Negative Keywords in AdWords - What, Where & How?

Getting your keyword negatives right can make all the difference between successful and failed paid search campaigns. Check this What, Where and How guide to negative keywords in Google AdWords.

What match types?

AdWords offers three match types for your negative keywords: Broad, Phrase and Exact match. Sounds familiar? Think again. There are subtle differences between matching options for negative keywords, and matching options for all other keywords.

• Broad match prevents your ad from showing when a search contains your negative keyword. If your ad targets 'cheap theatre tickets', you may want to use 'free ticket' as a Broad-matched negative keyword. Searches containing the words 'free' and 'ticket' would no longer trigger your ad. You should also add 'free tickets' to your list of negative keywords, as AdWords will not expand a Broad-matched negative keywords through plurals, synonyms or related words.
• Phrase match is helpful when word-order matters. In our last example, setting 'free ticket' as a Broad-matched negative keyword could prevent your ad from showing on relevant searches such as 'theatre ticket with free delivery'. Adding 'free ticket' as a Phrase-matched negative may have been a wiser choice, in this instance. When choosing negative keywords, it is helpful to review traffic logs and your AdWords Search Query reports to get a feel for actual search patterns.
• Exact match prevents your ad from showing when a search contains only your negative keyword. However, your ad will show for all other variations on your negative keyword. If your keyword is 'avatar' as a Broad Match, and you add 'avatar' as an Exact Match negative keyword, your ad will show on all 'avatar' related searches, such as 'avatar dvds' or 'avatar review'. This is a powerful way to carve out traffic. Neither Bing nor Yahoo allow such minutia.

Where?

You can add negative keywords both at the campaign and ad group level, with campaign negatives effective across all associated ad groups. Negative keywords added at the ad group level work hand-in-hand with campaign negatives. Together, they can work wonders.

How many?

AdWords does not set a fixed cap on the number of negative keywords you can use. However, overall keyword count restrictions do apply at the ad group and account levels across negative and positive keywords alike. Advertisers may add up to 2,000 keywords per ad group, and about 50,000 keywords per account. If you were to add 10 keywords to an ad group, the same ad group could hold up to 1,990 negative keywords. In practise, we would not expect these limits ever to be an issue.