How do I find negative keywords to block wasteful clicks?

Why negative keywords are the fastest way to stop waste and lift ROI

Negative keywords are your “do not show” list. They prevent your ads from triggering on searches that are irrelevant, low-intent, or simply unprofitable. In mature accounts, this is often the difference between paying for curiosity clicks and paying for buyers.

The big mindset shift is this: you don’t “set negatives once.” You build a system to continuously find waste. Search behavior changes, match behavior expands (especially with broader targeting), and new irrelevant patterns appear as soon as you scale budgets.

What negative keywords can (and can’t) fix

Negatives are ideal when the search is clearly the wrong intent (for example: “free,” “jobs,” “how to,” “definition,” “used,” “DIY,” “template,” “torrent,” “near me” when you don’t serve locally). They’re less effective when the issue is actually a weak landing page, unclear offer, poor location targeting, or a bidding strategy optimizing to the wrong conversion.

If you’re getting “relevant” searches but bad leads, you usually need to tighten your conversion definitions, qualify traffic on the landing page, or segment campaigns—not just add more negatives.

The most reliable places to find negative keywords (in priority order)

1) Search terms: your highest-confidence negative keyword goldmine

If you do only one thing, do this: review your search terms regularly and add negatives based on real queries that already spent money (or generated low-quality leads). This is the closest thing to a “truth source” in Search campaigns because it’s grounded in actual behavior, not guesses.

When you review search terms, don’t just look for “irrelevant.” Look for patterns that correlate with bad outcomes: high spend with zero conversions, conversions that don’t close, unusually short time on site, high bounce, or calls that are clearly not your target customer.

• Fast triage filter: sort search terms by cost, then scan from the top down until you find the themes driving spend without results.
• Quality filter: if you track lead quality offline, prioritize adding negatives for terms that create “junk” leads even if they technically convert.
• Pattern spotting: tag repeating modifiers (free, cheap, salary, course, tutorial, meaning, pdf, template, download, used, parts, repair, manual, login).

Practical tip: Don’t overreact to one odd search with tiny spend. Add negatives confidently when you see a clear intent mismatch or a repeating theme. If you’re unsure, start with a more specific negative (exact or phrase style) rather than a broad-styled negative that could block valuable variants.

2) Your own customer language (sales calls, chat logs, forms, refunds)

Your sales and support conversations are an underused negative keyword source because they reveal what people think you offer—especially when they’re wrong. Collect the phrases that show up in low-quality inquiries: “I’m looking for a job,” “I need a free version,” “Can you teach me,” “Can I buy one part,” “Do you have a template,” “I need a quick quote for a school project,” and so on.

Then translate those into negatives that represent non-buying intent. This is particularly powerful for service businesses (where a “lead” isn’t always a good lead) and B2B (where student/research traffic can look deceptively engaged).

3) Competitor and comparison traffic you can’t monetize (yet)

Competitor searches can work well in some industries, but they can also be a budget trap if your offer isn’t strong enough to win “vs” and “alternative” shoppers. If you consistently see competitor terms spend without results, consider negating specific competitor names (or “reviews,” “complaints,” “pricing,” if those searchers rarely convert for you).

If you want to keep competitor traffic, isolate it in its own campaign so you can control bids, ad messaging, and budget without contaminating your core performance.

4) “Edge intent” modifiers that create expensive curiosity clicks

Many accounts bleed spend on informational or ambiguous modifiers that sound relevant but don’t convert, especially under broad matching behavior. Examples include “what is,” “how does it work,” “examples,” “ideas,” “definition,” “diagram,” “powerpoint,” “case study” (depending on your funnel), and “certification/course” if you sell services rather than education.

You don’t need to block all informational intent—some businesses monetize top-of-funnel well. But if you’re optimizing for direct response (leads/sales now), these modifiers are common negative candidates.

How to add negatives the right way (without blocking your best traffic)

Choose the correct negative match style for the risk level

Negatives can be added in different match styles (commonly thought of as broad, phrase, and exact). The safest approach is to start more precise when there’s any chance you could block good searches, and go broader only when you’re certain the theme is always irrelevant.

As a rule of thumb: use a precise negative when the word can be relevant in some contexts (for example “used,” “manual,” “repair,” “course”), and use a broad-styled negative when the intent is almost always wrong for you (for example “free,” “jobs,” “salary,” “torrent”).

Decide the right level: ad group, campaign, or shared list

Where you place negatives matters. Ad-group negatives are best when something is irrelevant to one product/service but relevant elsewhere. Campaign negatives are best when a theme is wrong for everything in that campaign. Shared negative lists are best when the theme is wrong across many campaigns (like jobs, free, support, login), and you want one place to maintain it.

