Is your Google Ad campaign running effectively? You might not be using all the tools available to help your Ads reach their audience. The right negative keywords might be what you need to help boost your image and refine your brand.
But what are negative keywords and how can you use them? Here, we’ll detail everything you need to know to navigate your Google Ad campaign with negative keywords.
For personalised advice, contact our team at practiceedge today.
Negative Keywords
Keywords are used in search engines to help users navigate to relevant content. For instance, users searching for ‘fine dining’ will find websites using that term faster than websites using other terms. Negative keywords are similar in the sense that they are a set of words and phrases used to further define who will see your Google Ads.
However, negative keywords differ in that your Google Ads don’t show for specific keywords. For instance, if you chose ‘cheap dinners’ as your negative keyword, it would ensure that people searching for that would not see your Google Ads. This will ensure you’re not wasting your budget on irrelevant clicks as it narrows down your target audience. It can also help your business seem more exclusive, by differentiating your brand from others.
Negative Keywords and Google Ads
There are several different benefits to using negative keywords for your Google Ads campaign. By using negative keywords to narrow down your target audience you can increase conversion rates and engagement.
Likewise, it can improve your brand image. 44% of people are exposed to ads that are irrelevant to their interests. People who constantly see irrelevant ads are more likely to form a negative opinion of your business.
Furthermore, it is far more cost-effective. Being able to directly target your preferred audience means you can cut back on costs. As Google Ads runs on a pay-per-click model, reducing the amount of accidental or irrelevant clicks is better for your budget.
Negative keywords can also boost your Quality Score. Your Quality Score is a Google Ads metric that measures your click-through rate and your ad and landing page relevance. A higher score indicates that your ads are performing better and reaching their intended target.
Types of Negative Keyword Matches
A negative keyword match refers to a specific category of negative keywords. Several different types of negative keyword matches can be applied to your Google Ads. Here, we’ll define each of them for you to use.
Broad Match Negative Keywords
Broad-match negative keywords cover the broad terms you can derive from one set of keywords. For instance, marking ‘cheap clothes’ as a broad match may stop your Ads from showing for similar searches such as ‘clothes cheap’.
However, though it broadly covers these words changes or additions may not be counted. Searches such as ‘cheap dress’ or ‘cheap clothing’ may still show your ads. That said these matches can help you cover more ground without having to conduct extensive keyword research.
Phrase Match Negative Keywords
Phrase-match negative keywords are the next step up with targeting specific searches. A phrase match keyword is when the selected keywords are in a specific order. For instance, if ‘cheap clothes’ was your chosen phrase any searches with those words in that order would be blocked off. Some examples would be, ‘cheap clothes nearby’, ‘ladies cheap clothes’ or ‘new cheap clothes’.
While this is effective in cutting out more irrelevant queries it will not block out phrases with an altered order. So searches asking for ‘clothes cheap’ may still show your ads. This is great to both narrow down your search while maintaining flexibility.
In doing so you can maintain your brand image, without cutting out other potential consumers depending on your chosen phrase.
Exact Match Negative Keywords
Exact match negative keywords is the most precise level. Only searches matching your chosen keyword exactly will be excluded from your Ads. For instance, negative keywords such as ‘cheap shoes’ will only exclude that exact search. Any queries with an added word, character or changed order will still show your ads.
These can help you refine your brand, however, specific keyword research is recommended to get the most out of this match.
Google Ads Levels
Once you’ve identified which negative keywords and their matches you would like to use, you can then choose which level to apply them. For Google Ads, you can choose to apply your matches to the account, campaign or a specific ad group.
For instance, choosing to set your negative keywords to account level means that every single ad made with that account will automatically include those matches. If you would like to differentiate your ads between different products, services or businesses you can choose to set your matches to either the campaign or ad group level.
Setting your matches to a campaign will mean all matches for a specific campaign will apply automatically. Likewise, setting for ad groups is even more specific to further differentiate particular ads in a campaign.
Utilising these different levels can help you to customise your Google Ads, increase their reach and better reflect your brand image.
Boost Your Google Ad Campaign With Expert Help
Optimising your Ad campaign with negative keywords can be difficult. Using different levels and matches can have different effects on your campaign, making it more difficult rather than easier to draw in more customers and users. At practiceedge, we have an expert team that can help navigate your Google Ad campaign with confidence.
If you need help identifying keywords, choosing matches and optimising your ads don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re always happy to help your business thrive.
