Every Google Ads Account Has The Same Problem...
Thousands of dollars wasted on search terms that were never going to convert.
Below, we've put together a list of negative keyword examples to help you level up your Google ads performance no matter what industry you're in.
I's hard to find specific examples of negative keywords in real-life situations.
The real budget killers are the industry-specific negatives—the ones you don't think about until you've already burned through the spend.
This article gives you 150+ negative keywords you can copy and paste today. Organized by industry, ready to upload.
Let's get into it.
What Are Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords are terms or phrases that you set to prevent your ads from appearing when somebody enters an irrelevant search query.
👉 Bottom Line - If you add a negative keyword within your Google Ads account, then Google will blacklist that keyword, and will never display your ad when somebody enters that keyword.
This helps advertisers stop paying for clicks from people who are unlikely to convert. They simply are not going to become interested customers, so we don't want to advertise for their searches.
Importance of Negative Keywords
Keeping on top of negative keywords is incredibly important.
It’s incredible how almost every single account I’ve looked at inevitability has a ton of spend on completely irrelevant keywords that aren’t performing.
Google is getting better and better with their machine learning each and every year, but the machine still struggles to understand some of the subtle differences of intent behind certain search terms.
There are quite a few tools on the market to help audit your PPC search terms, so it's worth investigating those as well instead of manual sifting through thousands of potential negative keywords.
Here's an example of some companies who failed to properly add negative keywords to their campaigns, leading to the user (me) getting hit with irrelevant ads.
Negative Keyword Match Types
Just like regular keyword, with negative we have 3 different match types.
Below is an example from a client we worked with at our Google ads agency, in the coffee niche ☕️
🌍 Broad Match Negatives - Your ad won't show if the search contains all your negative keyword terms. For example, If you add "free" as a broad match negative, your ad won't show up for searches like "free coffee samples" or "best free coffee deals".
👋 Phrase Match Negatives - Your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms in the same order. For example, adding "wholesale" as a phrase match negative keyword would prevent your ad from showing for searches like "wholesale coffee beans bulk order".
🎯 Exact Match Negatives - Your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms, in the same order, without extra words. For example, if you put [decaf] as an exact match negative keyword, your ad won’t appear for the search "decaf coffee beans", but could still show for "coffee without caffeine".
👉 Pro tip: When in doubt, use phrase match. It gives you broad protection without accidentally blocking relevant searches.
Industry-Specific Negative Keywords
Now for the lists that actually differentiate this article. These are the negatives I've learned from auditing real accounts - the ones you don't think about until you've already wasted budget on them and slammed your desk in frustration, because that budget is gone!
🛒 E-commerce
Ecommerce accounts bleed money on DIY intent, wrong product variations, and competitor brand searches.
- DIY
- homemade
- make your own
- pattern
- plans
- instructions
- used
- second hand
- refurbished
- rental
- rent
- borrow
- repair
- fix
- replacement parts
- manual
- specs
- dimensions
- weight
- wholesale
- bulk
- B2B
- reseller
👉 Also add competitor brand names if you don't want to pay for brand comparison searches (e.g., if you sell running shoes, consider adding "Nike," "Adidas," "New Balance" unless you're intentionally conquesting).
💻 B2B SaaS
SaaS accounts get destroyed by integration queries, "free tier" hunters, and people looking for jobs at software companies.
- open source
- free tier
- free plan
- free version
- self hosted
- on premise
- API
- integration
- connector
- zapier
- webhook
- developer
- SDK
- documentation
- github
- stackoverflow
- investor
- funding
- series a
- IPO
- stock
- crunchbase
👉 Add integration-specific negatives for tools you don't integrate with. If someone searches "[Your Product] Salesforce integration" and you don't have one, that's wasted spend.
📍 Local Services (Plumbers, Lawyers, Dentists, etc.)
Local service businesses waste money on geographic areas they can't serve and DIY intent.
- near me (if not using location targeting)
- DIY
- how to fix
- YouTube
- video
- license
- certification
- school
- course
- salary
- pro bono
- free consultation
- legal aid
- cheap
- lawsuit
- sue
👉 Add cities/regions you don't serve. If you're a plumber in Austin, add "Houston," "Dallas," "San Antonio" etc. as negatives.
📋 Lead Gen / Professional Services
Agency campaigns get polluted by people who want to do it themselves or hire a cheaper freelancer.
- freelancer
- freelance
- fiverr
- upwork
- in-house
- DIY
- template
- tool
- software
- platform
- course
- learn
- tutorial
- how to
- cheap
- affordable
- budget
- small business
- startup
- solo
- one man
👉 Consider adding "white label" as a negative if you don't offer white label services—lots of agencies searching for white label partners.
🏢 Agencies (Marketing, Design, Development, etc.)
Agency campaigns get polluted by people who want to do it themselves or hire a cheaper freelancer.
- freelancer
- freelance
- fiverr
- upwork
- in-house
- DIY
- template
- tool
- software
- platform
- course
- learn
- tutorial
- how to
- cheap
- affordable
- budget
- small business
- startup
- solo
- one man
👉 Consider adding "white label" as a negative if you don't offer white label services—lots of agencies searching for white label partners.
