TL;DR: We review search terms twice a week for every Google Ads account we manage — filtering for 1+ clicks or 2+ impressions over the last 7 days, by ad group. The process differs across Search, Shopping, and Performance Max. Most accounts recover measurable wasted spend within two weeks of consistent reviews.

Metric	Value
Review cadence	Twice per week
Date range	Last 7 days
Click threshold	1 or more
Impression threshold	2 or more
Starting level	Ad group (not account level)
Campaigns with search terms	Search, Shopping
PMax approach	Insights tab, search categories
Skip entirely	Demand Gen

How to Add Negative Keywords From Search Terms in Google Ads: The Twice-a-Week Review That Catches Waste Before It Compounds

This post is based on a training video Peterson published on the Creekside Marketing YouTube channel: How to add negative keywords from your search terms.

Most guides on negative keywords tell you what to exclude. This one covers how to actually run the review process, across every campaign type, with the correct filter setup, the decision logic, and the phrase match mistake that can destroy a campaign if you get it wrong.

At Creekside Marketing, based on $20M+ in managed ad spend, this search term review runs twice a week for every account we manage. Not once a month, not when someone thinks to check. Twice a week. That cadence is not arbitrary: irrelevant clicks compound before a monthly review catches them, and Google’s algorithm treats consistent clicks as signals of intent worth bidding on, even if those clicks come from competitors, DIY researchers, or searches for unrelated businesses.

Which Campaign Types Have Search Terms Worth Reviewing

Not every campaign type surfaces individual search term data. Knowing which ones to review and which to skip saves time and prevents misinterpreting what you find. Performance Max and Demand Gen behave differently from standard Search and Shopping campaigns, and treating them all the same way leads to wasted effort and missed exclusions.

Review individual search terms in these campaign types:

Search campaigns (always by ad group)
Shopping campaigns (always by ad group)

Performance Max campaigns do not expose individual search terms. Go to Insights in the left navigation and scroll to the Search Term Insights section. You will see search categories (grouped themes) rather than individual queries. The review logic is similar, but the exclusion rules are different, and we cover PMax separately below.

Demand Gen campaigns have no search term section at all. Skip them.

For new accounts, or any account you have managed for less than a month, always start at the ad group level. The same search term can be the right traffic in one ad group and completely irrelevant in another. Only after you fully understand what a business advertises across all its campaigns does reviewing at the account level become workable.

The Exact Filter Setup Before You Review a Single Term

This is where most account managers create problems before the review even starts. Without the right four filters applied upfront, you are looking at already-actioned terms mixed with unreviewed ones, or reviewing search terms with too little data to make a reliable judgment on. The setup takes 30 seconds and determines everything that follows.

Inside any search or shopping campaign, navigate to Insights and Reports, then Search Terms. Set these four filters:

Campaign status: Enabled
Ad group status: Enabled
Date range: Last 7 days
Added or Excluded: None

The fourth filter is the one most people miss. Without “Added or Excluded: None,” you see every search term in the account, including ones already marked as excluded. That is noise. The goal is to see only unreviewed terms that have generated real activity in the past seven days.

After filters are set, review every term with 1 or more clicks. Also review every term with 2 or more impressions, even with zero clicks. Both thresholds matter: high-impression, no-click terms are still consuming budget and shaping Quality Score.

What to Look for When Scrolling Through Search Terms

For each search term, ask one question: does this align with what the ad group is advertising, and does the intent suggest someone who is likely to buy in the near term? Most of the terms you see will be fine. You are looking for the exceptions — competitors, DIY researchers, and people searching for an unrelated business.

