How to Use Google Ads Keyword Planner for Negatives: A Step-by-Step Guide

Most advertisers open Google Ads Keyword Planner, grab a list of keywords to bid on, and close the tab. That's it. They're leaving one of the most useful negative keyword research tools completely untouched.

TL;DR: Google Ads Keyword Planner isn't just for finding keywords to target. It's also a free, built-in tool for identifying search terms you absolutely don't want triggering your ads. This guide walks through a repeatable six-step process for using Keyword Planner to build negative keyword lists that cut wasted spend, improve CTR, and keep your campaigns focused on the traffic that actually converts.

If you're a PPC manager, freelancer, or agency owner running Google Ads campaigns, this workflow is for you. Most guides cover Keyword Planner for discovery. Almost none cover it for negatives. That gap is exactly where this guide lives.

Here's what you'll walk away with: a clear process that starts with seed keyword research in Keyword Planner, moves through exporting and analyzing the full keyword list, and ends with organized negatives applied at the right level inside your Google Ads account. Then we'll close the loop with the Search Terms Report to keep things clean on an ongoing basis.

The whole workflow is free. Keyword Planner is built into every Google Ads account with no extra subscription. The only investment is time, and this guide will help you spend that time efficiently.

Let's get into it.

Step 1: Access Keyword Planner and Set Up Your Research Parameters

Inside Google Ads, go to Tools > Planning > Keyword Planner. You'll see two options: "Discover new keywords" and "Get search volume and forecasts." For negative keyword research, you want Discover new keywords.

Here's why: "Get search volume and forecasts" only returns data on terms you already know. "Discover new keywords" is where Google shows you everything it associates with your topic, including the irrelevant stuff you need to know about. That's the data you're after. If you need a broader walkthrough of the tool itself, our guide on how to use Google Keyword Planner covers the fundamentals.

Enter your core campaign keywords as seed terms. If you're running campaigns for a project management SaaS, you might enter: "project management software," "task management tool," "team collaboration software." Use three to five seed terms per session to get a broad picture of what Google considers related to your niche.

Before you hit "Get Results," set your filters to match your actual campaign targeting:

Location: Match this to your campaign's geographic targeting. If you're only running ads in the US, don't leave this set to worldwide. The keyword suggestions and volume data will be more relevant.

Language: Set this to the language your campaigns target. Sounds obvious, but it's easy to miss.

Date range: The default is usually the last 12 months. That's fine for most accounts. If you're in a seasonal niche, adjust accordingly.

One thing most people skip: using multiple seed terms across separate sessions. Running "project management software" as a single seed term returns different associations than running it alongside "team task tracker" and "work management app." The more seeds you plant, the more irrelevant themes you'll uncover. In most accounts I audit, a single seed term misses entire categories of junk traffic that would have been obvious with broader input.

Once your parameters are set, click "Get Results" and move to the next step.

Step 2: Generate and Export the Full Keyword List

Keyword Planner will return a list of keyword ideas, often hundreds or even thousands depending on your niche. Don't start filtering inside the tool. Export everything first.

Why? Because irrelevant terms tend to cluster in the middle and bottom of the results, not at the top. The top suggestions are usually closely related to your seed terms. The junk, job-seeker queries, informational searches, and off-topic associations, often show up further down. If you filter inside Keyword Planner before exporting, you'll miss them.

Click the "Download keyword ideas" button (top right of the results page) and export to CSV or directly to Google Sheets. Google Sheets is easier to work with for the next step.

Once you have your spreadsheet open, focus on these columns:

Keyword: The actual search term Google associates with your seed keywords. This is your primary column for negative research. Understanding the difference between search terms vs keywords is critical here, since Keyword Planner shows keyword ideas while your campaigns will match against actual search terms.

Avg. monthly searches: Higher volume irrelevant terms are higher priority negatives. A junk term getting 10 searches a month is less urgent than one getting 10,000.

Competition: Low competition combined with high search volume often signals informational or non-commercial intent. These are prime negative candidates if you're running transactional campaigns.

Top of page bid (low range / high range): Very low bids typically indicate low commercial intent. If advertisers aren't willing to pay much for a term, it's often because it doesn't convert. Cross-reference this with the keyword itself to spot informational queries masquerading as relevant traffic.

Don't overthink the export step. Get the raw data out of Keyword Planner and into a format you can actually work with. The analysis happens in the next step.

Step 3: Scan for Irrelevant Themes and Flag Negative Candidates

This is where the actual thinking happens. Open your exported spreadsheet and start scanning for patterns. You're not reviewing every keyword individually, you're looking for themes.

