How Many Negative Keywords is Too Many?

Negative Keywords is one of the most cost-effective ways to optimize your campaign performance. If you haven’t stressed on it yet, then now is the time to dig deeper into what keywords are driving traffic and identifying their relevance to the business.

After learning about its importance, you might think that all irrelevant terms must be added as negative keywords. However, consider the following before listing a term as a negative one:

1. Check if the search terms you are considering to add as negative keyword are not being already bidded for

 2) Review your search terms so that that no relevant keyword gets blocked. Sometimes blocking a generic term such as free will also block relevant search terms such as sugar free juice

3) Do your search terms meet any of these parameters:

• Irrelevant to your business
• Close variants of an irrelevant term
• Not driving conversions
• Have a higher CPA

Noting the above mentioned things will make sure that adding negative keywords doesn’t end up having an unexpected impact on your campaign performance.

If you are still worried that you might be adding too many negative keywords, then don’t be. Google Ads has defined limits for adding them.

Here are the limits:

• 20 shared negative keyword lists per account
• 5,000 keywords per negative keyword list
• 10,000 negative keywords per campaign
• 5,000 negative keywords (maximum) are considered for Display Network and Video campaigns

So, there is no precise answer to ‘How Many Negative Keywords Are Too Many’. There is no benchmark that determines its impact.

However if you wish to keep you negative keywords in control then do the following:

• Whether you add 10 or 1000 negative keywords, the impact of it will depend entirely on the reach of your campaign and the target keywords put in use
• Use Shared Lists to club common negative keywords across multiple campaigns. This will save time and also make your account more manageable
• Identify groups that would capture a range of the irrelevant search terms rather than using each term individually as a negative keyword
• For a broad match keyword, the number of irrelevant terms there become much higher than when using an exact match type keyword

What is important is to add negative keywords religiously. The benefits of it are many. We list out a few here.

It help:

• Target your ads to people who are more likely to engage with your website
• Prevent people from coming to your site for services your business doesn’t offer
• Reduce the CPC and improves your CTR
• Controls wasted budget spend and prevents unwanted clicks or visits.

Note: Karooya’s Negative Keywords Tool is now Free for accounts with ad spend less than $10,000 per month. Save 10-20% of your search ad spend for free. Sign up and start saving your ad budget now.

Related Links:

• Negative Keywords List For The Current Pandemic
• What to do when you run out of your 20 shared negative keyword lists?
• Negative Keyword List in Microsoft Ads Editor vs Google Ads Editor