Negative keywords: the list to start with

A negative keyword tells Google where you specifically do not want to appear. Adding one costs nothing and the effect usually shows up in your spend within a week. That is why it is almost always the first change we propose after an audit.

The three types you can exclude straight away

Job hunting. vacancy, vacancies, salary, application, internship, training, course, part-time job. People looking for work click happily and buy nothing. For companies that are also hiring this matters twice over, because otherwise you compete with your own recruitment campaign.

Free and do-it-yourself. free, cheap, second-hand, yourself, DIY, manual, tutorial, how do I make. Note the nuance: cheap is not always wrong. If you deliberately sell in the lower segment, it is exactly the right term.

Information without buying intent. wikipedia, meaning, forum, complaints, experiences, compare. The same nuance applies: with expensive purchases, orienting is a real phase, and you may well want to be there with an explanation.

On top of that: brands you do not sell, places you do not serve, and products that look similar but that you do not supply. That last category usually delivers the biggest saving and differs per company. A roofer who only does flat roofs wants to exclude "tiled roof", and no standard list will work that out for you.

How to add them

Do it at account level if the term is never relevant, and at campaign level if it varies. An exclusion list at account level applies to everything and is the easiest to maintain.

Pick the right type:

• Broad negative: excludes anything containing those words, in any order. Most used and most risky.
• Phrase negative: excludes where the words appear in that order.
• Exact negative: excludes only that exact combination.

For words like vacancy and free, broad is fine. For words that could appear in a good search, use phrase or exact.

The trap: excluding too broadly

This is the mistake we repair most often. Someone excludes "cheap" on broad match and loses "cheapest air conditioning installer" along with it, which was a perfectly good search. Or someone excludes a city they do not deliver to, while companies in that city do order from them.

Excluding is silent. You never see what you are missing, because those impressions simply stop happening. That is why every exclusion deserves a written reason, so that six months later you know why it is there.

Two practical rules that prevent this:

1. Only exclude what you have seen in your own search term report, not what you thought up at your desk. Exception: the standard vacancy list above.
2. Never exclude a word that could also appear in your own product or service name.

How AdWarp proposes this

Warp reviews the search terms of the last 30 days, groups the ones that cost money without converting, and prepares a proposal with the exact list, the cost and the number of clicks. The proposal also states the match type we advise, and why broad does or does not work there.

Excluding falls under the tidy-up work that is instantly reversible. You can let Warp handle it without reviewing every instance, or keep it as a proposal awaiting your approval. Either way, the list of what was excluded and why stays visible in your change history. More on that distinction in the honesty rules.