How do I check which search terms waste budget?

Part 1: Define what “wasted budget” means (so you don’t cut profit by accident)

When people say “wasted budget,” they usually mean search terms that spend money without producing the business result you actually care about. In practice, I see waste fall into three buckets: search terms that are clearly irrelevant (wrong product, wrong audience, wrong geography, wrong intent), search terms that are “technically relevant” but economically unworkable (CPA too high, ROAS too low), and search terms that are too early-stage or informational for the campaign’s goal (especially common when campaigns use broader matching).

The key is to define waste using your own performance guardrails, not a generic rule like “no conversions = waste.” A lead gen account with a 30–90 day sales cycle can have great terms that look unprofitable at a 7-day view. An ecommerce account might accept break-even on new-customer terms, but not on returning-customer terms. If you don’t set these rules first, the “waste cleanup” turns into random trimming that can shrink volume and make Smart Bidding less stable.

Choose the right date range (and respect conversion lag)

Before you judge any search term, pick a date range that matches how long it takes a click to turn into a conversion. If you’re on automated bidding (or any business with longer consideration), reviewing too short a window can mislabel good demand as waste. A practical approach is to start with the last 30 days for most accounts, then sanity-check with 60–90 days if volume is low or sales cycles are longer.

Pick a single “decision metric” per campaign goal

For lead gen, your decision metric is typically cost per conversion (or cost per qualified lead if you import offline conversions). For ecommerce, it’s usually conversion value / cost (ROAS) or profit-based value if you have it. You can absolutely look at CTR, bounce rate, and engagement—but when it’s time to exclude search terms, one clear metric keeps decisions consistent.

Part 2: Where to look in Google Ads to find budget-wasting search terms

Start with the Search terms report (your most direct evidence)

The Search terms report shows the actual searches that triggered impressions and clicks, along with performance. In the current interface, you can access it from the left navigation under Campaigns, then within Insights and reports choose Search terms. This view can be scoped to the whole account or narrowed down by campaign and ad group so you can make cleaner decisions.

Two important details many advertisers miss: first, this report focuses on search terms that were used by a significant number of people; second, some low-activity queries can be omitted for privacy standards. So if you ever feel like “I’m spending money but I can’t see all the terms,” you’re not imagining it—use the report for what it’s best at (visible, actionable terms), and use insights for the gaps.

Inside the report, customize columns so you can diagnose properly. Turn on the Keyword column (it’s not always shown by default) to see which keyword matched and triggered the ad, and review the Match type information to understand how closely the search terms relate to your keywords. This is how you catch situations like a broad keyword quietly pulling in a lot of loosely related intent.

Use Search terms insights to spot “hidden waste” and patterns

Search terms insights groups search activity into intent-based categories and subcategories and includes aggregated performance. The big advantage is that it can account for low-volume queries that may not appear individually in the Search terms report, while still showing you the themes that drive spend and results. These insights are available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max, and you can view them from the Insights area at either the account level or campaign level.

In most mature accounts, I use the Search terms report to make precise exclusions, and I use Search terms insights to decide where to tighten strategy: messaging, landing page alignment, product/feed wording, and where to add (or remove) coverage based on what people are actually trying to do.

If you run Dynamic Search Ads, review search terms with landing pages

Dynamic Search Ads have their own version of search terms reporting that can be viewed in different ways, including a combined view that ties search terms to the landing pages selected. This is incredibly useful for “waste” because many DSA issues aren’t only about the query—they’re about which URL got chosen. If a weak or off-topic page is being used as the landing page, you’ll see it show up as spend with poor outcomes. In those cases, excluding a specific URL (not just the term) can be the cleaner fix.

If you run Performance Max, treat search term exclusions as a scalpel

Performance Max now offers more Search reporting transparency than it used to, including a Search terms report experience with granular query data and the ability to act on misaligned queries. You can also evaluate Search impact within Performance Max reporting and use Search terms insights to understand what’s converting and whether queries are coming from keywordless targeting or from your search themes.

Be careful here: query exclusions in Performance Max are a restrictive control and can hurt performance if used aggressively. Exclude only what is truly irrelevant, brand-unsafe, or structurally unprofitable. For brand protection specifically, it’s typically better to use brand-focused controls rather than trying to negative out every brand variation manually.

