How to Do Negative Keywords in Google Ads

Wasted spend accumulates quietly. We have seen Calgary accounts burning hundreds a month on queries that were never going to convert. Negative keywords stop that from happening. They tell your Google Ads campaigns which queries should never trigger your ads. Done well, managing negative keywords is one of the clearest ways to improve return from existing ad spend without touching the budget.

What Negative Keywords Do

Budget protection is the core benefit.

Your ads enter an auction whenever a search query matches your keywords. Broad match and phrase match keywords pull in a wide range of searches. Some of those searches have no connection to what you sell. Negative keywords, however, filter them out. Your ads stop showing for irrelevant searches. Budget instead concentrates on queries where buyers are actually present.

The quality signal effects matter just as much. Irrelevant searches drag your CTR down. Weaker CTR lowers Quality Score. A lower Quality Score raises your cost per click. It also pushes your ads toward lower positions in the auction. Blocking irrelevant searches with negative keywords protects all of those numbers at once.

Three Levels Where Negatives Apply

Not every exclusion needs the same scope.

The platform lets you add negative keywords at three distinct levels. Account level. Campaign level. Ad group level. Account level blocks a term across your entire account. The campaign level blocks it inside one campaign only. Ad group-level negatives apply only to specific ad groups within that campaign.

Most advertisers start at campaign level. That is still the sensible entry point. Account level works best for terms universally irrelevant to everything you advertise. The ad group level matters when tightly themed groups inside a campaign need different exclusions from each other.

All three levels handle different types of problems. Accounts with multiple services also block searches at all three levels simultaneously.

Negative Keyword Match Types

Three options. Each behaves differently.

Negative broad match is the default match type. It blocks searches containing all the words in your negative keyword, in any order. Add “running shoes” as a negative broad match and your ads stop showing for “cheap running shoes Calgary” or “buy running shoes online.” Word order does not matter here.

Negative phrase match is more precise. Enclose your term in quotation marks when adding it. It blocks searches containing your exact phrase in that specific word order. Searches where those words appear in a different sequence are still allowed through.

Negative exact match blocks only the precise query you enter, placed in square brackets. Nothing close to it, only exactly that query. Exact match suits specific situations where you want narrow exclusion without blocking close variants.

Negative broad match keywords and negative phrase match keywords still do the heavy lifting in most accounts. Exact match is useful in targeted situations, not as a starting point.

How to Add Negative Keywords in Google Ads

Faster than most people expect.

Sign in. Navigate to the campaign you want to update. Click Keywords in the left sidebar. Select the Negative Keywords tab. Hit the plus button. Enter your terms, one per line. Choose broad, phrase, or exact, and save.

To apply a shared negative keyword list instead, go to Tools and Settings. Under Shared Library, open Negative Keyword Lists. Create a new list. Name it. Add your terms. Attach that list to any campaigns in your account. Every update to the list reaches all of them the moment you save.

Building Your Negative Keyword List

Start from actual search data, not guesswork.

The Search Terms report is your primary tool here. Inside your account, go to Keywords, then Search Terms. Each row in that report is a real query that showed up in your account. Look for competitor names. Job-seeking queries. DIY and how-to searches. Navigational brand queries from people who want something you do not offer.

New accounts without history still need a seed list before launching. Reliable terms to add to your negatives list early include “free,” “cheap,” “DIY,” “how to,” “tutorial,” and “jobs.” A round of our keyword research can also surface terms worth blocking before the campaign launches.

Review your negative keyword lists at least monthly. Search behaviour shifts over time. New irrelevant queries appear in volume. Miss three months of a bad query compounding against your budget. The wasted spend adds up before most advertisers notice.

Applying Negatives Across Multiple Campaigns

One list. Everywhere you need it. Less work.

Account-level negative keywords and shared negative keyword lists both let you apply them from a single place. Build the list once. Attach it where it applies. Future updates reach every attached campaign automatically.

Competitor brand names and job-related searches belong on that shared list. Anything outside your service scope goes there too. To-The-TOP! has managed ad accounts since 2007. Accounts without shared lists consistently show inconsistent exclusions across campaigns.

Can Negatives Apply at the Ad Group Level?

Worth doing in any structured account.

Ad group-level negatives prevent one ad group from absorbing searches that belong to another. Say a campaign runs two ad groups. One targets Calgary SEO services. The other advertises our Google Ads management service. A search for “SEO audits” is relevant to the SEO group. Add it as a negative to the Ads group. Budget then lands where it should.

Advertisers who skip this step rely only on campaign-level exclusions. They tend to end up with messier search term data. Harder to read which ad group is actually driving results.

Managing tight ad groups is part of what our campaign management process covers for every client. The negative keyword audit always happens in the first 30 days.

Are Your Negatives Actually Working?

Pull the report. Two to four weeks in.

After running negative keywords for a few weeks, check the Search Terms report again. Look for irrelevant queries still getting clicks. Any that slipped through need to go on the negatives list or need a tighter match type applied.

Negative keyword management is not a one-time task. Set-and-forget accounts see wasted spend creep back in over time. Businesses running competitive paid search campaigns in Calgary build this review into their monthly routine.

For a broader view of how negatives fit into overall campaign structure, start with our SEO agency Calgary page, then read up on keyword analysis for SEO. Together they cover the full picture. Worth understanding before you launch a new campaign.

FAQ

How do I put negative keywords in Google Ads?

Go to Keywords, then the Negative Keywords tab, in your account. Click the plus button. Enter each term you want to block, choose a match type, and save. For shared lists, go to Tools and Settings, then Shared Library, then Negative Keyword Lists.

What does a negative keyword list do?

A set of negative keywords stored in your Shared Library that can be applied to any number of campaigns at once. Build it once. Attach it wherever needed. Any update reaches all of them automatically. Best for exclusions that apply across your entire account.

How do I find what to block?

Pull the Search Terms report inside your account. Any query that triggered the ads but was not relevant goes on the list. For new accounts, start with known irrelevant terms. “Free,” “cheap,” “DIY,” “jobs,” and competitor names come up on nearly every service business account.

Can you add negative keywords to ad groups?

Yes, at the ad group level. Go to Keywords, then Negative Keywords, and select the ad group from the dropdown. This setup stops groups from competing for the same searches. Conversion data also stays cleaner for each one.