Match types & negatives: half the success
Cost control and traffic quality.
How to keep Google Ads clean without burning budget
In Google Ads you don't win by having many keywords —
you win by controlling what you don't want.
Match types and negative keywords are how you filter noise, irrelevant clicks and low-intent searches.
"You don't pay for the keyword — you pay for the query."
1) Match types: intention control, not settings
Match types determine how much freedom you give Google to interpret a search.
- Exact → full control
- Phrase → controlled flexibility
- Broad → only when you have a strong negative list + enough budget for testing
2) Search terms: the truth of your traffic
What matters isn't the keyword you added —
it's what the user actually searched.
In the search terms, look for:
- commercially valuable queries
- irrelevant or too-generic searches
- patterns that bring the wrong audience
- repeated "noise" that eats the budget
3) Negatives: the real lever of improvement
Negative keywords keep the account clean.
Types you need:
- Wrong intent ("free", "cheap", "tutorial")
- Wrong category ("jobs", "DIY")
- Wrong locations (for local targeting)
- Queries that consistently bring poor-quality users
4) How "tight" should match types be?
Tight enough for control, but not so tight that you block useful variations.
More human phrasing:
It's not about being strict or relaxed — it's about keeping the Query Report clean.
In practice:
- Exact → for core commercial keywords
- Phrase → for relevant variations
- Broad → only in a mature account as an expansion test
5) Why good filtering lowers cost
Cleaner intent leads to:
- less wasted spend
- higher quality score
- lower CPC
- better conversions
Bottom Line:
Match types + negatives = the foundation of control.
Clear intent, lean spend, clean traffic.
Half of Google Ads success isn't targeting — it's filtering.