Exclude these without much debate:

Competitor brand names (unless this is a competitor-targeted campaign — more on that below)
Terms indicating the searcher already owns the product (instructions, how-to-use, user manuals)
Brand names of unrelated businesses that showed up in a broader query
Review searches for specific companies (“company name reviews”) — these are people researching a single company, not looking to buy from an ad

Evaluate these case by case:

Research phrases that could indicate either browsing or buying intent
“How to” phrases — sometimes they signal DIY intent (exclude), sometimes they signal someone in the market (leave in). “How to build an awning” is exclude territory; “how much does an awning cost” is buyer intent, leave it in
Terms where a competitor’s name overlaps with a generic descriptor you legitimately sell

When in doubt, do not exclude. According to Creekside Marketing’s account management training: “If you’re not certain, reach out to your account manager, let them know you had a question about a certain keyword and talk about it. But don’t exclude it if you’re not certain.” The cost of leaving one irrelevant term is one wasted click. The cost of incorrectly phrase-matching a negative is potentially blocking hundreds of converting queries.

The Correct Process for Adding Negative Keywords Step by Step

When you find a search term that does not belong, the exclusion process has two parts. Most account managers complete Part 1 and move on. Part 2 is what prevents the same type of irrelevant query from generating new unreviewed terms the following week, because it blocks the root word rather than just one specific query string.

Part 1: Exclude the specific search term

Select the search term in the table
Click “Add as negative keyword”
Keep it at the ad group level
Click Save

Part 2: Find and exclude the root word 5. Identify the specific word that is causing the mismatch (not the full phrase, the root) 6. Add that root word in quotation marks (phrase match) as an additional negative keyword at the ad group level 7. Click Save

Part 2 is optional when no safe root word exists. When in doubt, stop at Part 1 and use exact match only.

The Phrase Match Warning That Can Tank a Campaign

This is the most important section in this post, and the one that separates account managers who understand negative keywords from those who cause damage with them. Get phrase match wrong and you will block your own converting traffic faster than any irrelevant search term could drain your budget — often without realizing it until conversions collapse.

Here is the specific example from Peterson’s training video: a shopping campaign for clear retainers. The irrelevant search term was the URL of a competitor. The instinct is to grab the root “clear retain” and add it as a phrase match negative. Do not do that.

“Clear retain” as a phrase match negative would also suppress:

“clear retainer”
“best clear retainer”
“clear retainer near me”
“clear retainer cost”

Those are the exact queries the campaign is trying to capture. The correct move: add the competitor URL itself as an exact match negative, and leave phrase match out of it entirely.

As Peterson explains in the source video: “This will absolutely tank an account. Do not do something along those lines.”

The rule before adding any phrase match negative: do a mental check. Could someone legitimately use this word while searching for what the client sells? If yes, stop at exact match.

Safe phrase match roots from the video’s account examples:

“instructions” — someone who already owns the product and needs usage help, not a buyer
“reviews” — someone researching one specific company’s reputation, not looking to convert from an ad
“how to build” — DIY intent when you sell a finished product
Competitor proper names where the name does not appear in any product or service term you are bidding on

Unsafe phrase match roots from the video:

Any word that appears in your product name or service descriptor
“How” alone — blocks “how much is an awning” which is buyer intent
Competitor URLs that contain a generic word in your product category
Proper nouns that happen to be part of a product description you sell

How Competitor Campaigns Change the Rules

If your account includes a campaign specifically designed to capture traffic from named competitors, the standard exclusion rules reverse completely. Everything described above assumes you want to avoid competitor terms. In a competitor campaign, those terms are the entire point, and excluding them removes the reason the campaign exists in the first place.

What you still review in a competitor campaign:

Terms where a third competitor appears that you did not intend to target
Broad queries where the competitor’s name appears incidentally alongside unrelated intent

A real example from the video: an awning company’s competitor campaign showed the query “Costco awnings.” The client sells awnings. Someone searching for “Costco awnings” is comparing awning options, and the intent aligns with what the campaign is doing. That term stays in.

The logic is consistent: if the search suggests someone comparing providers in the category, the intent fits even if the query includes another brand name. If the search clearly indicates someone looking for something the client does not sell, standard exclusion applies regardless of campaign type.

