What is a negative keyword and how does it affect your campaign?

What is a negative keyword and how does it affect your campaign?

• A. A negative keyword prevents your ad from showing for certain searches.
• B. A negative keyword prevents your ad from showing for certain searches and reduces irrelevant traffic, improving CTR and conversions.
• C. A negative keyword increases your cost per click.
• D. A negative keyword affects ad ranking directly.

Answer: (B)

Negative keywords block searches that aren’t a good fit for your product, so your ads don’t show for those queries. This reduces irrelevant traffic and wasted spend, which means the clicks you do get come from more suitable searches. Because those impressions are more relevant, your click-through rate tends to improve, and more of those clicks are likely to convert. Negative keywords don’t directly change your bid or ad rank in an auction; they control whether an ad is eligible to show for specific searches, and they can indirectly improve efficiency by sharpening relevance. For example, if you sell premium watches, you’d add terms like “cheap” or “free” as negative keywords to avoid clicks from bargain seekers who are unlikely to buy.

Negative keywords block searches that aren’t a good fit for your product, so your ads don’t show for those queries. This reduces irrelevant traffic and wasted spend, which means the clicks you do get come from more suitable searches. Because those impressions are more relevant, your click-through rate tends to improve, and more of those clicks are likely to convert. Negative keywords don’t directly change your bid or ad rank in an auction; they control whether an ad is eligible to show for specific searches, and they can indirectly improve efficiency by sharpening relevance. For example, if you sell premium watches, you’d add terms like “cheap” or “free” as negative keywords to avoid clicks from bargain seekers who are unlikely to buy.