Ever felt that your ads get plenty of clicks but almost nobody gets in touch? Usually the problem is who sees the ads, while the ads themselves are fine. This is where Google Ads negative keywords come in: they tell Google which searches must NOT trigger your ads. The figures are striking. The average Google Ads account wastes 20-40% of its budget on irrelevant searches, and in accounts without active filtering, the search terms report often shows that 30-60% of the searches triggering ads are not actually relevant (Optmyzr, 2026).
The good news is that this is one of the fastest fixes you can make. Advertisers who seriously tidy up their exclusion lists have cut waste by 20-30% (Optmyzr, 2026). Here are eight steps you can work through this afternoon.
What are negative keywords in Google Ads, and why do you need them?
Put simply, negative keywords are a list of words you bar from triggering your ads. If you sell professional website development services, you clearly do not want to pay for clicks from people typing “how to make a free website” or “pirated website template”. They are not potential buyers, yet they still eat into your budget.
The need is growing because Google's matching keeps getting looser. Automated features such as Performance Max and AI Max widen your reach to find new buyers. That is good for scale, but without brakes your ads can appear on searches that are way off target. Negative keywords are those brakes.
The three match types you need to know
- Broad: blocks searches that contain all the words in the list, in any order.
- Phrase: blocks searches that contain the exact phrase, even with extra words around it.
- Exact: blocks only searches that are exactly the same.
If you are a beginner, start with phrase match. It is fairly safe: it filters effectively without the risk of blocking too much.
8 steps to build a tidy negative keyword list
1. Open the search terms report every week
This is your source of truth. Under Insights > Search terms, you can see what people actually typed before clicking. Set aside 15 minutes every Friday to read it and mark the terms that miss the mark.
2. Block the freebie hunters
The first group is almost always wasteful: “gratis” and “free”, “cuma-cuma” (free of charge), “diy”, “cara sendiri” (do it yourself), “tutorial”, “bajakan” (pirated) and “crack”. People searching with this intent are not planning to pay anyone. Adding these terms to your negative keyword list usually lowers your cost per result straight away.
3. Filter out job seekers and students
Words such as “lowongan” and “loker” (job vacancies), “gaji” (salary), “magang” (internship), “skripsi” (thesis), “makalah” (term paper), “contoh soal” (practice questions) and “kuliah” (university classes) often pull in clicks from people who are not looking for a service at all. For service businesses, this is one of the most profitable groups to exclude.
4. Exclude competitor brands until you are ready
Advertising on competitors' names is legal, but it is expensive and converts poorly if your ad material is not yet strong. During the early phase, add competitor names to your exclusion list.
5. Lock in your service area with words as well as the map
Location targeting alone is not enough. Someone in Bekasi might still type “website services Surabaya”. So add the names of cities outside your reach as negative keywords. If your business relies on the local market, strengthen the organic side too with local SEO so you appear on Google Maps.
6. Separate account-level and campaign-level lists
Create one master list of universal exclusions (freebies, job vacancies, piracy) and apply it to the whole account. Then create campaign-specific lists for more specific terms. This two-layer structure keeps your negative keywords easy to maintain as you add campaigns.
7. Take care not to overdo it
A common mistake is blocking words that actually make you money. For example, blocking “murah” (Indonesian for low-priced) when some customers genuinely want a budget option. Before adding a term, check whether it has ever produced a conversion. That is also why a negative keyword list is best built up gradually, instead of being copied wholesale from the internet.
8. Make sure the landing page is up to scratch
Filtering out bad clicks is only half the job; the other half is making sure good clicks are not wasted. A slow page makes visitors leave before they see your offer. Monitor its speed in Google Search Console, and if your campaign foundations are still shaky, revisit our Google Ads guide for Indonesian businesses.
A starter list for service businesses
If you are not sure where to start, copy this list of Indonesian search terms as a base and adapt it: gratis, free, tutorial, cara membuat (how to make), diy, bajakan (pirated), crack, nulled, lowongan, loker (job vacancies), gaji (salary), magang (internship), skripsi (thesis), makalah (term paper), pengertian, adalah, arti (definition, is, meaning), contoh (example), template gratis (free template), aplikasi gratis (free app), and the names of cities outside your service area.
Remember that a copied list is only a starting point. Every business has its own search patterns, so the negative keywords with the biggest impact come from your own account's reports. AI tools for SEO can speed up search term research, but the final decision still needs human judgement.
An illustration: a furniture shop with a leaking budget
Imagine a custom furniture shop in Bekasi with an ad budget of three million rupiah a month. It gets plenty of clicks but few WhatsApp messages, and most of those ask about unrelated things. When the search terms report is opened, it turns out the ads were showing for searches such as “how to build your own wardrobe”, “timber price per cubic metre” and “carpenter job vacancies”.
Those three groups of searches used up almost a third of the budget without producing a single order. Once the trigger words were added as negative keywords, the number of clicks did fall, but the cost per incoming message improved, because the same budget now reached only people who genuinely wanted to order.
The lesson you can copy
Notice that neither the ad copy nor the budget changed. The only change was who was allowed to see the ads. This is why negative keywords are often called the fastest-acting fix in Google Ads: you do not need to spend more, you simply stop paying for people who were never going to buy.
How often should you audit your negative keywords?
For budgets under five million rupiah a month, once a week is enough. Above that, twice a week is safer. The bigger your ad spend, the faster waste builds up if left alone. Record every addition in one simple document, with the date and the reason, so you can trace things back if incoming messages suddenly drop for no obvious reason.
In the end, negative keywords are a small habit you keep up over time. If you would like your campaigns organised and audited regularly without having to monitor them yourself every week, the Webzoo team can help you tidy them up.
