Negative Keywords for Lead Generation: Stop Wasting Money on Bad Clicks

I often equate negative keyword management and search term blocking as the way to make money with Google Ads.

Not only will it save you from continuing to waste money on search terms that are not appropriate, it will also put more of your budget towards the good terms that actually convert. It’s a double benefit—you stop the bleeding AND you redirect that money to what’s working.

Most of my clients at Pixelocity who come to us after struggling with Google Ads themselves have not done this exercise. This would be the number one mistake most businesses are making: not spending weekly time reviewing search terms and adding negatives.

I often call the negative search term blocking list that you’ve created at the account level your “trash can” in the account. It’s where all the garbage goes so it doesn’t contaminate your campaigns.

Negative keywords can save 30-40% of your wasted spend. They’re the most underutilized feature in Google Ads, and that’s costing you thousands of dollars.

What Are Negative Keywords & Why They Matter

Negative keywords are search terms you DON’T want your ads to show for. They block irrelevant searches before you pay for them.

Here’s how it works without negatives: You bid on the keyword “plumber” using phrase match. Your ads start showing. But they don’t just show for “emergency plumber” and “hire plumber”—they also show for “plumber jobs,” “plumber salary,” “DIY plumbing tips,” “plumber training courses,” and “how to become a plumber.”

None of those people want to hire a plumber. The person searching “plumber jobs” is looking for employment. The person searching “DIY plumbing” wants to fix it themselves. The person searching “plumber salary” is researching career options or doing homework.

Every one of those clicks costs you $5, $10, maybe $15. And not a single one converts because they’re not looking for what you offer.

That’s where negative keywords come in. You add “jobs,” “salary,” “DIY,” “how to,” and “training” as negative keywords. Now your ads won’t show for any search containing those terms. You just saved yourself hundreds of dollars per month in wasted clicks.

I remember when I first started running ads for my furniture business, I was bidding on “contemporary furniture” and getting clicks from people searching “contemporary furniture styles,” “contemporary furniture history,” “contemporary furniture design course.” I was paying for clicks from students doing research papers. Once I added negatives for “history,” “styles,” “course,” “design ideas,” my cost per lead dropped by 35% overnight—same budget, but it was all going to people who wanted to buy furniture instead of learn about it.

Categories of Negative Keywords

Let’s break down the types of searches you want to block. Some of these apply to every business. Others depend on your specific situation.

Here’s a tip that saves months of trial and error: working with an agency or freelancer who’s already built up negative keyword lists gives you a huge head start. At Pixelocity, we bring negative keyword lists from similar clients to new accounts. A plumber we onboard starts with 200+ negatives already in place based on what we’ve learned from other plumbing clients. That means they skip the expensive learning phase where they pay for hundreds of junk clicks before figuring out what to block.

Job Seekers

These are people looking for employment, not services:

jobs
careers
salary
wage
wages
hiring
employment
resume
apply
application
job openings
indeed (the job site)

DIY and Free Content

People who want to do it themselves or find free information:

DIY
how to
tutorial
guide
tips
ideas
free
course
class
training
lessons
video
YouTube
instructions
step by step

Students and Research

Academic searches that never convert:

school
college
university
degree
study
studies
homework
project
paper
thesis
research
definition
history
essay

Wrong Service Type

This varies by business, but you want to exclude services you don’t offer. A plumber should add negatives like:

furniture (so “pipe furniture DIY” doesn’t trigger ads)
car
computer
clothing
any other industry that uses your keywords in different contexts

A lawyer might add:

medical
software
plumbing
construction
anything outside their practice area

Wrong Intent

People who aren’t looking to pay market rates or hire anyone:

cheap (be careful with this—some businesses position on price)
free
used
donate
donation
charity
volunteer
barter

Competitors (Optional)

You can add competitor business names as negatives if you don’t want your ads showing when people search for your competitors. Or you can leave them off (or even target them) if you want to compete directly for those branded searches. This is a strategic decision.

Geographic

If you only serve certain areas, add cities, states, or regions you don’t serve as negatives. This is especially important if you’re using broader location targeting. A Los Angeles plumber might add “New York,” “Chicago,” “Miami” as negatives if they’re somehow triggering ads outside their service area.

Building Your Negative Keyword List

Here’s the process for building and maintaining your negative keyword list.

Day One Negatives

Start with a universal list—50 to 100 negative keywords that apply to almost every service business. Add these to an account-level negative keyword list on day one, before you spend a dollar. This list includes all the job seeker, DIY, student, and free content terms we covered above.

Creating this account-level list means it automatically applies to every campaign you create. You set it once and it protects all your campaigns.

Weekly Search Terms Report Mining

Here’s the part most businesses skip, and it’s costing them the most money: Dedicate time every week to review your search terms and add negatives. Block off time in your calendar. This should not be an optional exercise.

I spend 30 minutes every Monday morning reviewing search terms for client accounts. Without fail, I find 5-10 new irrelevant searches every week that need to be added as negatives.

Here’s how to do it:

In Google Ads, go to Keywords → Search Terms. This report shows you the actual searches that triggered your ads. Sort by impressions or clicks to see the highest-volume terms first.

Look for patterns. You’ll see searches that clearly aren’t relevant. Maybe you’re a divorce lawyer and you’re seeing searches for “criminal defense lawyer” or “employment lawyer”—add “criminal,” “employment,” “DUI,” “personal injury” as negatives.

Add these immediately. Don’t wait. Every day you wait is another day you’re paying for junk clicks.

