How to Make a Negative Keyword List: A Step-by-Step Guide for Smarter PPC Campaigns

You just blew through your ad budget in three days. Again. The clicks are rolling in, but conversions? Crickets. When you finally dig into the search terms report, you see it: "free project management software," "DIY marketing tools," "marketing manager jobs near me." None of these people were ever going to buy from you, yet Google happily charged you for every single click.

This is exactly what negative keyword lists prevent. They're your first line of defense against wasted ad spend, telling Google which searches should never trigger your ads. The difference between campaigns with solid negative keyword lists and those without? Often 30-50% of your budget going toward clicks that actually matter instead of vanishing into the void of irrelevant traffic.

Here's the thing: building a negative keyword list isn't complicated, but most advertisers either skip it entirely or throw together a random collection of terms without any real strategy. The result? They either keep bleeding budget on junk traffic or accidentally block legitimate searches because they went too aggressive with broad match negatives.

This guide walks you through the exact process of building a negative keyword list that actually works—from mining your search terms report for budget-draining queries to organizing them into themed lists you can apply strategically across campaigns. Whether you're running a single campaign or managing dozens of client accounts, you'll learn how to structure, maintain, and optimize your negative keyword lists for maximum impact with minimum ongoing effort.

Think of this as your blueprint for cutting the fat from your PPC campaigns. Let's get into it.

Step 1: Pull Your Search Terms Report and Identify Wasteful Queries

Your search terms report is where the truth lives. This is the actual list of queries people typed into Google that triggered your ads—and it's almost always full of surprises. Some good, many bad, and a few that'll make you wonder how Google's algorithm thought your ad was even remotely relevant.

To access it, head to your Google Ads dashboard and click on "Campaigns" in the left sidebar. Then navigate to "Insights and reports" and select "Search terms." You'll see every query that triggered your ads, along with critical data like impressions, clicks, cost, and conversions. This is your goldmine for finding negative keywords.

Start by scanning for obvious offenders—searches that clearly indicate zero buying intent. Common culprits include anything with "free" (unless you actually offer free products), "DIY" or "how to" queries when you're selling done-for-you services, job-related terms like "careers," "hiring," "salary," or "jobs," and completely unrelated searches that somehow matched one of your keywords.

Here's a pro move: sort the report by impressions or spend first, not conversions. Why? Because the searches with the highest impressions are eating the most budget, even if they're not converting. A search term with 5,000 impressions and zero conversions is a bigger priority than one with 50 impressions and zero conversions. Focus on the biggest budget drains first.

As you scroll through, look for patterns. If you're seeing variations of the same irrelevant theme—say, multiple searches about "project management courses," "learn project management," and "project management certification"—that's a signal you need to add negative keywords around educational intent. You're not looking for individual problem searches yet; you're identifying themes.

For large accounts or if you're managing multiple campaigns, export the search terms data to a spreadsheet. Click the download icon and grab a CSV. This lets you sort, filter, and analyze more efficiently than clicking through pages in the Google Ads interface. You can use filters to quickly find all searches containing specific words like "free," "cheap," "job," or "course."

Don't overthink this first pass. You're not making final decisions yet—you're just flagging potential negatives. Mark anything that makes you think "why would Google show my ad for that?" Keep a running list in a separate document or tab. We'll organize these properly in the next step.

Step 2: Categorize Your Negative Keywords by Theme

Now that you've got a messy list of irrelevant searches, it's time to bring some order to the chaos. This is where most advertisers go wrong—they either dump everything into one giant negative keyword list or add negatives randomly to individual campaigns without any structure. Both approaches create management nightmares down the road.

The smarter play? Group your negative keywords into themed lists based on the type of traffic they block. This makes it dead simple to apply the right negatives to the right campaigns without accidentally blocking legitimate traffic elsewhere.

Let's talk about the most common negative keyword categories you'll probably need. First up: job seekers. If you're not hiring, you don't want searches like "marketing manager jobs," "project management careers," or "software engineer salary." Create a list called "Jobs & Careers" and dump all employment-related terms there.

Next: price-sensitive searchers. These are people looking for "free," "cheap," "discount," "coupon," or "lowest price" options. If you're selling premium products or services, these clicks are pure waste. Group them into a "Price Sensitive" or "Free/Cheap" list. Just be careful here—if you actually offer discounts or have a free tier, you might want to be more selective about which terms you block.

Informational intent is another huge category. Searches like "how to optimize Google Ads," "what is PPC," "marketing tutorial," or "DIY website builder" indicate someone in research mode, not buying mode. Unless you're selling courses or content, these aren't your people. Create an "Informational Queries" list for terms like "how to," "what is," "guide," "tutorial," "tips," "learn," and "DIY."

