Reading the Google Ads Search Terms Report to Cut Waste

A well-tuned Google Ads campaign can still show your ads for searches that have nothing to do with what you sell, because match types stretch your reach well past the exact keywords you originally chose. The search terms report shows the real queries that triggered your ads, click by click, and it's the only place where you can see clearly where the money goes when it doesn't match the intent you're after. Here's the weekly routine I run with clients to read that report, group the wasted terms, and add exclusions at the right level of the account.

What Is the Google Ads Search Terms Report?

The search terms report lists every exact search a user typed that triggered one of your ads, along with the clicks, impressions, and cost tied to that specific search. It isn't the same list as your keywords: a broad match or phrase match keyword can trigger dozens of different searches, some of them far from what you originally targeted. The report shows what happened, not what you thought you had aimed at.

Where Do You Find the Search Terms Report in the Current Google Ads Interface?

In the 2024 Google Ads interface, open a campaign, then in the left-hand menu, under Insights and Reports, click Search Terms. You can filter by campaign, ad group, or date range, and sort by cost to see which terms ate up the most budget first. Start with the last 30 days if the campaign has been running for a while, or since launch if it's new: the first weeks of a new campaign almost always produce the most off-target terms, while the bidding algorithm is still learning which searches convert.

How Do You Spot a Wasted Search Term?

A wasted term shows a mismatch between what it costs and what it brings back: real clicks and real spend, but zero conversions after a reasonable sample, or an intent that's clearly different from what you sell. A renovation company that sells new installations will sometimes see searches like "fix it myself," "spare parts," or "renovation jobs," queries that share a topic with its keywords but never lead to a signed contract. The same thing happens to a clinic that starts showing up for searches naming a specific competitor, or a local shop getting clicks from a city it doesn't serve. Before you write a term off as wasted, check that conversion tracking is firing correctly for that campaign: a term with zero recorded conversions because of a tracking gap looks the same in the report as a term that genuinely does not convert, and excluding it would hide the tracking problem instead of fixing it.

How Do You Group Search Terms Before Adding Exclusions?

Instead of excluding one term at a time as soon as it shows up, I group wasted terms by theme first, over two or three weeks of data: job searches, parts or supply searches, "free" or "cheap" searches, training or how-to searches, and searches naming a specific competitor. Grouping by theme reveals a pattern that a one-off exclusion doesn't: if ten variations of "training" show up in a month, the real problem isn't those ten specific terms, it's the informational intent your ad is mistakenly attracting, and your negative keyword list needs to cover that intent as a whole, not just the ten examples you've already seen.

Should You Turn a Good Search Term Into a Keyword?

The search terms report isn't only useful for finding what to exclude. It also shows searches that convert well without being part of your keyword list. When a specific term keeps showing up with a solid conversion rate, add it as an exact match keyword in the right ad group instead of leaving it to depend on broad match. An exact match keyword gives you more control over the bid and the ad copy that shows for that specific search, while broad match keeps depending on the algorithm to guess the intent every time. This step happens in the same weekly pass as spotting wasted terms: you're sorting the same list in both directions, what's costing too much on one side and what deserves more attention on the other.

What Level Should a Negative Keyword Go At: Ad Group, Campaign, or Shared List?

A term that only affects one ad group, for example because it overlaps with another ad group in the same account, gets excluded at the ad group level so it doesn't touch the rest of the campaign. A pattern that affects an entire campaign, such as job searches for a service business, gets excluded at the campaign level. A pattern that keeps showing up across several campaigns in the same account, such as "free" or "volunteer" for a nonprofit running both a search campaign and a Performance Max campaign, belongs in a shared negative keyword list applied once across the whole account instead of copied campaign by campaign. In the accounts I review, picking the wrong level is a common reason an exclusion added last week doesn't fix anything this week: the term changes shape, but the intent behind it stays the same, and a narrow exclusion lets it slip through somewhere else in the account.

Which Terms Show Up Most Often in Wasted Spend?

The same categories of terms keep showing up across accounts, even though the exact words change by industry. Here are anonymized examples, in English and French, drawn from patterns I see regularly: job searches ("hiring," "career," "emploi," "carrière"), free or low-budget searches ("free," "cheap," "gratuit," "pas cher"), DIY searches ("how to," "DIY," "tutorial," "comment faire soi-même"), training or certification searches ("course," "certification," "formation," "cours"), and parts or supply searches instead of service searches ("parts," "supplies," "pièces détachées," "matériel"). None of these words are bad on their own elsewhere on the web: the problem is that they signal an intent different from the one your ad is meant to catch, and every click on these searches costs the same as a click that could have led to a customer.

How Often Should You Review the Search Terms Report?

I review this report every week for the first month of a new campaign, then space it out to every two weeks once the account has enough history for automated bidding to settle down. Set yourself a recurring reminder, by email or on your calendar, rather than relying on memory: an account left running for two months without a review racks up wasted spend that never gets recovered, even once the right exclusions go in later. The search terms report only earns its keep if someone reads it on a regular schedule, and that's the same principle I apply to every Google Ads account I manage, whether it's been running for a week or three years.

That kind of discipline around ad spend isn't limited to Google Ads: looking at where the money is really going before deciding what to adjust is the same first step, no matter the platform.

Drafted with AI assistance, checked and published by Marven Salgado.