How to Use a Keyword Research Spreadsheet to Launch Cleaner Google Ads Ad Group

If you’ve ever launched a new Google Ads campaign and watched the search terms report fill up with junk, you already know the painful truth: your campaign structure is only as good as your keyword planning.

Most “keyword research” tutorials stop at: find keywords, add keywords, ship it. That’s how you end up paying for clicks from people who want indoor skydiving when you sell tandem jumps.

The Workflow Overview

This article walks through a simple, repeatable workflow tracked inside a spreadsheet per ad group. We will use:

SEMrush: To pull competitive keyword data (volume, CPC, difficulty, intent signals).
Google Keyword Planner: To validate local search demand and seasonality.
Ad Group Tabs: A spreadsheet tab per ad group to track decisions “with receipts.”

Step 1: Treat Each Ad Group Like Its Own Project

Here’s the discipline most advertisers skip: do this workflow for every single ad group. If you lump “skydiving prices” with “tandem skydiving,” you lose control over ad relevance and landing page alignment.

What to do in the spreadsheet:

Duplicate your research tab for each ad group.
Name tabs by intent (e.g., Tandem – General, Tandem – Near Me, Gift Cards).
This makes troubleshooting later 10x easier.

Step 2: Start With a “Seed” Keyword (SEMrush)

Instead of brainstorming from scratch, steal a smarter starting point from your competitor’s top organic terms.

In SEMrush, go to SEO Dashboard → Domain Overview.
Paste a competitor domain.
Pick one strong keyword relevant to the specific ad group you’re building.

Step 3: Pull Paid Keyword Metrics

Switch to the data that actually matters for Google Ads planning in the Keyword Magic Tool.

PKD % (Personal Keyword Difficulty): A proxy for how crowded the market is.
CPC Estimate: A directional cost expectation.
Intent Tag: If SEMrush flags a term as Commercial or Transactional, it deserves earlier testing.

Step 4: Build Your Negative List Before Launch

This is the part that separates amateur advertisers from professionals. For a tandem-jump ad group, you want to exclude intent buckets that don’t belong, such as:

Solo training
License / certification
Equipment or jobs

Pro Tip: Don’t blindly exclude. Spot-check the “solo” cluster to make sure a relevant term like “tandem” didn’t accidentally get swept up in the exclusion.

Step 5: Validate Local Demand (Google Keyword Planner)

SEMrush is directional, but Google owns the actual behavior. Use Keyword Planner to validate localized volume.

Target the DMA: If your service area is a tiny suburb, target the “DMA region” around the nearest major city to get usable trend data.
Filter Duplicates: If two terms show the exact same trend graph, they map to the same intent. You don’t need 6 redundant variations in one ad group.

Step 6: Capture Peaks and Valleys

Keyword Planner’s trend chart helps you plan budget changes proactively.

Peak Months: When demand spikes (Summer for skydiving).
Valley Months: When demand drops (Colder months).
Recording these ensures you don’t panic when “nothing works anymore” during the off-season.

Step 7: The “Launch-Ready” Selection

Use your spreadsheet to choose starting keywords based on two main columns:

Avg. Monthly Searches (Local/Real)
CPC (Directional competitiveness)

Recommended Launch Approach

Start with a tight set of 5–15 keywords max.
Use Phrase + Exact match to keep intent clean early.
Add Broad match only once you have strong negatives and a budget to learn.