How to Export Search Terms from Google Ads (And What to Do Without a Spreadsheet)

If you've managed Google Ads for more than a few weeks, you know the drill. Pull the search terms report, export to CSV, open the spreadsheet, freeze the header row, sort by cost, add a color-coded "Action" column, and then spend the next hour manually tagging queries before you can actually do anything about them. The process works. It's just slow.

This guide walks you through every step of exporting your search terms report the right way, including how to filter before you download, how to organize the data for fast analysis, and how to apply your findings back in Google Ads. Then, in the final section, it covers a faster alternative for the parts of the workflow where spreadsheets create the most friction.

One distinction worth clarifying upfront, because it matters throughout this entire process: keywords are the terms you bid on in Google Ads. Search terms are the actual queries users typed that triggered your ads. These are different things, and the Search Terms report shows you the latter. Understanding that gap is the whole reason this review exists.

By the end, you'll be able to pull your search terms data, spot wasted spend, flag negative keyword candidates, and promote high-intent queries to proper keywords, without losing half your afternoon to manual cleanup.

Step 1: Navigate to the Search Terms Report in Google Ads

Log into Google Ads and select the campaign or ad group you want to review. If you manage multiple campaigns, start by filtering to a single campaign. Reviewing everything at once often produces an unmanageable volume of data, and the export becomes harder to act on.

In the left navigation panel, look for Keywords, then click Search Terms underneath it. This is a distinct report from the Keywords tab. The Keywords tab shows what you're bidding on. The Search Terms report shows what actually triggered your ads, which is a much longer and often more surprising list.

Before you do anything else, set your date range. A range of 30 to 90 days gives most accounts enough data to identify patterns without being so large that one-off queries dominate the view. For lower-spend accounts, 90 days is usually the right call. For high-volume accounts, 30 days is often sufficient.

The date range matters because search term reviews are about finding patterns, not reacting to a single click. A query that appeared once with no conversion might be noise. The same query appearing fifteen times with no conversion is a negative keyword candidate.

If you manage multiple campaigns and want a broader view, you can run the Search Terms report at the account level rather than filtering by campaign. Just be aware that the export will be larger and may require more cleanup in the spreadsheet. For most practitioners doing a focused review, campaign-level is the cleaner starting point.

Step 2: Filter the Report Before You Export

This is the step most guides skip, and it's where a lot of time gets wasted. Exporting everything and then filtering in the spreadsheet is slower and more error-prone than filtering in Google Ads before you download. The interface gives you the tools to do this, so use them.

Click the Filter button in the toolbar above the report. A few filters that tend to be useful before exporting:

Impressions above a threshold: Setting a minimum impression count, such as more than 10, removes very low-traffic queries that don't have enough data to act on. These rows add noise without adding signal.

Conversions equal to zero: If your goal is to find wasted spend, this filter isolates every search term that received clicks and cost money but produced no conversions. This is a fast way to surface negative keyword candidates.

Campaign or ad group: If you didn't already narrow the view in Step 1, you can filter here to focus on a specific part of the account.

Beyond filters, check your column configuration. The default columns in the Search Terms report may not match what you actually need. Consider adding or keeping: Search Term, Match Type, Clicks, Impressions, Cost, Conversions, Conv. Value, and Conv. Rate. Remove columns you won't use during analysis.

Google Ads lets you save custom column sets. If you run this report on a regular cadence, saving your preferred configuration means you don't have to rebuild it each time. Look for the column customization option in the columns toolbar and save it with a recognizable name.

The practical benefit of filtering here rather than in the spreadsheet: your export file will be smaller, more focused, and faster to work through. For large accounts, this step alone can cut your review time noticeably.

Step 3: Export the Search Terms Data

Once your filters and columns are set, look for the Download button in the top-right area of the Search Terms report. It typically appears as a downward arrow icon. Click it to open the export options.

You'll see a few format choices. CSV is the most portable option and works with Google Sheets, Excel, and most PPC tools. If you prefer to work in Google Sheets and want the file to land directly in your Drive, the Google Sheets export option handles that automatically. Excel (XLSX) is also available if that's your preferred environment.