Tools to Help

Google Keyword Planner can show you related terms when you enter your main keywords. Some of those related terms will be things you want to exclude.

Google Search Console (from Chapter 2) shows you organic searches. Look for searches bringing you traffic that you know don’t convert—add those as negatives in your paid campaigns.

Organization: Account-Level vs. Campaign-Level

Account-level negative keyword lists apply to every campaign in your account. Use this for universal negatives like “jobs,” “DIY,” “free,” “salary.” These never make sense for any campaign.

Campaign-level negatives are specific to one campaign. For example, if you run separate campaigns for “HVAC Installation” and “HVAC Repair,” you might add “repair” as a negative in the Installation campaign and “install” as a negative in the Repair campaign so they don’t overlap.

Most of your negatives should be in a shared account-level list for efficiency.

Match Types for Negatives

Negatives use the same match types as regular keywords, but they work slightly differently.

Exact match negative [keyword] blocks only that exact term. [free] blocks “free” but not “free estimate.”

Phrase match negative “keyword” blocks any search containing that phrase in order. “how to” blocks “how to fix a leak” and “how to repair plumbing,” but not “know how” or “instructions to.”

Broad match negative keyword blocks any search containing that word in any order or close variants. Adding “free” as a broad negative blocks “free estimate,” “estimate free,” “no charge consultation”—it’s aggressive.

For most negatives, use phrase match. It gives you good coverage without being overly aggressive and accidentally blocking good searches.

Advanced Negative Keyword Strategies

Once you have the basics down, here are some advanced strategies.

Block Non-Converting Terms (Even if They Look Appropriate)

Here’s something most people don’t think about: Even things that look appropriate, if there’s enough traffic and data showing they’re not converting, that’s also a good opportunity to start blocking those.

Let’s say you’re a personal injury lawyer. You’re bidding on “car accident lawyer,” and you’re also getting traffic for “motorcycle accident lawyer.” After three months, you see that “motorcycle accident lawyer” has 50 clicks, $750 spent, and zero conversions. Meanwhile “car accident lawyer” has 100 clicks, $1,500 spent, and 12 conversions.

Even though “motorcycle accident lawyer” seems relevant, it’s not working for you. Add “motorcycle” as a negative and redirect that budget to what’s converting.

Negative Keyword Conflicts

Be careful not to block your own good keywords. If you add “free” as a broad match negative, you’ll block “free estimate” and “free consultation”—terms you probably want to bid on.

This is why phrase or exact match negatives are safer. “free repair” as a phrase negative blocks “free repair service” but allows “repair with free estimate.”

Seasonal Negatives

If you’re in an industry that doesn’t participate in Black Friday, add “Black Friday,” “Cyber Monday,” “holiday sale” as negatives during those periods. You don’t want to show up for deal-hunters if you’re not running deals.

Brand Protection

Add your own business name as a negative in your non-branded campaigns. This prevents overlap where your branded and non-branded campaigns compete against each other.

Monthly Audits

Even with weekly maintenance, do a monthly comprehensive audit. Look for patterns you might have missed. Search for new industry terms that emerged. Check if any negatives are blocking too much traffic and should be adjusted.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Not using negatives at all is the #1 mistake. I see this constantly with businesses who tried Google Ads themselves and gave up because “it didn’t work.” They were paying for job seeker clicks, DIY clicks, student research clicks—no wonder it didn’t work.

Being too aggressive is the opposite problem. Adding every keyword as a negative because you’re scared of wasted spend means you block good traffic too. Use phrase or exact match negatives to be precise.

Not reviewing search terms regularly. Set a calendar reminder. Weekly is ideal, monthly minimum. This isn’t optional if you want profitable campaigns.

Using wrong match types. Broad match negatives can be too aggressive. Start with phrase match for most negatives.

Forgetting to apply your negative list to new campaigns. When you create a new campaign, make sure your account-level negative list is applied, or you’ll start wasting money all over again.

The Benefit of Clean Negatives: Expanding Match Types Safely

Here’s something most people don’t realize: Once you’ve blocked a lot of inappropriate terms, it’s actually safer to start expanding your match types to phrase and even broad.

Most of the garbage that makes broad match unprofitable are the job seeker, DIY, and student searches. Once you’ve blocked all of those with negatives, broad match suddenly becomes much more viable. You can discover new high-converting keywords without the downside of junk traffic.

This is how you scale—build a strong negative keyword list first, then open up match types to discover new opportunities.

Real Results from Negative Keywords

The typical result from proper negative keyword management is a 20-40% reduction in wasted spend. Same budget, but now it’s going to qualified traffic instead of junk.

I’ve seen accounts where we added 300 negatives in the first week and cut cost per lead in half. Not because we changed the campaigns or keywords—just because we stopped showing ads to people who were never going to convert.

One roofing client came to Pixelocity spending $8,000/month with a $400 cost per lead. After implementing a proper negative keyword strategy (plus other optimizations), we got that down to $180 per lead within 60 days. The biggest factor? Stopping 35% of clicks that were going to “roofing jobs,” “roofing materials,” “DIY roofing,” and “roofing courses.”

Your Trash Can Is Your Money Maker

Set up your account-level negative keyword list today—your “trash can.” Add 50-100 universal negatives from day one. Then commit to reviewing search terms every single week and adding new negatives as you find them.

This isn’t glamorous work. It’s not the exciting part of Google Ads. But it’s where the money is made. Every dollar you don’t waste on a bad click is a dollar that goes toward a good click.

Next, we’ll cover bidding strategies—when to use manual bidding versus automated bidding, and how to set bids that maximize your ROI without overpaying.