Negative Keyword Series: Understanding Negative Keyword Organization & Implementation for Search

Negative keyword organization and implementation play a key role in the success of paid search campaigns.  Increasing the percentage of impressions where ads only show for targeted search queries eliminates wasted spend and improves the bottom line. As Google (and other paid search platforms) grow more liberal in how their keyword match types work, ads show more often for untargeted search queries.

If you are not completely familiar with keyword match types, this article may be helpful in putting more context to the processes explained below: Navigating Google Ads Keyword Match Types.

First, let’s discuss organization structures of negative keywords. Negative keywords can be implemented at various levels. Negative keyword lists can be built at both the account and manager (MCC) account levels. Account level lists can be shared with campaigns in that account. MCC level lists can be shared with campaigns whose accounts fall under the hierarchy of the MCC account. Campaign level negative keywords are attached to a specific campaign within an account and Ad Group level negative keywords are attached to a specific ad group in a campaign.

Now that we understand the organization, lets review how to use each of these structures. Let’s assume for the purposes of this article that you have a Google Ads account that focuses on selling furniture that appeals to bargain shoppers, the general buyer and luxury buyers. You’ve setup the campaigns to be somewhat aggressive and regularly use broad match modifier keywords. As you uncover search terms that you would like to exclude your ads from showing for. You will need to decide if you would like to exclude specific ads or all ads. Based on that decision, you would input the search term as a negative keyword in a specific area.

You find “dyi” and “build” showing up as part of search queries like “dyi kitchen chairs” or “build a coffee table”. You make the decision that you do not want any ads in any of your campaigns showing when either of these terms are part of a search query. To accomplish this, you would build a common negative keyword list at the account level and place these terms in that list. You would then share this list with each of your campaigns. Also, because you don’t want your ads to show if either of these terms were searched for, you would set the match type as broad. This would eliminate the possibility of any of your ads, in any of your campaigns showing up for a search query containing either term. Moving forward you can continue to add negative keywords to this list that you do not want any of your ads to show for.

Building MCC negative keyword lists largely follows the same logic as the account level lists. Lists in the MCC account can be shared with campaigns in any account under the MCC. For instance, if your furniture company had multiple locations with different budgets, promotions, etc. There may be a need for different accounts. However, the individual accounts may share the same negative keyword list profile. It would make sense, in this case, to add common negative keywords to a master list at the mcc level and share across campaigns in the various accounts.

Suppose the you organized campaigns based on the quality of the furniture. There are campaigns for each furniture quality level – “Luxury”, “General” and “Bargain”. After launching, the search term data showed numerous searches containing the term “cheap”. While this term would make sense as a part for a search query for furniture in the Bargain campaign. It is not targeted towards the Luxury and General campaigns. Adding “cheap” at the campaign level, to Luxury & General, (as a broad match negative keyword) would make the most sense in both blocking unwanted traffic and allowing targeted keywords in the Bargain campaign to still deliver ads.

At the most granular level is the Ad Group Negative Keyword. Adding keywords at this level limits a very focused group of ads from not displaying in search results. Let’s say that inventory for cherry coffee tables is out of stock. You’d like to eliminate queries including cherry from showing your ads. At the same time, you’d like to continue to display ads for your broad match coffee table keywords and other types of cherry furniture. In order to do this, you would ad “cherry” as a broad match keyword to your coffee tables ad group.

Be careful in adding negative keywords. If you are not properly organized, you can block your ads from showing for valuable search queries. A common mistake is to add a term as a negative keyword that ends up blocking “positive keywords”. For any term, added at to any of the negative keyword structures, be careful to make sure that you are 100% sure that you will not be blocking your ads from any valuable search queries. If you aren’t sure how to add a keyword, add it granularly. The most granular levels would be to add the keyword at the ad group level and as an exact match keyword. Thus, blocking only ads in the ad group from a search query that exactly matches the negative search term.

Just as you have built an organizational plan for your keywords within campaign and ad group structures, building an effective negative keyword organizational structure will play a large role in the success of your campaigns.