How to Find and Fix Google Ads Low Converting Keywords (Step-by-Step)

If your Google Ads campaigns are eating budget without producing conversions, low converting keywords are often the culprit. The tricky part is that a keyword can look perfectly fine on the surface — decent clicks, reasonable CPC — but still drain your account because it never actually converts.

The even trickier part? Most guides tell you to just pause those keywords and move on. That's often the wrong move. Sometimes the keyword itself is fine, and the real problem is the traffic it's attracting, the page it's sending people to, or the match type you've assigned it. Pausing without diagnosing is like turning off a smoke alarm instead of finding the fire.

This guide walks you through exactly how to identify Google Ads low converting keywords, figure out why they're underperforming, and decide what to do about them. Whether you pause them, fix them, or add negatives to block the junk traffic they're attracting, you'll leave with a clear action plan. If you want more context on why campaigns stop converting in the first place, this breakdown of common campaign conversion issues is a useful companion read.

No spreadsheet gymnastics required. Let's get into it.

Step 1: Pull the Right Data Before You Judge Any Keyword

Before you start pausing keywords, you need to make sure you're looking at enough data to actually draw conclusions. This sounds obvious, but it's one of the most common mistakes in PPC management: reacting too quickly to keywords that simply haven't had enough traffic to prove themselves.

Start by navigating to the Keywords tab in your Google Ads account. The first thing to adjust is your date range. Set it to at least the last 30 days. For lower-volume accounts where daily clicks are modest, go 60 to 90 days. You need a meaningful sample before you can call anything "low converting."

Next, customize your columns so you're looking at the metrics that actually matter for this kind of review. Add these if they're not already visible:

Conversions: The core metric. How many times did this keyword lead to a conversion action?

Cost / Conv.: What you're paying per conversion. This is how you compare keywords against your target CPA.

Conv. Rate: The percentage of clicks that converted. Useful for spotting keywords that get clicks but never close.

Impressions and Clicks: Context for volume. A keyword with 3 clicks and 0 conversions is not a low converting keyword. It's an untested one.

CTR: A very low CTR can indicate a keyword-to-ad relevance problem, separate from the conversion issue.

Search Impression Share: If this is low, the keyword may be underbidding rather than genuinely underperforming.

Once your columns are set, apply a filter: show keywords where spend exceeds a meaningful threshold and conversions are zero or very low. A practical rule of thumb used by many PPC practitioners is to wait until a keyword has spent roughly 2 to 3 times your target CPA before labeling it as low converting. This isn't a Google policy, it's a heuristic, but it's a sensible one. If your target CPA is $50, a keyword that's spent $80 with zero conversions deserves attention. One that's spent $15 probably doesn't yet.

This filtered list is your working set for the rest of the audit. Keep it focused on keywords with real spend behind them.

Step 2: Check the Search Terms Behind Each Keyword

Here's where most audits go wrong: they look at the keyword and make a decision without ever checking what search terms that keyword is actually triggering. This distinction matters a lot.

A keyword is what you bid on. A search term is what the user actually typed into Google before your ad appeared. These are not the same thing, and a keyword can be perfectly relevant to your business while simultaneously triggering a flood of irrelevant queries.

To check this, go to the Search Terms Report inside Google Ads. You'll find it within the Keywords section. Filter the report by one of your underperforming keywords and look at the actual queries that triggered it.

What you're looking for are patterns that explain the low conversion rate:

Informational intent: Queries like "how does X work" or "what is X" indicate top-of-funnel traffic that was probably never going to convert on a commercial landing page.

Freebie signals: Words like "free," "cheap," "open source," or "DIY" suggest the searcher isn't ready to pay for your product or service.

Competitor brand names: If your keyword is triggering searches for a competitor, those clicks are expensive and unlikely to convert well.

Wrong geography or context: Searches that reference locations you don't serve, or job-seeker queries like "X manager jobs," are a common source of wasted spend.

When you spot these patterns, the realization usually hits fast: it's not the keyword that's the problem. It's the match type, or the absence of negative keywords, that's letting irrelevant traffic through.

This step is where the real diagnostic work happens, and it's also where manually exporting data to a spreadsheet slows everything down. Keywordme is a Chrome extension that lets you review search terms and take action on them directly inside the Google Ads interface. You can flag junk queries, add negatives, and move on, without ever leaving the Search Terms Report or opening a separate tab.

The key takeaway from this step: always check search terms before deciding a keyword is low converting. You may find the keyword deserves to stay, and what needs to change is what traffic it's allowed to attract.

