After finishing yesterday’s post about negative keywords, I realized that there have been quite a few recent changes to the Google Adwords interface that have moved the location of some things. One of those changes was the location of the negative keywords. The new location is little more difficult to find and operates differently than in the past. Now you have theoption of adding negative keyword tabs a ad group level or at a campaign level. This is helpful if you are geographically targeting a campaign, but want to restrict certain terms from a particular ad group, you now do not have to create different campaigns for each. The recent changes have made it easier for you to manage your negative keywords. I will cover two ways to ad negative keywords to your campaign, one option is to use the Google Adwords web interface and the other option is to use Google Adwords Editor which is a desktop application for managing your Google Adwords Account.
The first method I will cover is using the Google Adwords web interface:
To find the negative keywords, open one of your campaigns and click the “keywords” tab. This will take you to the individual keywords that are included in that ad group.
Once you have opened the keywords tab, scroll to the bottom until you the link that says “Negative Keywords.” This is where your negative keywords are located and where you will be able to add new negative keywords or delete existing negative keywords. Click on the “Negative Keywords” link to expand the menu.
Now you have the option of adding negative keywords at an ad group level or at a campaign level. You will have to determine this by how you have structured your campaigns and your ad groups. For many of my campaigns, I have them structured in a way that adding the negative keywords at a campaign level is sufficient because the negative keywords apply to all of the ad groups. This is not always the case, but much of the time.
To add negative keywords at the ad group level, click on “add’” and the list will expand to show you all of your ad groups. You have to select an ad group in which you want to add negative keywords. The downside of the web interface version is that you can only ad negative keywords to one ad group at a time. If you have a lot of ad groups in your campaign, you can easily see how this could become very time consuming and repetitive. Add your keywords in the box that is provided, one per line.
That is it. To continue to expand your keyword list and to ensure that your keywords are being excluded, you should schedule your “placement query” report to run either daily or weekly so that you can review the terms that triggered your ad ad caused people to click. You will often be very surprised at some of the search terms that people use.
To add negative keywords in Google Adwords is a little bit easier in my opinion. If yu are not using Google Adwords Editor, I suggest you download it here. Once inside you will see that all of your campaigns are listed on the left. If you click on any of the campaigns, the list will expand and show all of your ad groups. This is how you will be able to add negative keywords at either the campaign level or the ad group level.
In my example below, I have decided to add negative keywords at an ad group level. Once you have clicked on the ad group in the left-hand column that you want to add, then click the tab titled “Negatives” in the main panel. Now you have the option to adding multiple negative keywords to your campaign adding them individually. You can also add negative sites from this menu if you are using the content network in your campaign. Google Adwords Editor also gives you the option of determining which match type you want your negative words to apply to. Your best bet is to make it broad so that it covers all match types and does not cause you to pay for unwanted clicks.
After you have added your negative keywords and made any other changes to your campaigns that are needed, then you have to post your changes. This is a simple step and once that must be followed whenever changes are made in Google Adwords Editor.
Developing your keyword list is very important to the success of your campaigns and producing a positive ROI. You can start with one of my negative keyword lists, but you should spend some time developing a thorough list for each of your campaigns. The cost savings and increased ROI will be well worth the effort.
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