How to Use Search Term Reports in Google Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide

The search terms report is one of the most useful tools in Google Ads, and one of the most overlooked. Most advertisers spend time tweaking bids and writing ad copy, but never look at what searches are actually triggering their ads. That's a problem, because your keywords and your search terms are not the same thing.

Here's the distinction: a keyword is what you bid on. A search term is the actual query a user typed into Google before clicking your ad. When you use broad match or phrase match keywords, Google has significant latitude to match your ads to searches that may be loosely related—or not related at all—to what you're selling.

The search terms report is where you see exactly what Google matched you to. It's the difference between what you intended to target and what you actually paid for. If you've never looked at it closely, there's a reasonable chance a portion of your budget is going toward searches that have nothing to do with your offer.

Used consistently, the search terms report helps you do three things: cut spend on irrelevant queries, build out your negative keyword list with real data, and promote high-performing search terms into explicit keywords you can control and optimize.

This guide walks through the full process in five steps: accessing the report, filtering the data, adding negative keywords, promoting strong terms to keywords, and building a review routine that keeps your campaigns clean over time. Whether you're managing one campaign or a full client roster, the workflow is the same.

Step 1: Access the Search Terms Report in Google Ads

Getting to the search terms report is straightforward, though the path trips people up the first time. Inside Google Ads, navigate to a specific campaign, then look for "Search keywords" in the left-hand navigation. From there, select the "Search terms" tab at the top of the page.

You can also access the report at the ad group level if you want to narrow your view to a specific ad group's traffic. The same tab structure applies.

Before you do anything else, set your date range. This is important. Too short a window—say, the last seven days—often doesn't give you enough data to make confident decisions, especially in lower-volume accounts. A 30 to 90-day window is a practical starting point for most accounts. It gives you enough signal to identify patterns without being so broad that old, irrelevant data skews your view.

If you're managing multiple campaigns, use the campaign filter at the top of the report to focus on one campaign at a time. Trying to review everything in one undifferentiated view makes it harder to act on what you find, because the right action for one campaign may not be right for another.

One thing to know before you start: Google does not show every search term that triggered your ads. Queries that fall below a certain volume threshold are grouped under a line called "Other search terms" due to privacy protections. This means your report is a representative sample, not a complete picture. That's fine for optimization purposes, but it's worth knowing so you don't assume you're seeing everything.

The columns available in this report include Search term, Match type (which of your keywords it matched to, and how), Added/Excluded status, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Avg. CPC, Cost, Conversions, Cost/Conv., and Conversion Rate. If conversion columns aren't visible, you can add them using the column selector. You'll need them for the next step.

Note: Google Ads interface paths can shift with product updates. The navigation described here reflects the current standard UI structure, but it's worth checking Google's own Help documentation if something looks different in your account.

Step 2: Filter and Sort the Data to Find What Matters

A busy account can have hundreds or thousands of search terms in a 90-day window. You can't review them all with equal attention, and you shouldn't try. The goal is to prioritize by impact, not volume.

Start by sorting the report by Cost, descending. This surfaces the search terms that have consumed the most budget. These are your highest-priority rows because any waste here has the biggest dollar impact. A search term that spent a meaningful amount with zero conversions is an immediate candidate for investigation.

Next, sort by Conversions, descending. This shows you which search terms are already driving results. These are the terms you want to promote to explicit keywords in Step 4—more on that shortly. A search term converting well under a broad match keyword is essentially an untapped keyword you haven't formally added to your account yet.

After those two passes, look at Impressions alongside CTR. A search term with high impressions but a very low CTR often signals an intent mismatch. Your ad is appearing for that query, but users aren't clicking because the ad doesn't match what they're looking for. That's a signal the term may not belong in this campaign.

As you scan the data, you're looking for a few specific patterns:

Irrelevant queries: Searches that have nothing to do with your product or service. These often appear when broad match keywords are in play and Google interprets your keyword more loosely than you intended.

Informational searches hitting transactional campaigns: Someone searching "how does X work" landing in a campaign built to drive purchases or sign-ups. The intent doesn't match the campaign goal.

Competitor brand terms: Searches for a competitor's brand name. Whether you want these depends on your strategy, but they should be a deliberate choice, not an accident.

Geographic terms you're not targeting: If your campaign targets a specific region and you're seeing searches that include city or country names outside your target area, that's wasted spend.

Wrong audience signals: Terms that suggest a different buyer profile than the one you're targeting—for example, searches that include "free," "DIY," or "for kids" when you're selling a premium B2B product.

Don't try to action everything in one session. Prioritize by spend impact. A term that appeared once and cost a few cents can wait. A term that spent a significant portion of your weekly budget with no return cannot.

Step 3: Identify Search Terms to Add as Negative Keywords

Once you've identified search terms that shouldn't be triggering your ads, the next step is adding them as negative keywords. A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ads for that specific query, which prevents further wasted spend on that traffic.

A search term is worth negating when it meets one or more of these conditions: it's clearly irrelevant to your offer, it represents the wrong audience, it's at the wrong stage of the funnel for this campaign, or it has accumulated meaningful spend with no conversions over a reasonable time window.

When you add a negative keyword, you need to choose a match type. This matters more than most guides let on.

Negative exact match [term]: Blocks your ads only when someone searches that exact phrase, with no additional words. Use this when you want to block a specific query but still appear for variations. For example, negating [free project management software] blocks that exact search but still allows "free project management software for teams."

Negative phrase match "term": Blocks any search that contains that phrase as part of a longer query. More protective than exact match. Use this when you want to block a concept broadly—for example, "free" if you're a paid-only product and don't want any searches containing that word.

Negative broad match term: Blocks searches containing all the words in the term, in any order. This is the least precise option for negatives and can inadvertently block legitimate traffic. Use it carefully and sparingly.