Step 3: Diagnose Why the Keyword Is Underperforming

Not all low converting keywords fail for the same reason. Applying the right fix depends on correctly identifying the root cause. Here are the five most common ones:

Cause 1: Wrong intent. The keyword attracts users who are researching, not buying. A term like "what is project management software" will get clicks from people who are nowhere near a purchase decision. No amount of bid adjustment or landing page optimization will make these keywords convert well, because the searcher intent doesn't match a commercial goal.

Cause 2: Landing page mismatch. The keyword is relevant, but the page it sends traffic to doesn't deliver on what the ad promised. If someone clicks an ad for "enterprise CRM software" and lands on your generic homepage, the disconnect alone kills the conversion. The keyword isn't the problem here. The destination is.

Cause 3: Match type too broad. Broad match and, to a lesser extent, phrase match can pull in searches that are only loosely related to what you're targeting. A broad match keyword for "accounting software" might trigger searches for "accounting degree programs" or "accounting software free download." The keyword looks active and even gets clicks, but the traffic is off-target.

Cause 4: Bid too high or too low. Overbidding on a weak keyword wastes budget on traffic that won't convert. Underbidding on a strong keyword starves it of impressions, which can make it look like it's underperforming when it's actually just underloved. Check your Search Impression Share alongside your conversion data before drawing conclusions about bid-related underperformance. For a deeper look at how this affects your costs, this article on high cost per conversion in Google Ads covers the mechanics in more detail.

Cause 5: Seasonal or audience mismatch. Some keywords convert well in certain time periods or for certain audience segments but underperform outside those conditions. If you're reviewing data from a slow season or haven't applied audience bid adjustments, the keyword's potential may be obscured by context, not by any fundamental problem with the term itself.

Take a few minutes with each underperforming keyword to assign it to one of these causes before moving to the next step. The diagnosis determines the fix.

Step 4: Decide — Pause, Fix, or Add Negatives

Once you know why a keyword is underperforming, you can make a deliberate decision about what to do with it. The goal here is to match the action to the cause, not to default to pausing everything that looks bad.

Pause it when a keyword has spent well above your target CPA threshold, has generated no conversions, and you've ruled out any fixable cause. These are genuinely low-value keywords. There's no landing page change or match type adjustment that's going to save them. Pause them, redirect the budget, and move on.

Fix it when the keyword has a diagnosable problem with a clear solution. Wrong landing page? Create or assign a more relevant one. Match type too broad? Tighten it (more on this in Step 5). Bid too low? Increase it and give the keyword room to compete. These keywords have potential, and pausing them would be throwing away something worth saving.

Add negatives when the keyword itself is fine but it's attracting the wrong search terms. This is the most commonly skipped action in Google Ads management, and it's often the most impactful one. To illustrate: imagine a phrase match keyword for "project management software" that's triggering searches for "free project management software." The keyword is worth keeping. Adding "free" as a negative keyword at the campaign level is the right move, not pausing the keyword entirely.

Understanding why negative keywords matter for account health is worth revisiting if you haven't thought about it systematically. This article on why negative keywords are important covers the strategic case in detail. And if you want a broader look at cutting wasted spend across your account, this guide on reducing wasted spend in Google Ads is worth a read alongside this one.

Keywordme makes the "add negatives" step significantly faster. From the Search Terms Report inside Google Ads, you can add negative keywords with a single click, without exporting data or navigating to a separate interface. For accounts with a lot of junk traffic to clean up, this alone can save a meaningful amount of time per session.

Step 5: Tighten Match Types on Keywords Worth Keeping

If your diagnosis in Step 3 pointed to "match type too broad" as the root cause, tightening the match type is often the right fix rather than pausing the keyword outright.

The practical decision tree looks like this:

If a keyword is on broad match and triggering loosely related searches, move it to phrase match. Phrase match requires that the core meaning of your keyword be present in the search, which cuts out a lot of the noise while still allowing for some variation.

If phrase match is still pulling in too much irrelevant traffic, move to exact match. Exact match gives you the tightest control over which searches trigger your ad, though it will reduce volume.

One important note on how this works in Google Ads: you cannot convert a keyword from one match type to another in place. You need to add the keyword in the new match type as a separate entry, then pause the original. It's a small extra step, but it's how the platform works.

Also, don't tighten match types blindly. Check the search terms data first to confirm that broad matching is actually the problem. If a keyword on phrase match is converting well and the search terms look relevant, there's no reason to move to exact match. You'd only be reducing volume without gaining anything. For a more detailed look at when to make these changes, this guide on when to apply match types in Google Ads is a useful reference. And if you want to understand how match type choices affect your CPC and conversion rates more broadly, this article on match type impact on CPC and conversions goes deeper on the tradeoffs.

