How to Find Wasted Spend in Your Google Ads Search Terms
A keyword describes a search you want to reach. An actual search term shows what someone typed when an ad appeared. The difference can explain why a campaign is producing inquiries your team cannot use. Google’s search terms report provides visibility into qualifying searches, although it does not list every individual query.
Google Ads documentation on the search terms report
Read the query as if it were a phone call
Work through recent terms alongside your services and sales notes. Sort them into three groups. The first group clearly matches the offer. The second clearly seeks something you do not provide. The third could be relevant but needs more context. Focus first on the terms with meaningful spend or repeated poor inquiries.
For a commercial equipment rental business, “forklift operator jobs” points to a different need from “rent warehouse forklift.” “Forklift training and rental” deserves more care if the business sometimes rents to training providers. Before adding an exclusion, ask whether it could block a paying customer who uses similar wording.
Choose the right repair
An irrelevant search may justify a carefully scoped negative keyword. A relevant search landing on a vague homepage may need a better destination. A relevant query reaching the right page but producing poor sales outcomes may warrant reviewing the offer or intake process. Applying the same fix to every row can hide the original problem.
Record the term, what you believe the searcher wanted, the action taken and when to check it. At the next review, compare the mix of inquiries as well as spend. One productive conversation from a specialized query can matter more to a business than a large number of inexpensive but unusable form submissions. Keep enough context that the person managing the account can explain each exclusion later.
Put this into practice
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