skills-ws/skills/paid-ads/references/negative-keyword-strategy-google.md

87 agent skills for AI coding assistants — marketing, growth, web3, dev, design & operations. Built for OpenClaw, Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

## Contents

- Negative Keyword Strategy (Google)
- Starter Negative Keyword List
- Negative Keyword Mining Process
- Negative Keyword Match Types

## Negative Keyword Strategy (Google)

### Starter Negative Keyword List

Apply at campaign or account level:

```
// Job-seekers
jobs, careers, hiring, salary, interview, resume, glassdoor

// Education/Research
what is, definition, meaning, tutorial, course, certification,
how to become, examples, PDF, wiki

// Free-seekers (if not freemium)
free, cheap, discount, coupon, open source

// Wrong intent
review, comparison, vs, alternative (add these to branded campaigns)

// Irrelevant
DIY, template, sample, internship
```

### Negative Keyword Mining Process

1. **Weekly:** Review Search Terms report
2. **Flag:** Any term with spend > $5 and 0 conversions
3. **Flag:** Any term clearly off-topic regardless of spend
4. **Add as:** Exact match negative for specific terms, phrase match for patterns
5. **Create shared negative keyword lists** by theme (job-seekers, researchers, etc.)

### Negative Keyword Match Types

- **Negative broad match** (default): Blocks if ALL negative words appear (any order)
- **Negative phrase match**: Blocks if negative phrase appears in that order
- **Negative exact match**: Blocks only that exact query

Use phrase and exact for precision. Broad negatives can over-block.

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