If you run Google Ads and have never opened the search terms report, you are probably paying for clicks you would never approve if you actually saw them. Seer Interactive’s research puts a number on this problem. For every $100,000 spent on Google Search, roughly $27,000 of search term data is no longer visible to the advertiser at all, and that is before you even start looking at the terms you can see. This guide walks through the manual audit, the same process an experienced PPC manager runs by hand, so you can find and cut wasted spend yourself.
What the search terms report actually shows
When someone types a query into Google and your ad shows up, Google matches that query against one of your keywords using its match type rules. The keyword you bid on and the words someone actually typed are frequently not the same thing. The search terms report is the record of that gap. It lists the real, literal searches that triggered your ads, alongside the keyword each one matched, the match type used, and the impressions, clicks, cost, and conversions each search term produced.
This report is where wasted spend hides. A keyword can look perfectly healthy in your campaign view while quietly matching to dozens of irrelevant searches underneath it.
Where to find it in Google Ads
In the current Google Ads interface, go to Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. You can filter this view by campaign, ad group, or date range, and add columns for conversion value, cost per conversion, and click through rate if they are not already showing.
Google withholds search terms that fall below a query volume threshold, for privacy reasons, so you will never see 100 percent of what triggered your ads. And Dynamic Search Ads and Shopping campaigns do not return keyword match data the same way text campaigns do, every match shows as exact regardless of how it actually matched.
Step 1. Sort by cost and work backward
Pull the last 30 to 90 days of data (90 days if your account has lower volume, so you have enough spend to draw real conclusions). Sort the report by cost, highest first. This single step usually surfaces the worst offenders in under two minutes, because wasted spend concentrates. A handful of bad search terms typically account for a disproportionate share of the waste.
For each of the top 20 to 30 rows by cost, ask a simple question. Would I be comfortable if a customer told me they searched this exact phrase and landed on my ad? If the answer is no, or even “not really,” that term is a candidate for a negative keyword.
Step 2. Break it down by match type
Broad match and phrase match keywords are responsible for most search term drift, because Google has the most latitude to decide what counts as a relevant match. Filter the report by match type and review broad match performance separately from exact match. If a broad match keyword is generating a long tail of unrelated searches with low conversion rates, that is a strong signal the keyword needs tighter match types, more negatives layered underneath it, or both.
Exact match keywords can still drift too, thanks to Google’s close variant matching, which now includes synonyms and same intent phrasing rather than just plurals and misspellings. Do not assume exact match is immune. Check it anyway.
Step 3. Run a word level check for repeat offenders
Individual bad search terms matter less than the words that keep showing up across many of them. Export the report and break each search term into individual words (a basic spreadsheet formula or a free n-gram tool will do this). Count how often each word appears across your wasted spend rows.
This surfaces patterns a term by term review misses. If the word “free,” “jobs,” “DIY,” or a competitor’s brand name keeps showing up across dozens of low value search terms, that single word is worth a negative keyword on its own, rather than negating each search term individually.
Step 4. Check for brand versus non brand leakage
If you run both brand and non brand campaigns, confirm your non brand campaigns are not quietly absorbing branded searches, including your own brand name and close misspellings of it. This inflates your non brand cost per acquisition and makes that campaign look worse than it is, while making your brand campaign look artificially efficient. Add your own brand terms as negatives to non brand campaigns if you have not already.
Step 5. Decide what actually counts as wasted spend
Not every irrelevant looking search term is truly wasted, and not every converting search term is worth keeping. Use three questions to judge each candidate rather than gut feel alone.
Does the search term reflect the intent of a real buyer for what you sell, even if the wording is unusual? Has it generated enough clicks to draw a conclusion? Five to ten clicks with zero conversions is a weak signal, fifty clicks with zero conversions is a strong one. Would blocking it risk cutting off a small but profitable segment?
A search term with a handful of clicks and no conversions is not automatically bad. A search term with meaningful spend and zero relevant intent is.
