You may have heard us say to “trust your data”. But what exactly does this mean? This blog outlines some common questions we get asked and how you need to trust your data to optimise performance.

“Why has this keyword been added as a negative when it’s relevant to my business?”

Firstly, lets start by defining a negative keyword:

A type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Your ads aren’t shown to anyone who is searching for that phrase. This is also known as a negative match.

For example, when you add "free" as a negative keyword to your campaign or ad group, you tell Google Ads not to show your ad for any search containing the term "free."

Sometimes a seemingly relevant keyword may be added as a negative keyword when it doesn’t perform well for you. Here is a time when you have to trust your data. If a keyword or search term has spent a significant portion of your budget but has not lead to any enquiries, leads or sales this keyword must be removed or, if its a search term, added as a negative keyword otherwise you may end up with thousands of pounds of wasted spend that could have been spent on keywords and search terms that do perform.

“Why have certain postcode or geographic areas been excluded from my ads?”

Again, we have to trust your data. If a certain postcode area has spent hundreds of £ and not converted, it’s probably not going to (or if it does, it would be for a higher cost). Budget spent here is much better off being shifted to an area that does convert well and you can focus your SEO efforts to the areas that don’t perform well from an ads perspective.