Real-World Examples By Business Type
Here's how specific businesses might apply these principles...
🏖️ Luxury Travel Agency - Negative Keywords Examples
They might decide to add the following negative keywords for exclusion, because they don't match our high-end target audience.
- Cheap
- Affordable
- Budget
- Low Cost
- Low Price
- Last Minute
- Hostel
- Offer
🎓 Online University - Negative Keywords Examples
They might decide to add the following negative keywords so that they filter out irrelevant searches:
- Free learning
- Free courses
- Download
- Torrent
- YouTube
🏃♂️ High Performance Running Shoes - Negative Keywords Examples
A company exclusively selling high-performance running shoes may want to add these negative keywords, so that they avoid getting more generalist searches:
- Trainers
- Sneakers
- Casual
- Gym
- Crossfit
- Nike
- Adidas
- Tennis
Note: These are important to add into both search and shopping campaigns - We regularly implement these at our Google shopping agency.
👨💻 Mobile App Development Agency - Negative Keywords Examples
A company offering only website development services might want to add the following negative keywords because they don't match their specific services:
- Marketing
- Design
- Branding
- Website Development
- Social Media
- Content Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Guide
- Tips
💐 Flower Delivery Service - Negative Keyword Examples
A flower delivery service might want to add the following negative keywords, because the search intent doesn't match with someone looking to buy.
- Gardening Tips
- Flower Care
- Advice
- Guides
- How to grow flowers
⏱ Luxury Watch Store - Negative Keyword Examples
They might choose to add negative keywords around 'repairs' because they're only focused on first time sales.
- Repair
- Fix
- Mend
- Broken
📥 Download the Complete List
Want all 150+ negative keywords in a ready-to-upload format?
I've put together a Google Sheet with every keyword from this article, organized by category, with suggested match types. You can copy it to your Drive and customize it for your account.
👉 Download the Negative Keywords Template
Access our free Google sheet here - just go file > make your own copy!
How to Select Negative Keywords
- Brainstorming Session: Sit down and think about what your product or service is not about, and the types of customers you don't want to attract.
- Example: For a luxury watch store, add "repair" to avoid people looking for watch repair services.
- Competitor Analysis: Look at what your competitors are doing and the keywords they target. Do they target certain areas that you don't? If so, consider those as negatives.
- Example: If competitors offer "watch engraving" but you don’t, include "engraving" as a negative keyword.
- Use Keyword Planning Tools: Tools like Google's Keyword Planner will suggest a ton of related terms. When assessing these, exclude any of them that are clear candidates for negatives.
- Example: The Keyword Planner might suggest "smartwatches" for a luxury watch campaign. If you only sell traditional watches, "smartwatches" should be a negative keyword.
- Search Term Report Analysis: Dive into the search term reports. Look for terms that have high impressions but low CTR and conversions.
- Example: For an established flower delivery service, "flower gardening tips" might get impressions but no conversions.
- Review Conversion Data: Examine the search terms that led to conversions and pinpoint any irrelevant terms that slipped through the cracks.
- Example: If "free flower delivery" is driving clicks but not conversions, add "free" as a negative keyword.
- Use Analytics Insights: Leverage Google Analytics to find out which search terms lead to high bounce rates and low session duration.
- Example: "DIY flower arrangements" may drive irrelevant traffic that bounces fast from your site.
- Use our AI tool: Connect your Google Ads account to PPC.io and let our AI scan your search terms automatically. It catches things humans miss.
Application Levels of Negative Keywords
1) Account-Wide
Use this for keywords that are universally irrelevant to your business.
- Example: An automotive company might add "repair," or "driver for hire" to avoid job seekers or people looking for DIY guides.
2) Campaign Level
Apply negative keywords that don't relate to that specific campaign's focus.
- Example: In a campaign for winter clothing, negatives might include "summer," "shorts," or "sandals".
3) Ad Group Level
Apply negative keywords that clash with the ad group's targeted sub-niche.
- Example: In an ad group for wedding dresses, negatives might include "casual," "second-hand," or "costume".
Ongoing Best Practices
- Scripting: We strongly recommend setting up automated Google ads scripts to help you find candidates for adding to your negative keywords lists. Or you can just use our own tool for help.
- AI support: You can use AI tools for Google ads to help you better automate the negative keyword process - You no longer have to manually sift through all your keywords alone! You can easily connect your Google ads data to AI via an MCP and ask it for suggestions.
- Regular Monitoring: Consistently review search terms and analytics to refine your negative keyword list.
- Balance Match Types: Use a mix of match types for negative keywords to finely tune your campaign without over-filtering.
- Performance Evaluation: Keep an eye on CTR and conversion rates after applying negatives to gauge how
The biggest mistake I see? Adding negatives once and never touching them again. Google's broad match keeps getting broader. New irrelevant searches pop up all the time. Build a monthly habit of checking your search terms report.
Negative keywords aren't glamorous. Nobody's winning awards for their negative keyword strategy.
But I've seen accounts cut wasted spend by 20-30% just by implementing proper negatives. That's money that can go toward clicks that actually convert.
Start with the universal list. Add your industry-specific negatives. Then set a reminder to check your search terms report every month.