Adding negative keywords the right way
This is the step where a manual audit most often goes wrong, either by being too aggressive and cutting off real demand, or too timid and leaving the same waste running next month.
Work at three levels. Ad group negatives for terms that are wrong for one specific ad group but might be relevant elsewhere in the account. Campaign negatives for terms that are wrong across every ad group in that campaign. Negative keyword lists, applied account wide, for terms you never want to trigger any ad, adult content, jobs, free, and your competitors’ names are common candidates.
Match your negative match type to the problem. A negative exact match blocks only that literal search. A negative phrase match blocks any search containing that phrase in that order. A broad negative match blocks any search containing all of those words in any order. Broad negatives are powerful and easy to misuse, they can silently block far more than you intended, so apply them to single, unambiguous words rather than full phrases whenever possible.
Keep a running negative keyword list outside Google Ads too, a shared spreadsheet works fine, so the next person auditing the account (including future you) is not rediscovering the same bad terms from scratch every quarter.
How often to repeat this
Weekly is realistic for accounts spending more than a few thousand dollars a month. Every two weeks is a reasonable minimum for smaller accounts. Search behavior shifts with seasonality, new competitors bidding on adjacent terms, and Google’s own matching changes, so this is not a one time cleanup. Treat it as a recurring maintenance task, the same way you would treat reconciling a bank account.
A manual audit checklist
- Pull 30 to 90 days of search term data, sorted by cost.
- Review the top 20 to 30 rows by spend for obvious mismatches.
- Split the report by match type and review broad match separately.
- Run a word level check for repeat offender terms.
- Confirm brand and non brand campaigns are not leaking into each other.
- Apply negative keywords at the right level, ad group, campaign, or account wide list.
- Log what you added somewhere outside the account, so the work compounds instead of repeating.
- Set a recurring calendar reminder for the next pass, weekly or every two weeks.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Adding negatives based on a single click with no conversions. Wait for enough data before you conclude a term is bad.
- Using broad negative match by default. It is the easiest way to accidentally block searches you actually wanted.
- Auditing once and considering the account “clean.” Search term drift is continuous, not a problem you solve permanently in one sitting.
- Only looking at cost. A search term with high cost and strong conversion value is not waste, it is working exactly as intended.
- Ignoring the report on Shopping and Dynamic Search Ads campaigns because the match type data looks unhelpful. The search terms themselves are still worth reviewing manually, even without accurate match type labels.
Frequently asked questions
How much of my Google Ads budget is typically wasted on irrelevant search terms?
There is no universal number, it depends heavily on match type strategy and account maturity, but accounts running loose broad match with few negatives commonly waste 15 to 30 percent of spend on search terms that would never have been approved if reviewed directly. Tighter, well maintained accounts run much lower.
Why can’t I see all my search terms anymore?
Google withholds search terms below a certain query volume threshold to protect user privacy. This has been the case since 2020 and there is no setting to turn it back on. Search terms insights on the Insights page can recover some of this visibility by grouping hidden terms into broader categories.
Should I use broad match at all if it causes this much drift?
Broad match paired with strong automated bidding can outperform tighter match types on volume and cost per acquisition in some accounts, but it requires more frequent search term review to keep clean, not less. If you are not willing to audit weekly, phrase or exact match with deliberate expansion is usually the safer starting point.
Is a search terms audit something I can fully automate?
The mechanical part, pulling the report, flagging high cost low conversion terms, and applying negatives, can be automated well. The judgment part, deciding whether an unusual search term reflects real buyer intent worth keeping, still benefits from a human or an AI system reviewing before anything goes live, rather than fully automated rules cutting keywords unsupervised.
Glitch Ads runs Google and Meta advertising for small and growing businesses across Ireland, the UK and the US.
If you’re an SME or a consultant who needs an experienced AdOps team to run your Ad campaigns, get in touch. Glitch is now officially an AI native agency, helping businesses with their websites, fixing conversion tracking, building out strategy, and launching campaigns that are set up for success from day one.