Geographic negatives matter if you only serve specific areas. If you're a local business that doesn't ship nationwide, add city and state names outside your service area. If you're a US-only company, block country names and terms like "UK," "Canada," "Australia," etc.

Competitor terms deserve their own list. Maybe you don't want to waste budget bidding on searches for your competitors' brand names, or maybe you do but want the flexibility to turn that off easily. Either way, grouping them separately gives you control. You can even identify negative keywords from competitor campaigns to strengthen your own lists.

Finally, create a list for products or services you don't offer. If you sell project management software but keep getting searches for "CRM software" or "email marketing tools," those go in an "Irrelevant Products" list.

Why does this themed approach matter so much? Because it gives you surgical precision when applying negatives. Your B2B campaign might need the "Jobs & Careers" list but not the "DIY" list. Your enterprise campaign might skip "Price Sensitive" entirely but definitely need "Free/Cheap" terms blocked. Themed lists let you mix and match based on each campaign's needs instead of applying the same nuclear option everywhere.

Open a spreadsheet or simple document and create sections for each theme. As you sort through your flagged searches from Step 1, drop each one into its appropriate category. You'll start seeing patterns emerge—and you'll probably think of additional negative keywords to add proactively, even if they haven't shown up in your search terms report yet.

Step 3: Choose the Right Match Type for Each Negative Keyword

Here's where things get tricky, and it's the part most advertisers mess up: negative keyword match types work completely differently than regular keyword match types. Miss this, and you'll either block way too much traffic or not enough.

Let's start with negative broad match, which is the default when you add a negative keyword without any special syntax. If you add "free" as a negative broad match, your ad won't show for any search that includes the word "free" anywhere in the query—"free project management software," "software for free," "is there a free version"—all blocked. Sounds simple, right?

But here's the critical difference from regular broad match: negative broad match does NOT include close variants, synonyms, or misspellings. If you block "cheap," Google won't automatically block "inexpensive" or "affordable" like it would with positive broad match. You have to add those variations manually if you want them blocked. This trips up a lot of advertisers who assume broad match negative keywords cast a wider net than they actually do.

Use negative broad match when you want to block a general concept across all its variations. Terms like "free," "job," "DIY," "course," and "tutorial" work great as broad match negatives because they clearly indicate intent you don't want, regardless of what else is in the search query.

Negative phrase match is more restrictive. You add it with quotation marks: "project management jobs". This blocks searches that contain that exact phrase in that exact order, but allows other words before or after. So "project management jobs near me" gets blocked, but "jobs in project management consulting" wouldn't be because the phrase isn't in that exact order.

When should you use phrase match negatives? When you want to block specific multi-word queries but not individual words. For example, maybe you want to block "how to build" as a phrase because it indicates DIY intent, but you don't want to block every search containing "how" or "build" separately. Phrase match gives you that precision.

Negative exact match is the most surgical option. You add it with brackets: [free project management software]. This blocks only that specific query, word-for-word, nothing else. Someone searches "free project management software tool"? Your ad still shows because that's not an exact match.

Exact match negatives are useful when you've identified a specific problem query that keeps showing up, but you don't want to risk blocking broader variations that might actually convert. Maybe "project management template" is irrelevant to your software, but "project management" as a broad negative would be disastrous. Add [project management template] as an exact match negative, and you've blocked just that specific search without collateral damage.

The biggest mistake? Defaulting to exact match for everything because you're scared of blocking too much. This leaves you vulnerable to all the variations of that search. If "free software" is a problem, blocking just [free software] as exact match won't stop "free software tools," "software free," "free project software," or any other variation. You'd need to add dozens of exact match negatives to cover what one broad match negative handles.

Here's a practical framework: start with broad match negatives for obvious intent signals like "free," "job," "DIY," "how to," and "tutorial." Use phrase match for specific multi-word concepts you want to block in that exact order. Reserve exact match for surgical strikes on specific problem queries where broader blocking would hurt you. As you build experience with your specific campaigns, you'll develop intuition for which approach works best for each term.

Step 4: Create Your Negative Keyword List in Google Ads

Now that you've got your themed lists organized with the right match types, it's time to actually create them in Google Ads. This is where we move from planning to execution, and the good news is Google makes this part pretty straightforward.

In your Google Ads dashboard, click on "Tools & Settings" in the top right corner (it's the wrench icon). Under the "Shared Library" section, you'll see "Negative keyword lists." Click that. If this is your first time here, you'll see an empty state with a blue plus button. If you've created lists before, you'll see them displayed here.

