The search terms report is the only place in Google Ads where you can see what people actually typed before they clicked your ad. Everyone knows it exists. Almost nobody reads it weekly, and the accounts that do not are quietly paying for searches like “free,” “jobs,” “salary” and “what is.” This is a 30-minute routine that cuts waste, plus the filters and the negative keyword structure that make the next session faster than the last.
Where it is and what changed
In Google Ads, open a campaign or the whole account, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. Two things are different from a few years ago. First, Google now hides a share of terms behind “other search terms” for privacy reasons. In most accounts that is 20 to 40 percent of clicks that you cannot see. Second, broad match and Performance Max lean heavily on Google’s interpretation of intent, which means the visible terms drift further from your keywords than they used to. Both changes make the terms you can see more important, not less, because they are your only evidence of what the algorithm thinks you sell.
The 30-minute routine
Set the date range to the last 14 days for an account spending over $3,000 a month, or 30 days for a smaller one. Add columns for Cost, Clicks, Conversions and Cost per conversion. Then work through four passes, in this order.
Pass 1: Sort by cost, read the top 50 (10 minutes)
Sort descending by cost. The top 50 terms typically account for half the spend, so this is where the money is. For each term, ask one question: would I be happy to pay this price for a click from someone who typed this? Terms fall into three buckets:
- Clearly right. Matches what you sell and who you sell to. Leave it. If it is not already an exact match keyword and it has conversions, add it as one.
- Clearly wrong. Different product, different audience, different intent. Add as a negative. Choose the match type carefully; see below.
- Not sure. Plausible but ambiguous. Leave it for now, note it, and check again next session with more data.
Pass 2: Filter for zero conversions and high spend (8 minutes)
Add a filter: Conversions equals 0, Cost greater than three times your target cost per lead. These terms have had enough budget to prove themselves and have not. Most will be “not sure” terms from a previous session that are now sure. Add negatives. If a term here is one of your actual keywords, lower its bid or pause it rather than negating it.
Pass 3: Search for intent words (7 minutes)
Use the search box on the report to look for words that signal the wrong intent. For most B2B lead generation accounts, the list is:
| Intent | Words to search for | Usual action |
|---|---|---|
| Job seekers | jobs, careers, salary, hiring, intern, resume | Negative, phrase match, account level |
| Learners and students | what is, definition, meaning, tutorial, course, certification, pdf | Negative, phrase match, campaign level. Keep “how to” if you sell a solution to the how |
| Free and DIY | free, open source, template, excel, spreadsheet, diy | Negative unless you have a free tier that converts |
| Existing customers and support | login, sign in, support, password, cancel, refund | Negative, exact or phrase, account level |
| Wrong buyer size | personal, home, small, hobby, or the reverse: enterprise, for large companies | Depends entirely on your market. Decide once, apply everywhere |
| Competitor names | Your top five competitors | Do not negate by reflex. Check cost per conversion. Competitor terms often convert well at a higher cost |
Pass 4: Look for winners you are not bidding on (5 minutes)
Filter for Conversions greater than 0, sort by cost per conversion ascending. Any term here that is not already a keyword in your account is a gift: it converts and you are only reaching it through broad or phrase match. Add it as an exact match keyword in the right ad group so you can bid on it directly and write an ad that mentions it. Then check its position in the UTM tracking template if you tag at the keyword level, so the win is visible in GA4 as well as in Ads.
Choosing the negative match type
Negatives do not work like positive keywords. Negative broad match does not expand to synonyms, and a negative only blocks a search that contains all of its words. That makes the choice simpler than it looks:
| Negative type | Blocks | Use when |
|---|---|---|
Negative broad: free crm |
Any search containing both “free” and “crm” in any order | Rarely. Usually you want to block the single word |
Negative phrase: "free" |
Any search containing the word “free” | Intent words. This is the workhorse |
Negative exact: [crm] |
Only the search “crm,” nothing else | Single generic words that are fine inside longer searches but useless alone |
Put intent negatives that apply everywhere, such as job and support terms, into a negative keyword list at the account level and attach it to every campaign, including Performance Max. Put product-specific negatives at the campaign level. Never add a negative at the ad group level unless you are deliberately funneling a term to a different ad group.
Where broad match makes this harder
With broad match and smart bidding, Google will argue that its algorithm already accounts for term quality, and in mature accounts with lots of conversion data it often does. The search terms report is how you check. If broad match campaigns show a wide spread of unrelated terms with conversions concentrated in a few close variants, the algorithm is exploring on your budget. Two responses work: keep broad match but add negatives aggressively for the first six weeks, or move the converting terms into a phrase and exact campaign and leave broad match with a smaller budget as a discovery engine. Either way, read the report. Do not take the algorithm’s word for it.
How much waste to expect
In accounts that have not been maintained for a quarter, the first session typically identifies 15 to 30 percent of spend going to terms that should be negated. In accounts maintained weekly, it drops to 3 to 8 percent, which is the cost of discovery and is worth paying. Track the number. Divide the cost of terms you negated by total cost for the period, and watch it fall session over session. When it stabilizes under 5 percent, move the routine to every two weeks.
That reclaimed budget is not savings. It is money that now buys clicks from people who might become leads, which is why the search terms report is usually the highest-return 30 minutes in paid search management. If you are sizing a test budget, our Google Ads budget calculator assumes this routine is running; without it, add 20 percent to every number.
Checklist
- Date range: 14 or 30 days depending on spend.
- Pass 1: top 50 by cost, sort into right, wrong, not sure.
- Pass 2: zero conversions and cost above three times target cost per lead.
- Pass 3: search for job, learner, free, support and size intent words.
- Pass 4: converting terms not yet keywords, add as exact match.
- Negatives: phrase match for intent words, account-level list for universal ones.
- Record the waste percentage and watch it fall.