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Everything about Negative Keywords: A Discount Coupon Often Left Unapplied

Keywords are an integral part of the digital marketing system. It is a notable area in SEO and plays a crucial role in the digital ad campaign. Thus, it is significant to pay close attention to keywords selection. Though there are various types of keywords, in this piece of content, we will be discussing keywords with regards to PPC.

Types of Keywords in PPC

  • Broad Match Keywords
  • Phrase Match Keywords
  • Exact Match Keywords
  • Negative Keywords

Well, you must have heard about negative keywords!

As a general phenomenon, we humans are taught to focus on positive things. And that’s great, especially in 2020; a year full of gloominess. However, sometimes it is good to give a thought to the negative part as well. So, bear with us as today as we are going to talk about Negative Keywords only, and believe us, this is going to bring lots of positive results to you.

What is a Negative Keyword?

Negative Keyword is a term or phrase, the use of which restricts your ad from being displayed. That means, no one with this search query will see your advertisement.

And how negative keywords work?

Interesting question. But before digging into the working mechanism of negative keywords, it is imperative to know different kinds of negative keywords. Because then only it would make complete sense.

Types of Negative Keywords with Example

The different types of keywords work differently. Thus, it is significant to use the right variant of negative keywords for achieving the desired results.

Negative Exact Match

It is the type of negative keyword that won’t allow your ad to trigger if the search query consists of the same terms as in the negative keyword.

Note – The order of the terms in the search query should exactly be the same as specified in the negative keyword criteria, and there should not be any extra words in the search query, else the ad will appear.

Example – [white marker]

Here, the ad will not trigger only in the case where the search query will be ‘white marker’. Apart from this situation, the ad will display. Say the search term is ‘white marker pen’, the ad will show. Moreover, the ad will display even if the search phrase becomes ‘white markers’.

Negative Phrase Match

In this case, for the negative keyword to prevent the ad from displaying, the search query must have exact terms as specified in the criteria, and the order of the terms should exactly be the same. However, the use of additional words in the search query doesn’t matter. It means,
even if the search query has extra words along with exact terms in the same order as mentioned in the negative keywords criteria, the ad will not trigger.

Example – “white marker”

Here, the ad will not appear if the search phrase is ‘white marker’, or ‘white marker pen’. But the search query ‘white markers’ or ‘marker white’ can trigger the ad.

Negative Broad Match

As the name indicates, it is a far-flung condition. In the case of negative broad match keyword, your ad will not display if the search query consists of all the exact terms specified in the negative keyword criteria. The order of the words and the use of additional words don’t matter.

Example – white marker

Now, here the ad will not trigger if the search query is ‘ white marker’, ‘marker white, or ‘best white marker’. But if the search query contains ‘white’ or ‘marker’ independently like ‘white board’ or ‘board marker’ the ad can trigger.

How to Find Negative Keywords – Their Working Mechanism

The objective of running ads forms the base of finding negative keywords. What you want to achieve is the key. Accordingly, you can select the type of negative keyword to use and can specify the negative keyword phrase. The aim of running ad campaigns is to increase sales and earn good profits. And negative keywords help in eliminating what you don’t want.

For selecting the most suitable negative keywords, think creatively. You can plan to eliminate the keywords that seem to be distant from your industry or far from your service area. Also, conduct in-depth research and analysis. For this, you can use search term reports. Plus, you can go for the keyword planner tool.

Benefits of Using Negative Keywords

The use of negative keywords can be a boon to your business if done correctly. It offers several benefits. Let’s check out.

Better Targeting

Right targeting is the key to make the most out of your ad spend. And incorporating negative keywords in the strategy helps you in doing that. How? By specifying the negative keywords, you are preventing your ad to trigger for irrelevant search queries. In turn, you are securing that you reach out to the people who are looking exactly for what you are offering.

Reduce Ad Spend

The use of negative keywords helps you avoid attracting the searches in which you are not interested. That means you are effectively serving ads to those who intend to buy your products and not a random surfer. This allows you to cut your ad spends by large and save precious resources for the quality leads.

Enhance CTR & Raise Increase Conversion

When your advertisement appears in front of the right audience at the right time, the chances of getting a click becomes higher. Obviously, when people get to see what they are searching for, they tend to click on it. The probability of conversion also increases in such cases.

Boost ROI

All the above points contribute to obtaining higher returns from the investment you make in the form of PPC spend. In nutshell, you make equivalent or more profit by comparatively spending equally or lower for the ads.

Negative keywords – a discount coupon for the business! We suppose, now it is clear that how beneficial negative keywords can be; how sometimes, eliminating performs better than selecting.

Are you finding it hard to pick the right negative keywords, which can enable your ads to perform better? Call us to ensure such a situation never arises again.

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