You also need to decide where to apply the negative: at the campaign level or in a shared negative keyword list.

Campaign-level negatives apply only to the campaign you add them to. Shared negative lists apply across any campaigns you attach the list to. If you're managing multiple campaigns with similar audiences, a shared list saves time and ensures consistent exclusions. If the negative only makes sense for one specific campaign, keep it at the campaign level.

To add negatives directly from the search terms report in Google Ads: check the box next to the search term, then select "Add as negative keyword" from the action bar that appears. Google will prompt you to choose the match type and where to apply it.

One common mistake is negating too broadly. Adding a short, generic phrase as a negative phrase match can accidentally block searches you actually want. Be specific. Negate the problem query, not a broad concept that overlaps with your legitimate traffic.

If you're managing several campaigns or client accounts, this process can get repetitive fast. Keywordme, a Chrome extension that works inside your Google Ads search terms report, lets you add negatives with a single click without leaving the interface or opening a spreadsheet. It's particularly useful when you're working through a long list of terms across multiple accounts in one session.

Step 4: Promote High-Intent Search Terms to Keywords

The search terms report isn't just for finding problems. It's also one of the best places to find keyword opportunities you haven't explicitly targeted yet.

When a search term converts consistently, it's telling you something important: users searching that exact phrase are finding your ad relevant enough to click and take action. If that term is only being matched through a broad or phrase match keyword, you have limited control over it. You can't set a specific bid for it, you can't write ad copy tailored to it, and you're relying on Google to keep matching it.

Promoting it to an explicit keyword changes that. You're telling Google: "I want to actively bid on this specific term." That gives you control over bid adjustments, ad copy alignment, and match type.

To add a search term as a keyword from the report: check the box next to the term, then select "Add as keyword" from the action bar. Google will prompt you to choose a match type and select which ad group to add it to.

Match type selection here is a real decision, not a formality:

Exact match [term]: Use this for high-converting, high-confidence terms where you know exactly what the user wants and you want to control that traffic tightly. You'll pay only when someone searches that specific query.

Phrase match "term": Use this when the term is strong but you want to capture natural variations—for example, searches that include the term alongside a location or qualifier you haven't seen yet.

Ad group placement matters too. Adding a new keyword to an existing ad group is fine if the ad copy in that group is relevant to the new keyword. But if the search term represents a distinct product feature, use case, or audience segment, consider creating a new ad group with tailored ad copy. Tighter keyword-to-ad alignment typically improves Quality Score and relevance, which affects your costs and ad rank.

A practical success indicator: once you've added the keyword explicitly, you should start seeing it accumulate impressions directly under that keyword rather than being attributed to the broader parent keyword. The search term is no longer dependent on a loose match to surface your ad.

Keywordme handles this step inside the search terms report as well. You can apply match types and add keywords directly from the view you're already in, without switching tabs or copying terms into a separate tool. For anyone working through a long list of terms, that reduction in friction adds up.

Step 5: Build a Repeatable Review Cadence

The search terms report is not a one-time audit. Google's matching behavior evolves, user search patterns shift, and new queries appear constantly—especially as you adjust bids, budgets, or ad copy. A single review gets your account clean. A regular cadence keeps it that way.

For campaigns with meaningful daily spend, a weekly review is a reasonable target. You're not necessarily looking at the full 90-day window every time—you're checking what's new since your last session. For smaller or more stable campaigns, bi-weekly works fine.

Each review session should focus on three things:

New high-spend terms: Any search term that has accumulated significant cost since your last review without a corresponding conversion. These need to be evaluated and either negated or watched closely.

New converting terms: Any search term that has started converting that you haven't yet promoted to an explicit keyword. These are opportunities waiting to be captured.

Terms crossing a cost-per-conversion threshold: If you have a target cost per acquisition, flag any search term that has exceeded that threshold without converting. It doesn't automatically mean you negate it—some terms need more time—but it should trigger a deliberate decision.

As you build your negative keyword lists over time, keep them organized. A shared negative keyword list that you maintain and refine across campaigns is an asset. It reflects institutional knowledge about what doesn't work for your account, and it means you're not starting from scratch every time you launch a new campaign.

For agencies managing multiple client accounts, the cadence challenge is real. Running this review across five or ten accounts manually takes significant time. Keywordme's bulk editing and multi-account support are designed specifically for this use case—you can move through the search terms report across accounts in one session without the usual tab-switching and copy-pasting that slows the process down.

Consistent search term review is one of the most direct levers you have for reducing wasted spend. It's not the most exciting part of managing Google Ads, but it's one of the highest-return habits you can build into your workflow.

Putting It All Together

The search terms report gives you visibility into what Google is actually doing with your keywords—not just what you intended when you set up the campaign. That gap between intent and reality is where budget leaks, and where opportunity hides.

The five-step process covered here is straightforward once it becomes routine:

1. Access the report and set a 30 to 90-day date range to get meaningful data.

2. Sort by spend to find where budget is going, then by conversions to find what's working.

3. Add irrelevant terms as negative keywords, using the right match type and choosing between campaign-level and shared lists.

4. Promote converting search terms to explicit keywords with the right match type and ad group placement.

5. Schedule a recurring review—weekly for active campaigns, bi-weekly for smaller ones—and build your negative lists over time.

None of these steps are complicated. The challenge is doing them consistently and efficiently, especially when you're managing more than one campaign.

If you want to run this workflow faster, particularly across multiple campaigns or accounts, Start your free 7-day trial of Keywordme. It adds one-click negatives, keyword promotion, and match type controls directly inside your Google Ads search terms report. No spreadsheets, no tab-switching—just a cleaner, faster way to do the work you're already doing. After the trial, it's $12 per month per user.