Negative Keywords: Maximizing Their Value in Google Ads Campaigns

Negative keywords are now being highlighted with an interesting new Google feature within its Ads platform. Businesses can now select account-level keywords that work across all campaigns.

What are Negative Keywords?

A negative keyword is a term that you don’t want your Google paid ads to appear for. Oftentimes, these keywords are related to your desired choices, but they may bring an unwanted intention.

For example, if you ran ads for white socks, you might add ‘yellow socks’ as an opposing keyword. This is because while it would bring people interested in socks, they wouldn’t be interested in your socks. With a typical Google Ads campaign, keywords break down into three core types:

1. Broad Match: Your ads will not show when your undesirable keyword is within a search query in any order.

2. Phrase Match: Your ads will not show if the search query contains exactly your negative keyword. And they won't show up even if it’s within a longer phrase.

3. Exact Match: Your ads will not show if the search query is exactly your opposing keyword.

Benefits For Your CPC

The biggest benefit of using these types of keywords in your paid ads is that it helps to filter out unwanted traffic. Unwanted traffic may come from related keywords that don’t align with your desired intent.

But, opposing keyword also provide additional benefits to your campaigns, like:

• Excludes irrelevant traffic

• Reduces average cost per click

• Improves value of click

• Increased click-through rates for ads

What are Account-Level Negative Keywords?

B, ‘campaign-level’ keywords were assigned to individual campaigns. While assigning you had to add them to every single campaign separately.

In early 2023, Google introduced account-level negative keywords. These are non-positive keywords that stay active across every campaign connected to your account. This means that these opposing keywords automatically attach to new campaigns. Account-level negative keywords give brands more overall control over their ad placements.

Additionally, account-level keywords offer businesses a more efficient way to manage their campaigns. It reduces the chance of errors like repeating keywords or forgetting to add some. Overall, this will help businesses get more value from their ads across the board.

To launch your Google Ads strategy, book an Intro Conversation with the digital advertising and branding specialists at Rizzo Young Marketing.