google Ads account?
Imagine you sell “luxury running shoes.” You are bidding on the keyword “running shoes.” However, your ad starts appearing for searches like “cheap running shoes,” “second-hand running shoes,” or “how to clean running shoes.”
Every time someone clicks on those ads and enters your website looking for a bargain or a tutorial, Google charges you. And you, selling luxury items, have just thrown 2 or 3 euros (or whatever the click costs) down the drain.
Negative keywords in Google Ads are the filter that prevents this from happening. Their main function is to improve the CTR (Click-Through Rate) and the Quality Score of your account, as by appearing only before truly interested users, your ads become more relevant.
Furthermore, by eliminating “junk” traffic, your conversion rate rises naturally because the user reaching your landing page has a purchase intent aligned with your offer.
Match types for negative keywords in Google Ads
This is where even professionals sometimes make mistakes. Be careful, because negative keywords do not work the same way as positive ones. The concept of “close variants” does not exist. If you exclude a word in the singular, Google could still show your ad for the plural.
1. Negative broad match
This is the default setting. If you add the negative keyword cheap, your ad will not be shown if the search contains the word cheap, regardless of where it is. But if the user searches for “cheaps” (plural), your ad could still appear.
2. Negative phrase match
This is indicated in quotation marks: “cheap shoes”. Your ad will not be shown if the search contains that exact phrase in that order. If the user searches for “where to buy cheap shoes,” you will not appear. But if they search for “shoes very cheap,” you could appear because you have broken the phrase with the word “very.”
3. Negative exact match
This is indicated in brackets: [cheap shoes]. Your ad will not appear only if the search is identical to what is inside the brackets. If the user adds just one more word, your filter will not work.
My professional advice: In most of my strategies at our Google Ads agency in Spain, I usually use broad match for individual terms (such as “free,” “jobs,” “pdf”) and phrase match for specific concepts I want to avoid.
How to find negative keywords in Google Ads without losing your mind
It is not about guessing. Digital marketing in 2026 is based on data, not intuition. Here are my three main sources for building my exclusion lists:
1. The Search Terms Report
This is the “holy grail.” Go into your campaign, go to “Keywords” and then “Search terms.” Here you will see exactly what the user typed into Google before clicking on your ad. If you see something that doesn’t fit, select it and add it as a negative. Reviewing this once a week is mandatory to maintain the health of your account.
2. Google Keyword Planner
Before launching a campaign, use the planner to see what terms Google suggests. You will often see ideas that give you clues about what to exclude from minute one. For example, if you search for “management software,” Google will suggest “free management software.” You already know that “free” should go on your list of negative keywords in Google Ads.
3. Common sense and market research
If you sell B2B services, words like “course,” “scholarship,” “reviews,” or “amazon” are usually clear candidates for exclusion. Studies on consumer behavior show that users who include informational terms (such as “what is” or “history of”) are at a stage of the funnel very far from a transaction, so they are usually not profitable in direct search campaigns.
Advanced strategies: Negative lists and shared libraries
When you manage several campaigns, going one by one adding negatives is a waste of time. At WeLoveWeb, we use Negative keyword lists.
These lists are created in the “Shared Library” and can be applied to all campaigns in the account (or several of them) simultaneously. Having a master list with generic exclusion terms (jobs, porn, cheap, tutorial, etc.) saves you hours of work and protects your new campaigns from second zero.
Furthermore, in the age of AI, it is vital to understand how these negatives interact with automated bidding strategies. If you use Smart Bidding, negatives help Google’s AI understand faster who is not your customer, allowing the algorithm to focus on users with the highest probability of conversion.
A real case of budget savings
A few months ago, a client from the industrial sector who manufactured “water pumps for mining” came to us. They were spending €4,000 per month, and 60% of their budget was going toward clicks from people searching for “water pumps for pools” or “water pumps for washing machines.”
What we did was:
- Implement an exhaustive list of negative keywords in Google Ads related to home and DIY.
- Refine the semantic SEO of their ads so that Google understood the context was purely industrial.
- Ensure that the landing page loaded in milliseconds through aggressive WPO optimization to avoid losing the qualified traffic that we did manage to filter.
Result: In two months, we reduced the cost per acquisition (CPA) by 45% while maintaining the same volume of qualified leads. We simply stopped paying for what we didn’t want.
Common mistakes you should avoid
Even with good intentions, you can harm your account if you are not careful:
- Excluding too many words: If you overdo it, you can block traffic that was actually relevant. Always check that your negatives are not in conflict with your positive keywords.
- Not using negatives in Display or Video campaigns: Although they work differently (based on topics and placements), negatives help prevent your ads from appearing on low-quality websites or irrelevant content.
- Ignoring campaign level vs. ad group level: Sometimes you want to exclude a word in one group but not in another. Organize your structure well so as not to accidentally limit reach.
According to research on efficiency in digital advertising, correct segmentation and audience filtering are the two factors that most influence the return on ad spend (ROAS) in the Spanish market. Do not underestimate the power of good filtering.
Conclusion: Control is profitability
Mastering negative keywords in Google Ads is not a “set and forget” task. It is a continuous process of refinement. In a market as competitive as today’s, where costs per click continue to rise, efficiency is your greatest competitive advantage.
Every euro you save on an irrelevant click is a euro you can invest in capturing your ideal customer. My recommendation is that you take the time to audit your search terms today. I assure you that you will be in for more than one surprise.
Boost your business with WeLoveWeb
Leading a Google Ads account to success requires time, constant analysis, and a strategic vision that goes beyond the ads. At WeLoveWeb, our mission is for your investment to translate into real, measurable, and scalable results. We are not satisfied with just bringing clicks: we want to bring you customers.
If you feel that your budget is evaporating without seeing the results you expect, or if you simply want SEM experts to manage your strategy so you can focus on what you do best, we are here to help.
Shall we discuss your Digital Marketing strategy?
At our agency, we combine design, development, and marketing to create high-performance digital ecosystems. Let us take care of optimizing your campaigns while you watch your business grow. Visit our digital marketing services and request your audit here.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions: Negative Keywords in Google Ads
There is no magic number, but a mature account usually has hundreds or even thousands of negatives organized into lists. What matters is not the quantity, but the relevance of the exclusions to avoid non-converting traffic.
Indirectly, yes. By using negative keywords in Google Ads, you increase the relevance of your ads and your expected CTR, which are fundamental components that Google uses to calculate your Quality Score.
Unlike positive keywords, negative keywords do not cover misspellings or close variations. If you want to exclude a word and it is commonly misspelled, you must add both versions to your exclusion list.
If you do not want your ads to appear when someone searches for a competitor’s name (perhaps because you are looking for more generic or cheaper traffic), you can add your competitors’ names as negative keywords in Google Ads.
Google Ads usually sends you an alert in the “Recommendations” section indicating that there is a conflict between a negative keyword and a positive one. It is vital to review these alerts periodically so as not to “stifle” the reach of your account.
