A Weekly Search Terms Report Routine for Google Ads
The search terms report shows the actual words people typed before they saw and clicked your ad. It is the most direct evidence of where your money went. Most accounts open it rarely, in a long, tiring session, and give up halfway.
A short weekly routine works better than an occasional big clean-up.
Why occasional reviews fail
A monthly review means a month of waste before you see it. It also produces a huge list, so you skim, and skimming leads to two mistakes: blocking terms that would have sold, and leaving obvious waste.
Keyword matching can show your ads on queries you did not choose. That is normal. The report is how you steer it.
The routine
Each week, same day, 15 minutes. Four passes.
Filter
Last 7 days, sort by cost, top terms only
2 minClassify
Relevant, irrelevant, unsure for each
5 minAct
Add negatives, add winners as keywords
5 minLog
One line per decision
3 min
- Filter. Sort by spend, not alphabet. The terms that cost most deserve attention first.
- Classify. Mark each term as relevant, irrelevant or unsure. Unsure terms wait another week for more data.
- Act. Add the clear waste as negatives. Add terms that sold well as keywords with the match type you want.
- Log. Write what you did and why. Next week you will not remember.
How to decide on a term
- Intent match. Would a buyer of your product type this? "Free", "jobs" or "repair" often do not.
- Cost against evidence. One click with no sale proves little. A term that has spent a meaningful amount without a conversion deserves a look. Decide your own threshold from your break-even.
- Brand or competitor. Move your own name queries to the brand lane. See brand vs non-brand.
Illustrative example
Illustrative example, not real results. Weekly spend 2,000 SAR. You review 40 terms. Six are clearly irrelevant and together cost 180 SAR.
That is 180 / 2,000 = 9% of the week's spend, and 6 / 40 = 15% of the terms reviewed. Adding the six as negatives would aim to stop that portion, though similar terms may appear next week. The example shows the size of the issue, not a promise.
Negatives without blocking customers
Google's help page explains that negatives added from this report are added as exact match by default, and that you can choose to add them to an ad group, a campaign or a list. Check the current documentation for the details in your interface.
Be careful with broad negatives. A word like "cheap" may block valuable buyers for some stores. Start exact and widen only when a pattern is clear. See match types and negatives.
Opportunity, not only waste
The same report shows terms that sold well but are not yet keywords. Adding a proven term as a keyword gives you direct control over its bid and its ad text. Do it only for terms with enough evidence, and keep the match type that matches your intent.
It also shows wording your customers use that you never planned for. Product names in another language, local spellings and long descriptive phrases often appear here. These are free research about how people describe what you sell, and they can improve your ad copy and product titles.
Keep the log honest. When a negative you added later turns out to have blocked a good term, write that down too. A log with mistakes teaches more than one with only wins.
Trade-offs and exceptions
- Low volume. If few terms appear, review every two weeks instead.
- Performance Max. Search term visibility differs, so check what your campaign type reports.
- Hidden terms. The report may not list every query. Do not assume the list is complete.
What the report cannot tell you
A term with no sale this week may assist a later purchase. Conversions that arrive after a delay will not appear yet. Use a few weeks of data for borderline terms.
Tracking must be sound first, or you will block terms based on wrong numbers. See conversion actions setup.
Your next action
Put a recurring 15-minute slot in your calendar and run the four passes this week. If you would rather have this handled, the ads management service is the closest fit.