Search Term Analysis | See Where the Money Goes

The search terms report is the most honest document you have in Google Ads. Your keyword list shows what you targeted; this report shows what people actually typed and where your money went.

Why the two lists diverge

Broad and phrase match show your ads on searches you never wrote down. That is deliberate design — the point is finding new opportunities. But without protection, that design means part of your budget flows to irrelevant searches.

The gap widens as the account grows and matching broadens. So reading the report regularly is not a one-off setup task but an ongoing discipline.

How I read it

I look at three columns: spend, conversions and the term itself. Those three produce four groups.

Terms that spend and convert: added as their own keywords in their own ad group, so copy can match them. Terms that spend without converting: candidates for the negative list. Terms that convert but barely spend: where to raise bids. Terms that neither spend nor convert: left alone for now.

Not rushing the decision

Before negating a term I check whether it has converted historically. Not converting in a short window does not mean it does not work — especially in businesses with long sales cycles.

Over-pruning can be more dangerous than under-pruning: volume falls, the algorithm has less to learn from, and the campaign narrows. Cutting decisions should follow accumulated data.

The discovery side

This report is used not only to cut but to find. How customers name your product, which problem they search with, which words they combine — it all comes from here.

That information also feeds ad copy and landing page headlines — a page written in the customer’s own language converts better and works better for Quality Score. The same insight is useful on the content side too.

Automated scanning

I do this work with AI agents: the report is scanned regularly, unusual and suspicious terms are surfaced to me, and I decide. Done by hand, scanning becomes infrequent and losses accumulate in between.

How do we start? First I scan your report and map how spend is distributed: how much goes to converting terms and how much is wasted. I send the cut-and-add list in writing. You can reach me from the contact page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are some search terms missing from the report?

Google withholds searches made by very few users for privacy reasons. So the report does not account for all of your spend; that is a known gap you have to accept.

How often should I look?

Almost daily in a new account, weekly in a settled one. The measure is how fast new irrelevant terms appear.

Does Performance Max have this report?

A limited version. Because there is no keyword-level control, the account-level negative list becomes more critical in accounts running PMax.