When compiling a list of queries for a campaign, each of us sees how many keywords have to be filtered out because they are clearly irrelevant. To ensure that your ads do not show for such queries, you need to create a list of negative keywords (stop words). We will explain how to do this in this article.
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But first, let’s look at a few terms to better understand how a list of negative keywords works. You’ve probably heard about match types? Let’s refer to the Google Ads help, here’s what it says:
Broad match. Ads may show for searches related to your keyword.
- Example: kittens.
- Related queries: kittens, kitten photos, kitten sales, funny cats.
Phrase match. Ads may show for searches that include the meaning of your keyword.
- Example: “kitten sales”.
- Related queries: kitten sales, kitten sales, cheap kitten sales.
Exact match. Ads may show if the query matches the keyword exactly or is a close variation.
- Example: [kitten sales].
- Related queries: kitten sales, buying kittens.
Negative keyword. The ad does NOT show for queries containing the specified word.
- Example: -free.
- Related queries: free kittens, free kitten calendars, free kitten photos.
You may ask, why not use exact match and avoid the need for negative keywords? This might be the first thought that comes to mind, but it’s not the best option because, in addition to irrelevant queries in broad match, you can also get quite relevant ones that were not previously accounted for (they may not have been in the statistics, people come up with new queries and their variations every day). In other words, exact match also cuts out a significant portion of target traffic.
Therefore, you need to select negative keywords for contextual advertising to filter out irrelevant queries while ensuring your ads show for relevant ones, increase CTR, and save your budget.
Now, let’s get to the point: how to compile a list of negative keywords?
It’s not difficult but requires some skill. Suppose you need to sell a Samsung smartphone, and you’ve compiled a general semantic core with phrases like:
buy smartphone Samsung
smartphone Samsung price
smartphone Samsung reviews
smartphone Samsung review
smartphone Samsung image
Obviously, only the first two queries with the prefixes buy and price are relevant. The next three queries will bring visitors who are not currently looking to buy. What words in the queries tell us this? These words are: reviews, review, image.
smartphone Samsung reviews
smartphone Samsung review
smartphone Samsung image
These are the ones you need to place in the list of negative keywords. It will look like this:
reviews
review
image
As soon as the system sees a query containing any word from the negative keywords list, it will not show your ad and will save your budget.
But you should keep in mind that in practice, Google does not consider word forms. For example, if the negative keywords list contains the word “review,” but the user enters the query smartphone Samsung reviewss, your ad will still be shown to them. So we expand the negative keywords list as follows:
reviews
review
reviews
reviewing
image
images
In addition to the list you’ve compiled, there is also a standard list of negative keywords that you should add after checking them against your project. There are quite a few of them, so they are not listed in the article, but they can be found on the internet by searching for “Negative keyword lists for contextual advertising.”
Also, note that if your ad is supposed to be shown in one particular city, you should add other major cities of your country to the list of negative keywords. This is because it often happens that people who are geographically in the region of display might be interested in the service in another city (for various reasons). A list of cities is easy to find on the internet. Don’t forget that this list should also be declined for Google’s idiosyncrasies. To avoid doing this manually, use any word declension service on the internet, of which there are many.
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So we’ve figured out how to collect negative keywords for contextual advertising. When you’re done, be sure to review the resulting list to ensure that no essential keywords for your campaign have slipped in. Good luck!