Today is the first video in our Google Ads, or what is formally known as Google AdWords, negative keywords series.
We are going to go over a number of things such as what are negative keywords in Google Ads, how to find negative keywords, how to add those negative keywords to your Google AdWords accounts, and how can negative keywords cost you in Google AdWords.
Then we’re also going to break it down into some different negative keyword lists that you can add to your Google Ads accounts to help save you some money, as well as show you a calculator that we use in a later video. We’ll show you exactly just how much you might be wasting in your Google Ads accounts.
So, make sure you click the subscribe button below so you get notified as we add new videos to this playlist. Right now, we’re going to get started with, what are negative keywords in Google Ads? Stay tuned.
What Are Negative Keywords in Google Ads?
All right. As you know, when I’m doing my tutorials, I really like to show a real world example of how this all works, not necessarily dive into the account when we’re in the explanation phase, but to show you a diagram or something like that so that it’s a little bit easier to understand. For our example, we are going to use a spa and hot tub company.
Now, this is a real world example. This happens to be a client of ours.
There are several different things that they provide. They provide services, they provide used hot tubs, they do hot tub moving, they do hot tub repair, and you can also buy hot tub covers from them. Now, one thing that they don’t do is they do not sell new hot tubs. So, when they’re showing their ads, they’re showing their ads for hot tub repair, which is pretty much their biggest market, and hot tub moving is their second biggest.
But what happens is people will happen to, when they buy a new hot tub, and they sometimes have these perfectly great hot tubs that they’re getting rid of, and this client will take them back and refurbish them and sell them as used.
One thing that they don’t want to do is they don’t want people looking or clicking on their ads if somebody is looking for a new hot tub. They also don’t want anybody looking or clicking on their ads if they’re looking for a different hot tub company.
Now, this used to be a tactic that people would say, “You know what? I’d rather have my ads come up if they’re looking for XYZ hot tub company. I want my ad to come up underneath.” The problem that has started to happen is people are clicking very, very quickly, and they might be calling XYZ hot tub company to complain that somebody didn’t show up on time.
They may be calling because their XYZ hot tub company sells new hot tubs. They could be calling for a lot of different issues, and the clicks just started to get out of control.
Now, if you do want your name to show up, then obviously disregard this part of it. But we’re seeing more and more that people are actually clicking or typing in a name of a company, and the company that we’re representing is showing up, and they’re clicking on it and wasting money. So, that might be another reason, another search, that you would not want to show up for.
Other Negative Keyword Examples
Another one you would not want your ads to show up for somebody searching for a hot tub company outside of your area. If I have a hot tub company that services only Minneapolis, I don’t want my ads showing up if someone is typing, Hot tub company St. Paul.
So, I would probably want St. Paul or any of the other areas around me that I don’t want to advertise for, those might be used as negative keywords as well. And I also don’t want my ad to show up for anybody looking for anything free. Maybe it’s a free used hot tub, or free hot tub moving, or free hot tub covers. Whatever it might be, I don’t want my ad showing up for those searches.
These are all examples of negative keywords. The negative in this situation would be new. That would be a negative keyword. We do not want our ads showing up with anybody types in the word new when it comes to hot tubs. XYZ, ABC, any of our other competitors’ names, if we don’t want it to show up, we would type our competitors’ names into the negative keywords area.
Any locations outside of our area that we don’t service, and the reason why you want to put those in there is because even though if we are servicing Minneapolis, somebody may live in Minneapolis, or work in Minneapolis, and have a job over in St. Paul, and so they might be in Minneapolis at work and type in St. Paul hot tub company.
If we don’t want our ads shown there, we want St. Paul as a negative keyword. And also free. If anybody types in anything free that has to do with hot tub repair or moving or anything, free is one of those keywords.
Now, this just might be a start. There could be hundreds or even thousands of keywords that you might have in the negative keyword campaign. Some other examples might be show. If somebody’s looking for a hot tub show, as in like a trade show.
Hotel, somebody might be looking for a hotel room with a hot tub in it. Ice tubs, that is another thing. We don’t want anybody looking for anything with ice. Inflatable, there are inflatable hot tubs out there. This company is not dealing with them, so that’s another negative keyword.
Pool, if somebody is looking for a hot tub and pool company, we want to make sure that their ads are not showing up. Stairs, if you don’t sell stairs to get up into a hot tub, you might want to add that as a negative keyword. eBay, somebody might be looking up for hot tubs for sale on eBay.
We want to make sure that eBay is a negative keyword. DIY is a big one. There are people out there, and I can’t imagine trying to do it myself, that will make their own hot tubs. I’m just not that handy, and we don’t want our ads being shown for anybody that types in something like DIY or do-it-yourself hot tub.
Or cheap. Cheap tends to be a lot of price shoppers, so we don’t necessarily want those … our ads to show up there. Usually a lot of clicks, maybe not a lot of conversions. In this campaign, we don’t want our ads to show up for that.
Those are just some examples of negative keywords that we would want to add to our campaign. Obviously, these are going to differ from campaign to campaign, depending on what you’re trying to advertise. With that said, there are a lot of negative keywords that do translate well, such as free, cheap, DIY, do-it-yourself.
Those are types of keywords that we will add to a lot of campaigns, regardless of what they’re advertising. That is what negative keywords are in Google Ads.
Over here on the side, you’re going to see a link to our next video in this negative ad words series, called How to Find Negative Keywords in Google Ads.
Thanks so much for watching. Please subscribe or share it with someone else who might find it interesting, or if you know someone who’s in need of PPC or Google Ads services, please let us know. We’d love to help. Thanks for watching.
Also, check out these other articles and videos in our “Google Ads Negative Keywords” series.
How to Find Negative Keywords for Your Google Ads