Click the blue plus button to create a new list. Google will prompt you to give it a name—and this is where that themed organization from Step 2 pays off. Name your list something descriptive and specific: "Jobs & Careers," "Free & Cheap Terms," "Informational Queries," "Geographic Exclusions," or whatever makes sense for your theme.

Avoid vague names like "Negative Keywords 1" or "Bad Terms." Three months from now when you're trying to figure out which list to apply to a new campaign, "Jobs & Careers" tells you exactly what's inside. "Negative Keywords 1" tells you nothing.

After naming your list, you'll see a text box where you can add keywords. Here's where match type syntax matters. For broad match negatives (the default), just type the keyword: free. For phrase match, wrap it in quotes: "how to build". For exact match, use brackets: [project management jobs].

You can add multiple keywords at once—just put each one on a new line. If you've got your keywords organized in a spreadsheet from Step 2, you can copy and paste the entire column right into this box. Google will preserve your match type syntax as long as you've formatted it correctly with quotes or brackets.

Here's a pro tip: create multiple themed lists rather than one mega-list. Yes, it takes a few extra minutes upfront, but it gives you so much more flexibility. You might want to apply "Jobs & Careers" to every campaign, but only apply "Free & Cheap Terms" to your premium product campaigns while keeping it off your freemium campaigns. Separate lists make this possible.

Once you've added your keywords, click "Save." Your list now exists in your shared library, but it's not doing anything yet—it's not attached to any campaigns. That's the next step. You can always come back to this list later to add more keywords as you discover them in your search terms reports.

Repeat this process for each themed list you created in Step 2. By the end, you should have 5-8 well-organized negative keyword lists sitting in your shared library, each with a clear name and purpose. This setup becomes the foundation for keeping your campaigns clean as you scale.

Step 5: Apply Your Negative Keyword Lists to Campaigns

Your negative keyword lists are built and sitting in your shared library, but they're not protecting your budget yet. Now we need to attach them to the right campaigns—and this is where strategic thinking matters more than most advertisers realize.

The key question: which lists belong on which campaigns? Not every list should be applied everywhere. A blanket approach where you slap all your negative lists on every campaign can accidentally block legitimate traffic. You need to think about what each campaign is trying to accomplish and which types of traffic it should avoid.

Let's walk through the process. Navigate to your Campaigns view in Google Ads. Click on the specific campaign you want to apply negative lists to. In the left sidebar, you'll see "Audiences, keywords, and content." Click that, then select "Negative keywords" from the submenu.

You'll see two options: "Campaign negative keywords" and "Negative keyword lists." We want the second one—click "Negative keyword lists." Then click the blue plus button to add a list. Google will show you all the negative keyword lists you've created in your shared library. Select the ones that make sense for this campaign and click "Save."

Here's how to think about which lists to apply. Your "Jobs & Careers" list? That probably goes on every campaign unless you're actually hiring. Same with geographic exclusions if you don't serve certain areas. These are universal blocks that make sense across the board.

But "Free & Cheap Terms" might be more selective. If you're running a campaign specifically for your premium enterprise product, definitely apply it. But if you've got a campaign promoting a free trial or freemium tier, you might want to skip this list or create a more nuanced version that blocks "free forever" but not "free trial."

Your "Informational Queries" list (the one blocking "how to," "tutorial," "guide," etc.) should probably go on conversion-focused campaigns but maybe not on top-of-funnel awareness campaigns where you're trying to reach people earlier in their journey. If you're running content marketing campaigns or bidding on informational keywords intentionally, obviously don't apply this list to those campaigns.

One important note: you're applying these at the campaign level, which means they affect all ad groups within that campaign. Google Ads also lets you add negative keywords at the ad group level, but that's typically for more specific exclusions unique to that ad group. Your themed shared lists work best at the campaign level for consistency and easier management.

For agencies managing multiple client accounts, here's a workflow that'll save you hours: create a standard set of negative keyword lists (Jobs, Free/Cheap, Informational, etc.) as templates. When you set up a new client account, recreate these lists in their account and apply them to relevant campaigns from day one. You can't share negative keyword lists across accounts, but you can copy and paste the keywords to quickly rebuild them.

After you've applied your lists, double-check that they're properly attached. Go back to the "Negative keyword lists" view for each campaign and verify you see your lists showing as "Applied." The last thing you want is to think you're protected when the lists didn't actually attach.

As you launch new campaigns, make it a habit to immediately apply the appropriate negative keyword lists. Don't wait to "see how it performs first"—that's just burning budget on traffic you already know is irrelevant. Apply your core lists from day one, then refine as needed based on actual performance data.