Before you click download, name the file in a way that makes it findable later. A naming convention like AccountName_SearchTerms_Jul2026_CampaignScope takes ten seconds and saves you from hunting through a folder of files called "export (3).csv" three months from now. This matters more for agencies managing multiple clients.

For large accounts, the export may not be instant. Google Ads will queue the download and notify you when it's ready, typically accessible through the Reports section. If you're exporting a focused, filtered report, it usually completes quickly.

One thing worth double-checking before you click: the export reflects exactly the filters and column configuration you set in Step 2. If you notice a column is missing or the date range looks wrong after opening the file, go back and adjust before re-exporting rather than trying to work around it in the spreadsheet.

Step 4: Organize the Spreadsheet for Analysis

Open the CSV in your preferred tool. The first thing to do is freeze the header row so it stays visible as you scroll through the data. In Google Sheets, go to View > Freeze > 1 row. In Excel, use the Freeze Panes option under the View tab. This is a small thing that prevents a lot of confusion when you're deep in a long export.

Next, sort by Cost descending. This puts the search terms that have spent the most money at the top of the list. These are your priority review items. A search term that spent a meaningful portion of your budget with no conversions is a much more urgent problem than one that spent a few cents.

Add a column called Action. Use it to tag each search term with one of four labels: Negative Keyword, Add as Keyword, Keep Monitoring, or Irrelevant. You can use a dropdown in Google Sheets or color coding, whichever you'll actually use consistently. The goal is to make the review output clear enough that someone else could pick up your spreadsheet and understand what needs to happen next.

If you're analyzing intent patterns, a second helper column for intent category can be useful. Common categories include: branded, competitor, informational, transactional, and navigational. This isn't essential for every review, but it helps when you're doing a deeper audit or preparing a report for a client.

One important pitfall to flag here: making changes in the spreadsheet does not apply them to Google Ads. The spreadsheet is your analysis layer. Every action you tag still needs to be manually entered back into the platform. This is obvious when you say it out loud, but it's easy to lose track of when you're deep in a review and start treating the spreadsheet as the source of truth.

If you're preparing this for a client, add a Notes column for context. A note like "triggered by broad match keyword, recommend switching to phrase match" gives the client or your internal team the reasoning behind the recommendation, not just the action.

Step 5: Identify Negative Keywords and Keyword Opportunities

This is the analytical core of the whole process. You're looking for two things: search terms that should be blocked, and search terms that should be promoted.

Negative keyword candidates are search terms that received clicks and cost money but produced no conversions and are clearly off-target for your offer. Look for queries that are informational when you're selling something transactional, or queries that suggest a completely different intent than what your campaign targets. A search term like "free [your product category]" with multiple clicks and zero conversions is a strong candidate for a campaign-level negative keyword. The user intent doesn't match your offer.

If you're newer to negative keywords or want a deeper explanation of how they work and why they matter, this guide on what negative keywords are in Google Ads covers the fundamentals.

Keyword promotion opportunities are search terms that are converting well but aren't yet added as exact or phrase match keywords in your account. When a search term performs strongly, adding it as a dedicated keyword gives you more control over bidding and match behavior. Check the Match Type column to see what keyword triggered it. Broad match keywords often generate the widest range of search terms, including both valuable and irrelevant ones, which is why regular search term reviews matter more for broad match campaigns.

For match type decisions, it helps to understand when each type is appropriate. This article on when to use broad match versus exact match keywords walks through the trade-offs in practical terms.

When you flag a negative keyword, also think about the right scope. Should it apply at the campaign level, the ad group level, or be added to a shared negative keyword list that applies across multiple campaigns? Campaign-level negatives block the term across all ad groups in that campaign. Ad group-level negatives are more surgical. Shared lists are efficient for terms you want to block account-wide.

Step 6: Apply Your Changes Back in Google Ads

This is where the spreadsheet workflow gets slow. You've done the analysis. Now you have to take every tagged action and manually enter it back into the platform.

For negative keywords, you have two options. You can navigate to Keywords > Negative Keywords and add them there, specifying the campaign or ad group level. Alternatively, you can go back to the Search Terms report, check the box next to a search term, and use the Add as negative keyword option that appears in the toolbar. The second method is faster for individual terms and lets you set the match type and level before saving.

