How to Read a Google Ads Search Terms Report (And What to Do With It)

In Google Ads: go to your campaign or ad group, then select Keywords from the left navigation, then Search Terms from the sub-menu. You can view at the campaign level (all queries across the campaign) or drill down to ad group level.

Set the date range to the last 7-14 days for your weekly review. Use a longer range (30-90 days) when doing a deeper audit or building a new negative keyword list.

Review the report through three lenses:

1. Irrelevant queries (add as negatives)

These are queries that are clearly unrelated to your offering: DIY searches, job seekers, students researching, people looking for free resources. These should be added as negative keywords immediately.

2. High-performing queries (consider adding as keywords)

A search term that has generated multiple conversions but isn't an explicit keyword in your account is a candidate for adding as a keyword, particularly as exact match. Adding it explicitly gives you bidding control and lets you write an ad specifically for it.

3. Mid-funnel queries (adjust bids or create content)

Research-stage queries ("how does X work", "X vs Y", "is X worth it") have lower purchase intent. They're worth knowing about even if you exclude them from ads. These are the best targets for SEO content: if people are searching these questions before buying, a resource article targeting that query builds trust before the commercial search.

The fastest workflow:

• In the search terms report, tick the box next to any irrelevant query.
• Click "Add as negative keyword" in the toolbar that appears.
• Choose whether to add it to the campaign or ad group level. Campaign-level is usually more efficient for common irrelevant terms.
• Choose exact match for specific irrelevant queries; broad match for general themes you never want to match (e.g. "jobs" as a broad negative).

Build a shared negative keyword list for terms that are irrelevant to your entire business (not just one campaign). Apply this list to all campaigns. Over time, your shared list becomes a valuable asset that saves budget across every campaign you run.

Industry-agnostic patterns that appear in most accounts:

• Competitor brand names: Your broad and phrase keywords will match competitor brand searches. Decide whether you want to be there (competitor campaigns have value for some businesses) or exclude them.
• Geographic drift: If you're Perth-based, broad match will generate queries from "electrician Sydney" and "plumber Melbourne". Add other major cities as negatives if you're a local business.
• Informational queries: "what is X", "how does X work", "X explained". These are research queries. Low conversion rate but sometimes worth serving content ads or retargeting pixels on. Usually better excluded from commercial campaigns.
• Your own brand name: If PMax or broad match is showing your ads for your own brand name, those conversions are almost certainly not incremental. Your brand campaign should handle this: exclude brand terms from non-brand campaigns.

Beyond negatives, the search terms report is your best source of keyword expansion ideas. Queries you hadn't considered, but that convert well, are evidence of demand you can capture more deliberately.

A practical monthly exercise: export 90 days of search term data to a spreadsheet. Filter by queries with two or more conversions that aren't already explicit keywords. Add the strongest ones as exact match keywords with their own tailored ads. This compounds over time: every month you get a few more high-signal keywords.

Similarly, high-volume zero-conversion queries are either poor intent traffic (exclude them) or a landing page problem (investigate separately). The report doesn't tell you which, but flagging them is the starting point.