Use CTRL+F or spreadsheet filters to search for common junk modifiers across your entire list. Here are the categories that show up in almost every account:

Job-related terms: "jobs," "salary," "careers," "hiring," "job description," "how to become." If you sell software, you don't want your ads showing to people looking for employment.

Free and cheap modifiers: "free," "free trial" (if you don't offer one), "open source," "cheap," "low cost," "affordable alternative." These can indicate price-sensitive searchers who won't convert at your price point.

DIY and educational intent: "how to," "tutorial," "course," "certification," "training," "learn," "guide." If you're selling a product or service, people looking to learn a skill are often not buyers.

Informational queries: "what is," "definition," "examples of," "types of," "history of." Again, these are research-phase queries, not purchase-intent queries.

Competitor brand names: Unless you're specifically running competitor campaigns, you'll want to exclude branded terms that belong to products you're not selling.

Unrelated product categories: This is niche-specific. For a project management SaaS, Keyword Planner might surface "project management certification," "project management degree," or "project management book." None of those are buyers of your software. For a comprehensive starting point, check out our negative keywords list for Google Ads which covers the most common categories across industries.

Real example: run "project management software" as a seed term and you'll likely see results like "free project management tool," "project management jobs near me," "project management certification online," and "what is project management." Every single one of those is a negative keyword candidate for a paid software campaign.

Create a separate column or tab in your spreadsheet labeled "Negative Candidates" and move flagged terms there as you work through the list. Don't try to organize them by match type yet. Just collect them first.

What usually happens here is that advertisers find 50 to 100 solid negative candidates from a single Keyword Planner session. That's 50 to 100 potential wasted clicks you're now blocking before your campaigns even go live.

Step 4: Organize Negatives by Match Type and Themed List

Now that you have your raw list of negative candidates, it's time to organize them. This step is where most advertisers get confused, because negative match types work differently from positive match types.

Here's a quick breakdown:

Negative broad match: Blocks your ad when all the words in your negative keyword appear in the search query, in any order. Important: negative broad match does NOT expand to synonyms or close variants the way positive broad match does. "Free software" as a negative broad match blocks "software free download" but not "complimentary software." Use this for general junk themes where you want wide coverage without worrying about exact phrasing. For a deeper dive into how keyword match type affects Google Ads performance, we have a dedicated breakdown.

Negative phrase match: Blocks your ad when the exact phrase appears in the search query in that order, with other words potentially around it. "Project management jobs" as a negative phrase match blocks "project management jobs in London" and "remote project management jobs" but not "jobs in project management." Use this for specific multi-word terms where word order matters.

Negative exact match: Blocks your ad only when the search query matches your negative keyword exactly, nothing more, nothing less. Use this sparingly, for very specific queries you know are irrelevant but where you don't want to risk blocking related terms.

The mistake most agencies make is defaulting everything to negative exact match because it feels "safer." It isn't. Exact match negatives have very narrow coverage, and you'll end up with hundreds of negatives that collectively block far less traffic than a well-placed phrase or broad negative would.

Once you've assigned match types, group your negatives into themed lists. Suggested groupings:

Job Seekers: jobs, salary, careers, hiring, job description, how to become

Free and Cheap: free, open source, cheap, affordable, low cost, free trial (if not applicable)

Informational: what is, definition, how to, tutorial, guide, learn, course

Competitors: specific competitor brand names relevant to your niche

Unrelated Categories: anything specific to your industry that's off-topic

Themed lists make it easy to apply the same negatives across multiple campaigns without duplicating work. If you manage multiple clients in similar industries, these lists become reusable assets across accounts. Our guide on negative keywords strategies covers additional approaches for structuring these lists at scale.

Step 5: Add Your Negative Keywords to Google Ads Campaigns

You've got your organized negative keyword lists. Now it's time to get them into Google Ads. There are two main ways to do this, and which one you use depends on your account structure.

Adding negatives at the campaign level: Navigate to your campaign, click Keywords > Negative Keywords, then hit the blue plus button. You can paste your list directly here. This works fine for single-campaign accounts or when a negative only applies to one specific campaign.

Using shared negative keyword lists: For accounts with multiple campaigns, shared lists are far more efficient. Go to Tools > Shared Library > Negative keyword lists. Create a new list, give it a name that matches your themed grouping (e.g., "Job Seekers - All Campaigns"), and paste your negatives in. Then apply that list to whichever campaigns need it. For a detailed walkthrough of the full process, see our step-by-step guide on how to add negative keywords in Google Ads.

