Google Ads Search Term Waste and Negative Keyword Audit
Turn a Search Terms export into prioritized negative keywords with match types, confidence, spend evidence, and conversion safeguards.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
I can help you identify wasted spend in your Google Ads account. There are several categories of terms that typically waste budget — things like competitor brand terms, location mismatches, or educational queries when you're selling services. To do this properly, I'd need to see your search terms report and understand your core keywords and business strategy. If you upload your report, I can categorize the terms, but you'll want to review the recommendations carefully and decide which negatives to add based on your own business judgment.
NEGATIVE KEYWORD ANALYSIS — 90-DAY SEARCH TERMS REPORT WASTED SPEND SUMMARY Total spend analyzed: 12,450 Estimated wasted: 2,890 (23%) Recoverable spend: 2,340/month (annualized savings: 28,080) CATEGORY 1: COMPETITOR BRAND TERMS — 890 wasted • "competitor x pricing" (142 clicks, 89 conversions → 0 conversions) → Negative: "competitor x" exact • "competitor y reviews" (87 clicks, 0 conversions) → Negative: "competitor y" exact Confidence: HIGH CATEGORY 2: DIY/EDUCATIONAL — 710 wasted • "how to build" (203 clicks, 1 conversion from 300) → Negative: "how to" broad • "free template" (156 clicks, 0 conversions) → Negative: "free" exact Confidence: HIGH CATEGORY 3: LOCATION MISMATCH — 340 wasted • "service near me" but you only ship to california (82 clicks, 0 conversions) → Negative: "near me" exact • Terms with "London", "NYC", "Toronto" when you're US-only (195 clicks) → Negative: location names exact Confidence: MEDIUM CATEGORY 4: PRICE-SENSITIVE BARGAIN HUNTERS — 150 wasted • "discount code", "coupon", "cheapest" → These convert at 1/5 of normal CPA → Negative: "discount" exact Confidence: MEDIUM ACTION ITEMS THIS WEEK • Add 12 exact-match negatives to your campaign (listed above) • Review MEDIUM confidence terms — preview a few before adding • Recheck in 30 days: expected savings 890/month minimum
About this skill
Your Search Terms report has hundreds of queries, but adding every nonconverter as a negative can block your next customer. This audit separates clearly irrelevant traffic from weak performance evidence, chooses the narrowest useful exclusions, and shows which searches each recommendation would block.
What it does
- Categorizes irrelevant intent, unsupported services, competitor searches, geographic mismatches, employment queries, and DIY traffic using your actual business boundaries.
- Checks proposed negatives against converting searches and protected brand, service, and location terms.
- Selects exact, phrase, or negative broad match based on simulated coverage and collateral risk.
- Assigns High, Medium, or Low confidence with an explicit evidence-based reason.
- Ranks recommendations by unique historical spend exposure without counting overlapping exclusions twice.
- Separates recommended exclusions from decisions that require confirmation, such as competitor conquesting or unclear conversion quality.
What you get
A prioritized decision table with negative text, match type, application scope, category, confidence, affected spend, and conflict notes. For an implementation request, you also get a clean review CSV and a post-change monitoring plan; historical spend is kept separate from any savings forecast.
Best for
Google Ads managers and agencies reviewing Search campaign query waste before adding negatives, expanding budgets, or cleaning up an inherited account.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: google-ads-search-term-waste-and-negative-keyword-audit
description: Analyze Google Ads Search Terms exports to recommend scoped negative keywords using intent classification, negative-match coverage checks, conversion protection, and deduplicated historical spend. Use when the user says "find negative keywords", "audit this search terms report", "my ads keep showing for irrelevant searches", "which queries are wasting spend?", "check these negatives before I add them", "clean up search traffic before increasing budget", "did I add too many negatives?", or "why are we paying for job seekers?".
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# Google Ads Search Term Waste and Negative Keyword Audit
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