One warning from experience: shared lists are powerful, but they’re also where accidental over-blocking happens. Treat shared list edits like production changes—review impact, then deploy.

Watch for negative conflicts that quietly throttle performance

A classic mistake is adding a negative that overlaps with your intended keywords or your best converting search terms. This can lead to “why did impressions drop?” mysteries. If performance suddenly dips after a negative update, review what changed and check whether any high-performing themes are now being excluded.

• Quick safeguard: before adding a new broad-styled negative, search your recent converting queries for that word.
• Segment safeguard: if a term is only bad in one context, add it at the ad group level (not account-wide).

A repeatable weekly workflow to keep waste from coming back

Step 1: Review search terms on a schedule that matches your spend

If you’re spending a few hundred dollars a month, a monthly review may be enough. If you’re spending thousands per week, review weekly (or even every few days during aggressive scaling). The goal is to catch waste early, before it becomes “normal.”

Step 2: Turn findings into a living negative keyword map

Instead of a random list, organize negatives into intent buckets such as employment, education, free/download, support/login, DIY/repair, used/parts, definitions, and competitor-only (if you choose to block those). This makes it easier to spot gaps and avoid duplicating effort across campaigns.

Step 3: Use landing page and lead-quality signals to decide what to block

Not every non-converting term is “bad”—some are just early in the funnel. Decide in advance what you’re optimizing for. If your primary goal is closed revenue, you’ll typically be more aggressive with negatives. If your goal is lead volume, you’ll be more cautious and rely on qualification on the form and follow-up process.

Step 4: Keep a “quarantine” campaign for risky exploration

If you want to test broader targeting or new themes, do it in a controlled campaign with its own budget. This protects your profitable campaigns while still letting you learn. Once you identify wasteful themes, convert them into negatives; once you identify winners, move them into tighter, dedicated ad groups/campaigns with tailored ads and landing pages.

Advanced tactics experienced advertisers use to find negatives faster

Mine internal site search and navigation behavior

If your site has a search box, the phrases people type there often reveal intent mismatches (“jobs,” “refund,” “manual,” “return policy,” “free,” “login”). When those same themes appear in paid search, they frequently produce low-quality clicks. Even without a site-search report, you can often learn a lot by reviewing common support topics, knowledge base searches, or top help-page visits from paid traffic.

Use “intent pairs” to block the wrong meaning of the same word

Some words have multiple meanings across industries. Build negatives that block the wrong meaning without killing the right one by pairing modifiers. For example, if you sell “installations” but not “software installation,” you might block software-related modifiers rather than the word “install” itself.

Protect brand traffic from being polluted by support and employment intent

Brand campaigns often get “support,” “phone number,” “customer service,” “login,” “returns,” and “jobs” queries. If you’re not equipped to handle those, they can soak up budget while appearing “high CTR” and “cheap CPC.” Add brand-safe negatives for non-revenue intent, but be careful: some “support-like” queries are actually pre-purchase questions. If you sell a complex product, consider routing those users to a pre-sales help page rather than blocking them outright.

Immediate action checklist (do this today)

• Pull your search terms for the last 7–30 days (depending on volume) and sort by cost.
• Mark terms that are clearly wrong intent (jobs, free, how-to, definition, template, repair/parts if you don’t offer them).
• Add precise negatives first when there’s any doubt; go broader only for always-wrong themes.
• Place negatives at the correct level (ad group vs campaign vs shared list) to avoid blocking other products.
• Recheck performance after 48–72 hours for any sudden impression drop that could indicate an accidental conflict.

To find negative keywords that block wasteful clicks, start with your Google Ads Search terms report because it shows the exact queries that already spent budget; review it on a cadence that matches your spend, sort by cost, and look for repeating “wrong intent” patterns (for example free, jobs, tutorial, template, definitions, login/support, used/parts/repair) as well as competitor and informational modifiers that don’t align with your conversion goal, then apply exclusions at the right scope (ad group vs campaign vs shared or account-level) and choose match types carefully so you don’t accidentally block winning traffic—after any update, monitor for sudden impression or conversion drops that may indicate negative keyword conflicts. If you want a more structured way to do this, Blobr includes specialized agents like the Negative Keywords Finder (reviews recent search terms and suggests negatives per ad group with rationale), the Negative Keywords Brainstormer (proactively generates likely irrelevant terms based on your ICP and campaign semantics), and the Negative Keywords Cleaner (optimizes match types and removes overly restrictive negatives), each designed to help you turn negative keywords into an ongoing system rather than a one-off cleanup.