Step 6: Set a Regular Review Schedule to Keep Lists Current

Here's the reality: negative keyword lists aren't a set-it-and-forget-it thing. New irrelevant searches pop up constantly as Google's algorithm interprets your keywords in creative ways you never anticipated. The campaigns that stay lean and profitable are the ones with regular negative keyword maintenance baked into their workflow.

Set a recurring calendar reminder to review your search terms report. For high-spend accounts (anything over a few thousand dollars a month), weekly reviews make sense. For moderate spend, every two weeks works. For smaller accounts, monthly is probably fine. The key is consistency—make it a non-negotiable part of your PPC routine, like checking your email. Understanding how often you should update your negative keyword list can make a significant difference in campaign performance.

Here's a quick workflow you can knock out in 15-20 minutes: Pull up your search terms report, filter for the last 7 or 14 days (depending on your review cadence), and sort by impressions or cost. Scan for new irrelevant searches that weren't there before. Flag anything that clearly doesn't belong—you'll start recognizing patterns quickly once you've done this a few times.

When you spot a new negative keyword, don't just add it randomly to the first list you see. Think about which themed list it belongs in. Is it a job-related term? Add it to your "Jobs & Careers" list. Price-sensitive? Goes in "Free & Cheap Terms." This discipline keeps your lists organized and makes them easier to manage negative keyword lists efficiently as they grow.

To add keywords to an existing list, go back to Tools & Settings > Shared Library > Negative keyword lists. Click on the list you want to update, then click the blue plus button to add new keywords. Enter them with the appropriate match type syntax, click "Save," and those negatives immediately apply to every campaign using that list. That's the beauty of shared lists—update once, protect everywhere.

Watch for warning signs that your negative keyword lists need attention. If your cost-per-conversion suddenly spikes without a clear reason, dig into your search terms report. If your click-through rate is dropping, you might be showing for increasingly irrelevant searches. If you're seeing a lot of impressions but few clicks, or lots of clicks but no conversions, irrelevant traffic is probably sneaking through.

Here's something most advertisers miss: periodically audit your negative keyword lists to remove outdated terms. Maybe you blocked "free trial" six months ago because you didn't offer one, but now you do. Maybe you blocked a competitor's name, but they went out of business. Negative keywords can accidentally hurt you if your business evolves but your lists don't. Set a quarterly reminder to review your actual negative keyword lists (not just the search terms report) and remove anything that's no longer relevant.

One more pro tip: if you're seeing the same types of irrelevant searches across multiple campaigns, that's a signal your core keyword targeting might be too broad. Negative keywords are a bandaid—they stop the bleeding, but sometimes you need to tighten your positive keyword strategy instead of endlessly adding negatives. If you find yourself blocking dozens of variations around the same theme, consider whether your original keywords are too generic.

The compounding effect of consistent negative keyword maintenance is real. The first month, you might cut 10% of wasted spend. By month three, you've eliminated 30%. By month six, your campaigns are running so clean that your weekly reviews only turn up a handful of new negatives. That efficiency doesn't happen by accident—it happens through regular, disciplined maintenance.

Putting It All Together

Let's recap the essential steps: Pull your search terms report and identify the searches draining your budget without converting. Group those negative keywords into themed lists like "Jobs & Careers," "Free & Cheap Terms," and "Informational Queries." Apply the right match types—broad match for general concepts, phrase match for specific multi-word queries, exact match for surgical strikes. Create named lists in Google Ads' shared library under Tools & Settings. Attach those lists to the appropriate campaigns based on what each campaign is trying to accomplish. Set a regular review schedule and stick to it, adding new negatives as they appear and occasionally auditing your lists to remove outdated terms.

The difference between campaigns with solid negative keyword lists and those without is dramatic. We're talking about redirecting 30-50% of your budget from junk clicks to traffic that actually converts. That's not a marginal improvement—that's the difference between a profitable campaign and one that bleeds money.

But here's the thing: building these lists manually, especially at scale, is tedious. You're switching between the search terms report, your spreadsheet, the shared library, and back to campaigns to apply everything. For agencies managing multiple clients, multiply that tedium by however many accounts you're juggling.

This is exactly why tools that streamline the process exist. Instead of clicking through five different screens to add a negative keyword, what if you could do it in one click, right from the search terms report? What if you could build themed negative keyword lists without ever leaving the Google Ads interface?

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The negative keyword lists you build today will keep working for you tomorrow, next week, and next month. They're one of the few PPC optimizations that compound over time instead of requiring constant reinvention. Start with the biggest offenders in your search terms report right now, build your first themed list, and you'll see the impact in your next campaign report. Your budget will thank you.