The second eBook in the Paid Growth and Campaigns category, focused on the search-intent channel. It assumes you've read Paid Ads for Small Businesses and decided Google Ads is your channel. From here it goes deep on the specifics: keywords, match types, ad copy, budgets, conversion tracking and the weekly routine that keeps a small Google Ads account healthy.
Members ebook·7 chapters· 45 minute read
Chapter 3
Match Types and Negatives
How Google decides which searches trigger your ads, the match-type rules that keep your spend on the right people and the negative-keyword discipline that quietly saves a quarter of most accounts.
Adding a keyword to your account doesn't mean you'll only show on that exact phrase. Google has three match types, each of which expands the range of searches your ad will appear on. Pick the wrong one and your campaign quietly shows on hundreds of searches you never meant to target, and you pay for the clicks. Pick the right one and your spend stays roughly where you intended it.
Alongside the match types is the negative-keyword list - the phrases you tell Google to never show your ad on. On a small business account, the negatives often save more money than any other single setting. A plumber who adds "job," "jobs," "course," "DIY" and "free" as negatives in their first week typically cuts twenty per cent of wasted clicks immediately, and the negatives keep paying back every month afterward.
This chapter covers both. By the end you'll have a defensible match-type strategy for a small budget and a starting negative-keyword list that protects the keyword work you did in chapter two.
The full chapter walks through the three match types in plain language, the small-budget recommendation, the search-terms report routine and a starter negative-keyword list for the most common small business categories.
The three match types in plain language
Exact match shows your ad on the exact phrase you added, plus very close variations - same words, possibly reordered, possibly with minor spelling changes. "emergency plumber hackney" on exact match shows on "emergency plumber hackney," "plumber emergency hackney" and a few near-spellings. It does not show on "24 hour plumber hackney" or "emergency plumber east london." Tight, predictable, lower volume.
Phrase match shows your ad on any search that contains your keyword as a phrase, possibly with extra words around it. "emergency plumber hackney" on phrase match shows on "need an emergency plumber hackney tonight" and "emergency plumber hackney area." It does not show on "plumber emergency in hackney" if the words are reordered. Wider than exact, still bounded.
Broad match shows your ad on anything Google thinks is related to your keyword, including searches that share none of the same words. "emergency plumber hackney" on broad match might show on "24 hour plumber east london," "emergency drain repair hackney," "who fixes leaks london" and dozens of other searches you didn't list. The widest, the loosest and on a small budget, the most dangerous.
The small-budget recommendation
Start every keyword in phrase match. It's the best balance between reach and control on a small budget. Exact match is too narrow to give a small account enough volume to learn. Broad match is too loose to be safe without a strong negative list and a much larger budget to clean up after it. Phrase match catches the variations of how customers actually phrase your keyword without showing on completely unrelated searches.
After the first ninety days, you can experiment. Add a few high-volume keywords on broad match if you have a tight negative list and the search-terms report shows that the broader searches genuinely match what you sell. Cut to exact match on keywords where you're paying for clicks that don't convert and the cheaper variations are noisy. The starting position should be phrase match across the board, then adjust based on what you actually see in the search-terms report.
The search-terms report routine
The search-terms report shows the actual phrases people typed before clicking your ad. It's the single most important screen in Google Ads for a small business and most owners never open it. Open it weekly. Look at the last seven days. Two columns matter: the actual search term and the cost. For every search that wasn't relevant to your offer, do two things. Add the unhelpful word as a negative keyword. Note whether the broader pattern needs a match-type adjustment.
A worked example. A bookkeeper bidding on "bookkeeper for self employed" on phrase match might find their search-terms report shows clicks on "bookkeeper for self employed jobs," "self employed bookkeeper salary" and "self employed bookkeeper course." None of these are customers - they're people looking for a job, a salary range or a training course. Adding "jobs," "salary" and "course" as negatives stops those clicks immediately and frees the budget for actual customers. Five minutes of work, payback for the life of the account.
A starter negative-keyword list
Most small businesses can build a useful starting negative list in twenty minutes. Add the negatives at the campaign level so they apply across every ad group.
Common starter negatives for small business accounts
near me (only if you're a national business with no local relevance)
Adapt the list to your business. A wedding photographer wants "venue," "course," "job," "price list" excluded only if the price-list searches don't lead to bookings. A restaurant wants "recipe," "how to make," "jobs" out. A solicitor wants "law student," "job," "free advice" out. The principle is the same: any word that signals the searcher isn't going to become a customer should be a negative.
Negatives at the ad-group level
Once you have multiple ad groups, you also need negatives between them. If you have one ad group for "emergency plumber" and another for "boiler installation," you don't want the emergency ad showing on "new boiler quote" - that should go to the installation ad group. Add the boiler-related words as negatives in the emergency ad group, and vice versa. This stops the platform mixing up which ad answers which search and keeps the relevance score from chapter one healthy.
Negative phrase and exact match
Negative keywords have their own match types. Negative exact match excludes only the exact phrase. Negative phrase match excludes any search containing the phrase. Negative broad match excludes searches containing all the negative words in any order. Most small business negatives should be negative phrase match - it covers the variations without being so loose that it accidentally excludes good searches. Use negative exact match only when you specifically want to keep one variation but exclude another.
What to do this week
If your account is already live, open the search-terms report for the last thirty days and add every irrelevant phrase you see as a negative keyword. If the account isn't live yet, build the starter negative list above before you launch. Block thirty minutes every Monday to repeat the search-terms review on the previous week. This single thirty-minute habit is worth more than every other Google Ads tactic for small businesses combined, because it compounds. The account gets quietly tighter every week, and the cost per customer drifts down without any other change.
In the next chapter we write the ads themselves - search ad copy that earns the click and turns relevance score into customers. The earlier eBook Calls to Action covers the wider conversion language that goes into both the ads and the landing pages.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Members-only chapter
Become a member to read the full chapter
Members get the complete chapter, the step-by-step plan, the templates and the checklists. Cancel anytime.