To apply a shared list to multiple campaigns: open the list, click "Apply to campaigns," and select all relevant campaigns at once. One update to the shared list automatically propagates to every campaign it's applied to. That's the real efficiency gain here.

A common mistake is adding negatives at the ad group level when they should be at the campaign or account level. The hierarchy matters: ad group negatives only block traffic for that specific ad group. Campaign-level negatives block traffic for all ad groups within that campaign. Shared lists work at the campaign level across multiple campaigns. If you're adding a negative for "jobs" because you never want job seekers seeing any of your ads, it should be at campaign level or in a shared list, not buried in a single ad group.

After saving, verify your negatives are active by checking the Negative Keywords tab. You should see your full list with status showing "Active."

This manual process works well for initial setup. But if you're managing multiple accounts or doing regular negative keyword maintenance, it gets tedious fast. Tools like Keywordme let you add negatives directly from the Search Terms Report with one click, without ever opening a spreadsheet or navigating through the shared library. Worth knowing about for the ongoing maintenance phase covered in the next step.

Step 6: Validate and Refine Using the Search Terms Report

Keyword Planner gives you a proactive head start on negatives. The Search Terms Report gives you the reactive cleanup. You need both.

After your campaigns have been running for one to two weeks, navigate to Insights & Reports > Search terms. This report shows you the actual queries that triggered your ads and generated impressions or clicks. This is real-world data, not projections.

Compare what you see here against your Keyword Planner-sourced negatives. Did your list catch the obvious junk? Are there new irrelevant terms slipping through that Keyword Planner didn't surface? There almost always are. Keyword Planner is excellent for anticipating categories of irrelevant traffic, but it can't predict every specific query a user will type. For more methods beyond Keyword Planner, our guide on how to find negative keywords covers seven proven approaches.

Any irrelevant term you find in the Search Terms Report should be added to your negative lists immediately. If it fits an existing themed list, add it there. If it represents a new category you hadn't considered, create a new list.

Make this a recurring process. For smaller accounts with lower spend, a monthly review is usually sufficient. For high-spend accounts, weekly reviews are worth the time. The Search Terms Report is a living document and your negative keyword strategy should be too. Building this into your broader campaign optimization workflow ensures negatives don't become an afterthought.

This is also where workflow tools earn their keep. Reviewing the Search Terms Report manually, cross-referencing against your lists, and then navigating to the shared library to add new negatives is a multi-step process that adds up across accounts. Keywordme is built specifically for this workflow, letting you flag and add negatives in bulk directly from the Search Terms Report without leaving the Google Ads interface. For agencies managing several accounts, that kind of friction reduction makes a real difference.

Your Quick-Reference Checklist and Next Steps

Here's the full workflow condensed into a repeatable checklist:

1. Access Keyword Planner via Tools > Planning > Keyword Planner. Choose "Discover new keywords" and enter three to five seed terms that reflect your core campaign themes.

2. Export the full keyword list to CSV or Google Sheets without filtering inside the tool first. Focus on the Keyword, Avg. monthly searches, Competition, and Top of page bid columns.

3. Scan for irrelevant themes using filters and CTRL+F. Flag job-related terms, free/cheap modifiers, informational queries, competitor names, and unrelated categories into a dedicated "Negative Candidates" tab.

4. Organize by match type and themed list. Assign negative broad, phrase, or exact match based on how much coverage you need. Group negatives into themed lists for reuse across campaigns.

5. Add negatives to Google Ads at the campaign level or via shared lists in the Shared Library. Apply shared lists to multiple campaigns at once. Verify negatives are active after saving.

6. Validate with the Search Terms Report after one to two weeks of campaign data. Add new irrelevant terms to your lists and repeat this review monthly or weekly depending on spend levels.

The cycle is simple: research with Keyword Planner, organize and apply negatives, validate with the Search Terms Report, repeat. Most advertisers skip the Keyword Planner step entirely and only do reactive cleanup from the Search Terms Report. Doing both gives you a significant edge, especially in competitive niches where wasted clicks are expensive.

If you want to speed up the ongoing maintenance side of this workflow, Keywordme's Chrome extension handles the Search Terms Report review and negative keyword management directly inside Google Ads. No spreadsheets, no tab-switching, no manual navigation through the shared library. Start your free 7-day trial and see how much faster your optimization workflow can move. After the trial, it's $12/month per user.

For more tactical PPC guides covering keyword strategy, campaign structure, and account optimization, explore the rest of the blog.