Also known as: Excluded Keyword, Negative Match
A negative keyword is a word or phrase you add to a search campaign to stop your ad from showing when a user's query contains it. It is a subtractive filter: instead of choosing who sees your ad, it defines who should not, protecting spend from irrelevant traffic.
For a Forex partner, negatives fence off queries that signal the wrong intent. Terms like "free," "no deposit," "scam," "jobs," "lawsuit," or "demo" attract clicks that rarely become funded traders, so excluding them keeps your ads in front of people ready to open and fund an account.
Negatives carry match types just like normal keywords. A negative broad match blocks queries containing all the words in any order; negative phrase blocks the exact ordered phrase; negative exact blocks only that precise query. Choosing the right match type matters — a careless negative broad can silently suppress valid, converting searches.
The practical workflow lives in the search terms report, which shows the real queries that triggered your ads. You mine it for waste, add offenders as negatives, and repeat. Over time this tightening lowers cost per acquisition by concentrating budget on commercial-intent traffic.
You maintain negative keywords at the ad-group, campaign, or shared-list level, and the platform checks each incoming search query against them before deciding whether your ad can enter the auction. If the query matches a negative, your ad is withheld, so you are never charged for that click.
The engine is iterative refinement. You review the search terms report to see exactly which queries served your ads, flag the irrelevant ones, and add them as negatives with an appropriate match type. Shared negative lists let you apply one curated exclusion set across many campaigns at once, keeping a large account consistent and clean.
Before launch, exclude obvious waste: 'free', 'no deposit', 'demo', 'scam', 'jobs', 'salary', 'course'.
Run the campaign long enough to accumulate real search queries in the search terms report.
Sort by spend and clicks with no conversions to find irrelevant queries draining budget.
Use exact or phrase for precise blocks; use broad only when you are sure no valid query overlaps.
Roll recurring offenders into a shared negative list applied across all relevant campaigns.
Why it matters for partnership: Negative keywords stop an affiliate's search budget leaking to "free," "scam," or "jobs" clicks that never fund, funnelling spend toward high-intent traders. That directly lowers cost per acquisition and lifts lead quality for the broker.
An IB running Google Ads for a premium Pepperstone offer notices the search terms report is full of "free forex signals" and "forex jobs" clicks. After adding "free," "signals," and "jobs" as phrase-match negatives, wasted clicks fall sharply and cost per funded registration drops from about $60 to $42 over the following two weeks, with no loss in genuine deposit volume.
| Match type | Blocks when query... | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Negative broad | Contains all the words, any order | Can over-block related terms |
| Negative phrase | Contains the exact ordered phrase | Balanced control |
| Negative exact | Is exactly that query | Blocks little; may miss variants |
Audit the search terms report weekly and add negatives with phrase or exact match — reserve negative broad for words that can never appear in a valid buyer query.
Adding a relevant commercial term as a broad-match negative can silently block your ads from valid, converting searches, cutting deposits without any obvious warning in the account.
Yes. Like regular keywords, negatives can be broad, phrase, or exact match, and the type controls exactly which queries get blocked.
Use the search terms report, which lists the actual queries that triggered your ads; sort for high-spend, zero-conversion terms and add the irrelevant ones as negatives.
Yes, if applied too broadly. An over-broad negative can suppress valid converting searches, so use precise match types and review the impact after adding them.
Typical exclusions include 'free', 'no deposit', 'demo', 'scam', 'jobs', 'salary', and 'course', since these signal non-depositing or non-commercial intent.
Use campaign or shared-list level for account-wide waste, and ad-group level to stop one ad group's terms from cannibalizing another's more specific keywords.
Review the search terms report at least weekly for active campaigns, since new irrelevant queries appear continuously as search behavior shifts.