Search terms: block the waste, keep the winners
The search term inbox reads what people typed before they clicked your Google ads, and sorts each term into Block, Make it a keyword, Test or Watch, from your own orders and costs.
How to do it
- 1
Open Ads Insight, choose Google, then the To do tab, and scroll to Search term inbox.
- 2
Under Block, tick the terms that cost money without a sale and press Block. Choose phrase or exact; the words go to one shared negative list.
- 3
Under Make it a keyword, add the terms that sell as exact keywords in the ad group they came from.
- 4
Words like free, cheap, used, repair or job are picked out in your languages, with their word forms.
- 5
Read Brand: searches for your own name in other campaigns are shown, and you can keep them in your Brand campaign only.
- 6
Read the terms every week for the first 4 weeks, then every 2 to 4 weeks.
A term is judged after 20 clicks, and at most 8% of the spend is blocked in one go, so Google keeps enough to learn from. Every block waits for you in Approvals.