Keywordme lets you apply match types directly from the Search Terms Report inside Google Ads, which speeds up this step considerably when you're working through a long list of keywords.

Step 6: Build a Negative Keyword List from Your Findings

Every time you audit Google Ads low converting keywords, you should come out the other side with a negative keyword list. This is how you prevent the same junk traffic from coming back next month.

As you work through your search terms data, group the irrelevant queries into themes. Common categories include:

Informational modifiers: "how to," "what is," "tutorial," "guide," "learn," "course."

Price-sensitive signals: "free," "cheap," "affordable," "low cost," "discount," "open source."

Competitor names: Any specific brand names that your keywords are triggering but that you don't want to pay for.

Irrelevant job or career terms: "jobs," "careers," "salary," "hiring," "internship."

DIY or self-serve signals: "DIY," "template," "do it yourself," "build your own."

Once you have your list grouped by theme, decide where to apply it. Campaign-level negatives apply only to the specific campaign you add them to. Shared negative keyword lists apply across multiple campaigns at once, which is far more efficient if you're managing several campaigns or multiple client accounts.

For agencies, shared lists are almost always the better choice. You build the list once, apply it to all relevant campaigns, and update it in one place when you add new terms. This breakdown of shared versus campaign-specific negative keyword lists explains the structural differences if you want to think through which approach fits your setup. For practical guidance on the addition process itself, this guide on the best way to add negative keywords in Google Ads covers your options.

One more thing: don't treat this as a one-time task. Google's matching behavior evolves, new search terms appear, and your campaigns attract different traffic over time. A good habit is to review and update your negative keyword lists at least monthly, not just during formal audits.

Keywordme's bulk negative keyword workflow lets you build and apply these lists directly inside Google Ads, which is especially useful when you're processing a large batch of terms at once.

Step 7: Set a Review Schedule So This Doesn't Drift

A one-time audit will help, but it won't keep low converting keywords from creeping back. Google's matching behavior changes over time, new search terms appear constantly, and campaigns that look clean today can accumulate junk traffic within weeks.

The fix is a recurring review cadence, not a one-off cleanup.

For active campaigns with meaningful daily spend, a weekly check of the Search Terms Report is a reasonable standard. You're not doing a full audit every week, just scanning for new irrelevant terms, flagging anything that's accumulated spend without conversions, and adding negatives as needed.

For smaller accounts or lower-spend campaigns, bi-weekly or monthly reviews are usually sufficient. The key is consistency, not frequency for its own sake.

Each review session should cover three things:

1. New search terms with no conversions and meaningful spend — add them as negatives or flag them for further review.

2. Keywords that have slipped below your CPA threshold since the last check — decide whether to pause, fix, or leave them another cycle.

3. The impact of changes you made in the previous session — did pausing that keyword free up budget? Did adding those negatives reduce irrelevant clicks? Tracking this helps you understand what's working.

Keep a simple log of what you've changed and when. It doesn't need to be elaborate, but having a record makes it much easier to measure the effect of your actions and avoid undoing good decisions by accident.

This process compounds over time. Each cleanup makes the next one faster because you're building a cleaner account structure, a more refined negative keyword list, and a better sense of which keywords are worth investing in. Keywordme is built for exactly this kind of recurring workflow, since it operates directly inside Google Ads, there's no switching between tools or exporting data to get through your weekly review.

Putting It All Together

Here's the core process in brief: pull data with enough history behind it, check the search terms driving each underperforming keyword, diagnose the root cause, apply the right action (pause, fix, or add negatives), tighten match types where needed, build a negative keyword list from your findings, and repeat on a schedule.

Quick checklist before you close out each audit session:

Data pulled? Minimum 30 days, 60 to 90 for lower-volume accounts. Columns include Conversions, Cost/Conv., Conv. Rate, and Search Impression Share.

Search terms reviewed? Filtered by each underperforming keyword. Patterns identified and documented.

Root cause assigned? Each keyword labeled: wrong intent, landing page mismatch, broad match, bid issue, or context mismatch.

Action taken? Paused, fixed, or negatives added based on the diagnosis.

Match types updated? Tightened where broad matching was the confirmed problem.

Negative list updated? New terms added, grouped by theme, applied at the right level.

Next review scheduled? Date on the calendar.

Fixing Google Ads low converting keywords isn't a one-time project. It's an ongoing habit. The good news is that each cycle gets faster as your account gets cleaner.

If you want to move through this workflow faster without leaving Google Ads, Start your free 7-day trial of Keywordme. It lets you remove junk search terms, build high-intent keyword lists, and apply match types instantly, right inside the interface you're already using. No spreadsheets, no tab switching, just quicker optimization. After the trial it's $12 per month per user.