Part 3: A repeatable workflow to find (and stop) budget-wasting search terms

Step 1: Pull the Search terms report and filter for “high spend, low outcome”

Most wasted budget is concentrated in a small number of terms. Your job is to surface them quickly, then decide whether the fix is a negative keyword, a match type change, a targeting adjustment, or a measurement issue.

• Set the date range to a window that matches your conversion lag (often 30 days; longer if volume is low).
• Sort by Cost to bring the biggest spenders to the top.
• Filter for no results (for example, conversions = 0) while keeping a minimum spend threshold (so you don’t overreact to a couple of clicks).
• Add value metrics if you’re ecommerce (conversion value, conversion value / cost) and filter for terms below your acceptable ROAS.
• Segment when needed (device and network are common) so you don’t exclude a term that works on mobile but not desktop, or behaves differently on partner traffic.

This single pass usually produces a shortlist of terms that are responsibly safe to label as “waste candidates.”

Step 2: Diagnose why the term is wasting spend (don’t jump straight to negatives)

Before you exclude anything, look at the Keyword that matched and how the match type behavior is pulling the query in. If the search term is clearly the wrong intent, a negative keyword is appropriate. If the term is “kind of right” but too broad, the better fix is often structural: tighten keyword themes, adjust match types, improve ad copy to pre-qualify, or improve the landing page so the right intent converts.

Also watch for these common “false waste” situations: tracking gaps (the term looks unprofitable because conversions aren’t being captured), offline conversions not imported (lead quality exists but isn’t visible), or conversion actions that don’t match business value (you’re optimizing to low-intent micro-conversions and calling the rest waste).

Step 3: Apply the right exclusion in the right place

Once you’re confident a term is truly wasting budget, exclude it at the level that matches the problem.

If the term is bad only for one ad group (for example, “free” is fine for one service but not for another), add it as an ad group-level negative. If it’s bad across the entire campaign (for example, an ecommerce campaign should never pay for “jobs”), apply it at the campaign level. If it’s universally wrong for the entire account (brand safety terms, non-offered product categories, unrelated industries), an account-level negative keyword list can be the cleanest approach because it automatically applies across relevant Search and Shopping inventory in multiple campaign types.

When you add negatives, remember that negative match types behave differently than positive match types. Negative broad requires all terms to be present (order doesn’t matter), negative phrase blocks the phrase in the same order, and negative exact blocks only the exact query. Also, negative keywords don’t match close variants, so if you need to block singular/plural or near-synonyms, you often have to add them deliberately.

Step 4: Re-check performance after exclusions (to confirm you cut waste, not growth)

Any time you add negatives—especially at campaign or account level—monitor results long enough to see the effect, then verify you didn’t accidentally block high-intent queries. This matters even more in automated bidding systems, where narrowing query supply too hard can reduce the system’s ability to find efficient conversions.

• Compare the next 7–14 days against the prior period for cost, conversions, conversion value, and CPA/ROAS.
• Watch impression volume and search impression share to make sure you didn’t unintentionally shrink eligible demand.
• Revisit Search terms insights to see if the overall themes improved (not just the visible terms).

If performance improves, keep iterating weekly. If volume drops sharply with no efficiency gain, roll back the most aggressive negatives first and replace them with tighter structure (more specific ad groups, clearer messaging, refined landing pages) rather than trying to “negative your way” to perfect traffic.

To check which search terms are wasting budget in Google Ads, start by defining what “waste” means for your goal (for example, high spend with no conversions for lead gen, or ROAS below target for ecommerce), then use the Search terms report and Search terms insights over a date range that accounts for conversion lag, sorting by cost and filtering for low outcomes before diagnosing whether the issue is intent, match type, landing page alignment (especially in DSA), or measurement; once you’re confident, add negative keywords at the right level (ad group, campaign, or account) and re-check performance after a week or two to ensure you reduced waste without cutting profitable volume. If you want help doing this consistently at scale, Blobr connects to your Google Ads and runs specialized AI agents like the Negative Keywords Finder (to flag costly, misaligned queries from recent search terms or PMax search themes) and the Negative Keywords Brainstormer (to proactively suggest negatives), turning the review into clear, ready-to-implement recommendations while you stay in control of thresholds and scope.