Wasted ad spend in your search terms report
Wasted ad spend is the historical cost of queries flagged as irrelevant to what you sell after intent and conflict checks. Review the proposed negatives below before deciding which searches to exclude.
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Parsing report
Reading search terms, clicks, cost and conversions from your report.
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Grouping n-grams
Grouping recurring word sequences and adding their cost and conversion totals.
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Checking intent
Comparing each query with what you sell and identifying unrelated intent.
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Conflict check
Rejecting negatives that block the products you entered or converting queries in this report.
Your report at a glance
- Share of spend
- Flagged cost divided by total cost in the uploaded report.
- Flagged terms
- Search terms with irrelevant intent that remain after conflict checks.
- Proposed negatives
- Distinct exclusions recommended after conflict checks.
Flagged cost counts each search-term row once, even when it belongs to more than one word group. This is a review of the uploaded report, not a forecast of future savings.
Review each proposed negative
| Search term | Reason | Clicks | Cost (USD) | Conversions | Proposed negative | Match type | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Match types and levels follow the selected network. Google Ads supports negative broad, phrase and exact; Microsoft Advertising supports negative phrase and exact only. Amazon Sponsored Products supports negative phrase and exact keywords, plus negative product targeting for ASINs.
Account-level exclusions and shared lists appear only where the platform allows them. Read the negative keyword match type guide before widening an exclusion.
Why a query is flagged
A reason describes a possible mismatch with your offer. Review terms such as cheap, used and reviews in context before excluding buyers who may still be relevant.
Use your reviewed negatives
Create your account to continue with an export, account push or shared list. Connected accounts use platform-specific match types and levels, with conflict checks against active keywords and products before changes.
See the search-term review workflow and compare subscription coverage for ongoing sweeps, shared lists and supported networks.
How we read your report
We read search term, clicks, cost and conversions from your CSV or TSV, then group recurring word sequences and check intent against what you sell. A recurring phrase is a review signal, not an instruction to block every query that contains it.
The browser demo protects the products you enter and queries with conversions in the uploaded report. It does not read active account keywords; connected sweeps add that account-level conflict check. Negative keywords do not automatically cover close variants, so review plurals and misspellings separately.
Read the search terms report guide for export fields or explore negative keyword examples for context behind exclusions.