For promoting a search term to a keyword, select it in the Search Terms report and use the Add as keyword option. Before saving, choose the correct match type. Exact match gives you the tightest control. Phrase match gives you some flexibility while still maintaining intent alignment. Don't default to broad match when promoting a high-performing search term unless you have a specific reason to.

For bulk changes, the Google Ads Bulk Actions tool is worth using. You can export your action list as a CSV and upload it via Bulk Actions to apply multiple changes at once rather than clicking through each one individually. This is especially useful when you have a long list of negatives to add after a thorough review. If you're not familiar with how bulk editing works in Google Ads, this overview of bulk editing in Google Ads explains the process.

One caution: be careful about applying broad negatives too aggressively. Blocking a term at the campaign level without reviewing it in context can accidentally cut legitimate traffic. Review each negative candidate in the context of your campaign's goals before adding it.

This apply-back step is where most of the time cost lives in the spreadsheet workflow. You've already spent time exporting and analyzing. Now you're spending more time re-entering everything into the platform, one action at a time.

A Faster Alternative: Skip the Spreadsheet Entirely

The six-step process above works. It's reliable, and if you run search term reviews infrequently or prefer to have a spreadsheet record of your analysis, it's a reasonable workflow. But for practitioners doing weekly or bi-weekly reviews across multiple accounts, the export-analyze-re-enter loop adds significant friction.

That friction is the problem manual negative keyword management creates at scale, and it compounds quickly when you're managing several client accounts.

Keywordme is a Chrome extension that integrates directly into the Google Ads Search Terms report. Instead of exporting data to a spreadsheet and then re-entering your decisions back into the platform, you review and act on search terms without leaving the Google Ads interface.

With Keywordme, you can add negative keywords, promote search terms to keywords, apply match types, and build negative keyword lists with single clicks, all from within the native Search Terms report view. There's no export, no spreadsheet tab-switching, and no manual re-entry step.

A few things worth being clear about: Keywordme does not automatically apply changes. You still review each search term and decide what to do. The extension removes the spreadsheet step from the middle of the workflow, not the human judgment step. You stay in control; the process just moves faster.

This is particularly useful for agencies doing regular search term reviews across multiple client accounts. The time saved per account compounds quickly when you're running the same process for ten or fifteen clients each week. If you want to understand more about why automation matters here, this piece on why to automate keyword management covers the broader case.

Keywordme is priced at $12/month per user with a 7-day free trial. If the spreadsheet workflow is eating into your time on a regular basis, it's worth running the trial during a normal review week to see whether the in-interface approach fits your process.

Your Search Terms Review Checklist

Here's the full workflow in a quick-reference format you can use before each review session.

1. Navigate to Keywords > Search Terms in Google Ads and set your date range (30–90 days depending on account volume).

2. Apply filters before exporting: set an impressions threshold, filter by conversions if you're hunting wasted spend, and confirm your column configuration.

3. Download the report as CSV (or Google Sheets if you prefer Drive). Name the file with account name, date range, and campaign scope.

4. Open the file, freeze the header row, sort by Cost descending, and add an Action column to tag each search term.

5. Flag negative keyword candidates (spend, no conversions, off-target intent) and identify high-performing search terms to promote as exact or phrase match keywords.

6. Apply changes back in Google Ads: add negatives via the Search Terms report or the Negative Keywords section, promote keywords with the correct match type, and use Bulk Actions for larger batches of changes.

For active campaigns, run this review weekly. For lower-spend accounts, bi-weekly is usually sufficient. The goal is to catch wasted spend before it compounds and to build your keyword list based on what's actually working.

The spreadsheet method is reliable and gives you a record of your analysis. If your team needs that audit trail, keep it. If speed is the priority, especially across multiple accounts, Keywordme removes the export and re-entry steps so you can complete the same review directly in the platform.

Optimize your Google Ads campaigns up to 10x faster, without leaving your account. Keywordme lets you remove junk search terms, build high-intent keyword lists, and apply match types instantly, right inside Google Ads. No spreadsheets, no switching tabs, just quick, seamless optimization. Start your free 7-day trial (then just $12/month) and take your Google Ads workflow to the next level.