The sentence we hear most often about Google Ads is this: “Our cost per click is too high.”
Almost every time, the cost per click is not the real problem. The real problem is that a large share of the clicks you pay for come from people who will never be customers.
In the accounts we audit that share averages 30-40%. So an account spending 100,000₺ is paying 30-40,000₺ for searches with no purchase intent at all.
The good news: most of that money can be recovered in about a week’s work.
A keyword and a search term are not the same thing
This distinction is the most misunderstood part of Google Ads.
A keyword is the word you put into the system. A search term is what the user actually typed into Google.
If you are using broad match, Google will show your ad on any search it considers “related” to your keyword. Sometimes that relation is interpreted very generously.
A real example: the keyword “hair transplant” for a hair transplant clinic. Among the searches it appeared on were these:
- what is a hair transplant
- does a hair transplant hurt
- when can you wash your hair after a transplant
- failed hair transplant examples
- hair transplant jobs
- hair transplant nurse vacancy
Not one of those people is a patient. They are students, curious readers, job seekers or anxious prospects. Every one of them cost 18₺ a click.
How to read the search terms report
This is the most valuable report in your account, and most people never open it.
Where: Google Ads → Campaigns → Insights and reports → Search terms.
Set the date range to the last 90 days. Add “Conversions” and “Cost” to the columns. Then sort by cost, highest first.
Now look at the list. What you are after is simple: terms with high cost and zero conversions.
In one account, the top 20 rows sorted this way held 340,000₺ of spend and a total of two conversions.
The negative keyword list
Once you have found the terms that never make money, the job is to add them to the negative list.
There is a generic starter list that works almost anywhere. Words that should be added to nearly every account:
- free, freebie, cheap, discount code
- what is, how to, meaning, definition
- jobs, vacancy, career, salary, hiring
- complaint, scam, review, forum
- second hand, used, rental, stolen
- homework, thesis, pdf, download
That is only a starting point. The list that really matters is the one that comes out of your own search terms report — because it is specific to your industry.
One important warning: think before you add “review” and “complaint”. In some industries, someone searching “X brand reviews” is at the decision stage and can be valuable. Do not apply blind rules; look at your own data.
Split the campaign by intent
This is the step after cleaning up the negative list.
Divide searches into three groups:
Research intent — “what is”, “how to”, “which is better”. These people are not buying yet. Either do not advertise to them at all, or put them in a separate campaign on a very small budget pointing at your blog content.
Comparison intent — “best X”, “X vs Y”, “X brands”. They are approaching a decision. Medium budget.
Purchase intent — “X price”, “buy X”, “order X”, your brand name. These are the most valuable searches. The bulk of the budget should go here.
In the Vera Klinik case we moved 70% of the budget onto purchase-intent searches and switched off advertising on research-intent searches entirely. The cost per appointment fell from 1,240₺ to 397₺.
Quality score: the real way to lower cost per click
Google gives every keyword a quality score from 1 to 10. When that score is high you pay less for the same position.
Three things determine it:
- Expected click-through rate — do people click your ad
- Ad relevance — does the ad copy match the search term
- Landing page experience — is the page fast, does it contain what was searched for
Aligning all three lowers cost per click by 25-40% in most accounts.
In practice this means: someone searching “women’s running shoes” should click an ad that says “Women’s Running Shoes” and land on a page listing women’s running shoes. Not on the homepage.
It sounds too simple. But in most of the accounts we audit, the ads pointed at the homepage.
When to move to smart bidding
Google’s automated bid strategies (Target ROAS, Target CPA, Maximise Conversions) genuinely work well — if there is enough data.
Enough data means, roughly, at least 30 conversions a month. Below that the system cannot learn and behaves randomly.
In a new account the order is: collect data first with manual bidding or “Maximise Clicks”. Once you pass 30 conversions, move to “Maximise Conversions”. Once that is stable, move to “Target ROAS”.
Skipping that order and starting straight on Target ROAS is the setup mistake we see most often.
This week’s checklist
- Open the search terms report, last 90 days, sorted by cost.
- Mark the terms with high cost and zero conversions.
- Add them to the negative list.
- Look at where your ads point — if it is the homepage, change it.
- Open the same report again a month later.
Step five matters most. Negative keyword management is not a one-off job, it is a continuous one.
If you would like this cleanup done on your own account, we review your search terms for free — we put together the list of keywords that never make money and send it over.