What Are Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords are an essential component in digital advertising, especially to affiliate marketers looking to filter off unwanted traffic. As opposed to traditional keywords that aid in pulling users to your ads, negative keywords work as a protective shield. They command ad systems like Google Ads not to show your advertisement when particular search words are used. This enables you to protect ad spend for users who are likely to convert.
Let’s illustrate this with an example; if you are advertising prescription eyeglasses and your ad shows up for people searching “wine glasses,” you are simply wasting ad spend on clicks that would never lead to a sale. Setting “wine” as a negative keyword will prevent your ad from being show in those contexts, thus saving you money while improving relevance.
The Advantages of Negative Keywords
The effectiveness of negative keywords comes from two focal points: managing costs and precision in target marketing. Every irrelevant click not only eats away at one’s budget but also reduces the overall quality of traffic. By strategically implementing negative keywords, affiliate marketers can improve their CTR, reduce spend waste, and greatly boost conversion rates.
Negative Keywords allow you to:
- Save advertising costs by preventing targeting unengaged users.
- Optimise and enhance your Quality Score on Google Ads and similar platforms.
- Increase precision in audience targeting by eliminating irrelevant traffic.
- Maintain reputation by avoiding inappropriate or damaging associations.
Example in a Sentence
“After reviewing our search term report, we added ‘free’ and ‘template’ as negative keywords to our affiliate campaign, which helped reduce non-converting traffic by 35%.”
How to Use Negative Keywords
The three match types that determine how strictly negative keywords are applied are: Broad match, Phrase and Exact match types.
The Broad match type is the default setting. As an example, if your negative keyword is cheap shoes, then the search “buy cheap red shoes” will be blocked. However, a slightly reordered query like “shoes that are cheap” may still trigger the ad.
Phrase match type blocks access to more accurately targeted ads. Using the block “Phrase Match Shows” would prevent ads from showing if a query includes that exact block in its entirety. To provide a better understanding, let us try a keyword along the lines of “cheap shoes.” In this case “really cheap shoes” will still be blocked, however “shoes cheap” may still waddle through.
Among the most rigid types is Exact match. For instance, using the block [cheap shoes], while the term ‘cheap shoes’ does not activate the ad, “buy cheap shoes online” does.
Knowing how to combine the various levels of control for the type of match helps avoid a common rookie error e.g. mistakenly barring valuable traffic.
Where to Utilize Negative Keywords
The application of negative keywords can be implemented at varying levels, ranging from broader to narrower exclusions. At the campaign level, all ad groups within that campaign are affected by the keywords. Applying them at the ad group level offers greater precision within a single campaign. Account-level exclusions (available in Google Ads) provide a set of universal filter across all campaigns, which is useful for brand-irrelevant terms that don’t make sense to cross-advertise under.
To streamline keyword management, advertisers often create reusable negative keyword lists, which can be applied across multiple campaigns. This approach helps maintain uniformity while also saving time.
How to Determine Correct Negative Keywords
Curating the most effective negative keyword list is a continuous endeavor. Looking into the search terms report within Google Ads often serves as a great starting point as it displays all user queries that triggered ads. Irrelevant keywords coupled with desirable outcomes should be placed in the exclusion list.
If you wish, you could search for keywords manually and determine what comes up. If unrelated information shows up, you can figure out the offending words and remove them. An additional approach would be looking at the competition: examine ads from others in your market and what irrelevant terms they seem to be attracting. Use their blunders to inform your choices.
While doing keyword research, don’t forget to factor in user intent. For instance, if you are advertising a paid product, someone looking for “free trial software” is not your target audience. In that instance, it makes sense to add “free” and “trial” to your negative keyword list.
Common mistakes to avoid
Ignoring user intent is a common mistake Made. Negative Keywords are useful, but conflicting ideas can slim ads visibility.
Missed out scope of targeting keywords leads to complacent underperformance. A regular error many users make is not thinking misspellings “shoe” and “shoes” are separate keywords. As such, need to be handled competitively.
Another concern is failing to renew your cue list. Search behavior shifts over time, so it’s best to reevaluate your negative keyword algorithm at least monthly to keep pace with prevailing trends and campaign objectives.
Real-World Application
Consider a scenario where you are managing an affiliate marketing campaign for high-end luxury watches. Ideally, your perfect customer would be searching for phrases like “Swiss timepieces” or “high-end men’s watches.” However, your ads are also appearing for “watch battery replacement” and “cheap watches online.” These clicks won’t turn into conversions in any reasonable number. By adding negative keywords such as “cheap,” “battery,” “repair,” and “replacement,” you tell Google not to display ads to users searching for these terms. The outcome is increased relevancy, improved ad spend efficiency, and more concentrated traffic.
Ending Remarks
As with any optimization technique, negative keywords are not an isolated feature, they form an essential part of every affiliate marketing campaign. If used correctly, they eliminate wasteful clicks, safeguarding the budget and sharpening the focus of the campaign traffic on high conversion rates. Treat them like routine check-ups and… well, just re-evaluate them frequently and see how they stealthily turn to be best in saving costs.
Explanation for Dummies
Think of negative keywords like a bouncer at an exclusive club. You’re hosting a VIP party for fans of designer watches, but some people just want freebies or knockoffs. The bouncer, your negative keywords, checks the door and turns away anyone who doesn’t fit. That way, your party stays classy and your wallet stays full.
