The search terms report shows the exact searches people typed before your ad appeared and they clicked. It's the most direct way to see where your Google Ads budget is really going.
Checking search terms is one of the most routine parts of managing an account, and it pays for itself. It's where we find wasted spend, but also new keywords that are already converting and deserve their own ad group.
— Kok Han, Founder, OneStopMaker (Google Partner agency)
A keyword is what you add to your campaign, like "office cleaning". A search term is what someone actually typed, like "office cleaning company petaling jaya price" or "office cleaning job part time". Because of match types, one keyword can trigger hundreds of different search terms, and some of them will be useless to you.
In Google Ads, go to Insights & reports → Search terms. Set the date range to at least the last 30 days and sort by Cost, so the searches that cost the most come first. For each search term you'll see impressions, clicks, cost and conversions, plus the keyword that triggered it.
A Sydney accounting firm bids on "tax accountant". The report shows it paid A$180 last month for "tax accountant salary sydney" and "tax accountant course". Neither will ever become a client. Adding salary and course as negatives stops that spend from next week, and the same budget buys more clicks from people looking to hire an accountant.
Google hides search terms that only a few people searched, for privacy. They're grouped as "other search terms". The visible terms still usually account for most of your spend.
Google has added search term reporting for Performance Max, though it's still less detailed than for Search campaigns. You can act on what you find with campaign-level negative keywords.
Negative Keyword List Builder › Start with a ready-made list of common wasted searches, then add what you find in your report.
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