How Performance Max Search Reviews Work Differently

Performance Max does not expose individual search terms, so the standard review process does not apply directly. Instead, go to the Insights tab and find the Search Term Insights section, which shows grouped search categories rather than individual queries. The decision logic is similar, but two specific rules differ from standard search campaigns and getting them wrong costs real money.

In Performance Max, competitor categories are generally acceptable. PMax is a broad reach campaign designed to surface your ads across Google’s full inventory. The competitor exclusion rule that applies in search campaigns does not apply here. You want volume, and competitor-adjacent queries often signal in-market intent within your category.

In Performance Max, exclude your own brand name — but as exact match only. PMax will over-index on branded queries and spend a disproportionate share of budget showing ads to people already searching for you by name. Exclude the brand, but be precise.

The reason phrase match fails here: “Central Florida Awnings” as a phrase match negative would also block “Central Florida awning installation” and “Central Florida awning repair” — services the client sells. Exclude the specific branded query as exact match instead. If new branded variants appear in future reviews, add each one as its own exact match negative.

Using Existing Negative Keywords as a Guide When Taking Over an Account

When you take over an account or are new to a client, the existing negative keyword list inside each ad group is a useful orientation tool — not a checklist to follow blindly, but a window into what types of queries the previous manager already determined were irrelevant for that business and that specific ad group. Check it before you start the review.

The existing list is not comprehensive. You are adding to it with every review. But it prevents you from spending time debating whether to exclude a term that was already excluded months ago.

One caveat that matters: only lean on the existing list if the previous manager was competent. If you are taking over an account that has not been well managed, treat the existing negatives with skepticism rather than as a guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should you review search terms in Google Ads? Creekside Marketing reviews search terms twice a week for every account we manage. The 7-day review window means you are always catching fresh activity. Reviewing less frequently allows irrelevant terms to accumulate and, more importantly, allows those clicks to signal purchase intent to Google’s algorithm before anyone catches them.

Should you exclude competitor names from Google Ads search campaigns? In most search campaigns, yes. In campaigns specifically designed to target competitor traffic, no — those terms are the point. In Performance Max, competitors are generally acceptable because PMax is a broad reach campaign and competitor-adjacent queries often indicate in-market intent within your category.

What is the difference between ad group level and campaign level negative keywords? Ad group level negatives apply only within that specific ad group. Campaign level negatives apply across all ad groups in the campaign. Most search term exclusions belong at the ad group level because the same term can be appropriate in one ad group and irrelevant in another. Campaign level negatives are for words that are categorically irrelevant to the entire campaign.

When should you use phrase match vs. exact match for negative keywords? Default to exact match every time. Only use phrase match when you have identified a root word that is unambiguously irrelevant and does not appear in any search query you want to keep. The video example — “clear retain” as a phrase match blocking “clear retainer” — shows how phrase match can block your own product’s core traffic if the root word overlaps.

What is the “Added or Excluded: None” filter and why does it matter? This filter shows only search terms that have not yet been actioned — neither added as keywords nor marked as excluded. Without it, you are reviewing terms you have already processed, which wastes review time and obscures the terms that actually need attention. Set this filter before starting every review session.

Find Out Where Your Budget Is Actually Going

Search term reviews are one of the highest-ROI maintenance tasks in Google Ads management, and one of the most consistently skipped at agencies running too many accounts with too little attention. If your account is not getting a twice-a-week review, irrelevant queries are accumulating right now and Google is learning from those signals.

Request a free 10k Profit Audit to find out exactly where your budget is going and what a structured negative keyword process could recover.

About the Author

Peterson Rainey is the founder of Creekside Marketing, a hands-on paid ads agency managing $20M+ in Google and Meta ad spend across healthcare, home services, SaaS, and e-commerce. He built the search term review process described in this post and trains every account manager on it before they touch a client account.