Simple Auto Add Negative Keywords Script

Considering the way broad match and “close variants” on exact/phrase are performing in 2025, some advertisers would like to get back some control. One way to do this is with adwords scripts. One of our favorite scripts for cleaning up the queries is an auto add negative keyword script.

advanced google ads strategies ppc scripts

This script runs a query report nightly (2-6AM recommended). The script then checks the queries which drove traffic the previous day and compares them to a list of required terms. For example a dentist might choose “dentist” “dentists” “dentistry” and “tooth whitening”. The script will check the queries and do nothing for queries like “Nashville Dentists” or “best tooth whitening near me”. The script will check the queries and add them as negative keywords for queries like “Nashville Smile Clinic” (competitor) or “orthodontist near me”.

You might be surprised at the volume of search terms which will show your ads, but do not include your keywords. Because of this, when you run a script like this the total number of negative keywords will get large quickly for many advertisers. When my campaigns approach the campaign negative keyword limit, I move the negative keywords to a list. You can also consolidate negative exact keywords by finding opportunities where multiple negative exact keywords can be replaced with one negative phrase match keyword.

Here’s the script. Simple replace the campaign name with your campaign name and the keywords with the terms which you want to ensure will be included when people see your search ads moving forward.

function main() {
  var campaignName = "{exact_campaign_name}";
  var yesterday = new Date();
  yesterday.setDate(yesterday.getDate() - 1);
  var dateString = Utilities.formatDate(yesterday, "UTC", "yyyyMMdd");
  var requiredTerms = ["keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3",];

  var report = AdsApp.report(
    "SELECT Query " +
    "FROM SEARCH_QUERY_PERFORMANCE_REPORT " +
    "WHERE Impressions > 0 " +
    "AND CampaignName = '" + campaignName.replace(/'/g, "\\'") + "' " +
    "DURING " + dateString + "," + dateString
  );

  var rows = report.rows();
  while (rows.hasNext()) {
    var row = rows.next();
    var searchTerm = row["Query"].toLowerCase();
    var containsRequiredTerm = requiredTerms.some(function(term) {
      return searchTerm.indexOf(term) !== -1;
    });

    if (!containsRequiredTerm) {
      addNegativeKeywordToCampaign(campaignName, searchTerm);
    }
  }
}

function addNegativeKeywordToCampaign(campaignName, keyword) {
  var campaignIterator = AdsApp.campaigns()
    .withCondition("Name = '" + campaignName.replace(/'/g, "\\'") + "'")
    .get();
  if (campaignIterator.hasNext()) {
    var campaign = campaignIterator.next();
    campaign.createNegativeKeyword("[" + keyword + "]");
  }
}

Take our Conversion Tracking Accuracy Quiz

Did you know that reporting accurate data about qualified leads, ecommerce purchases, and quotes/demos sent can improve your Google Ads and Meta Ads ROAS by 500% or more using the exact same creative? Find out how accurate the conversion tracking you’re providing to Google and Meta on behalf of our clients using this quick 10 question quiz.

Could Our “Prince Charming” Droid Triple Your Sales from Paid Channels?

Sales teams are overworked. They have a lot to do qualifying new leads, following up with prospects, closing customers and taking the extra time to document all of this critical activity in the CRM. You’re probably already using at least basic automations to help with some of these tasks. But you probably aren’t using this growth hack to triple your qualified leads from the paid traffic you’re already buying.

Are you texting your customers? If not, why not?

I ask this question to at least 3 business owners per day as a way of life. I hear a lot of responses. “No, I’m B2B, my customers don’t text”. “No, my sales team doesn’t have the time”. “I would, but I’m not sure how to track it.”

Let’s double click on those responses

“My customers don’t text.”

Really? In 2024? Are your B2B prospects retired? Do you sell exclusively to the Amish community? If those answers are no, your customers text. I promise. Are some people annoyed by business texts? Yes. They can opt out. How many? In our experience, not very many. Our AI powered SMS campaigns average 30% response rate. Compare this to the 2.5% average clickthrough rate for an email marketing campaign and the impact of AI powered SMS is undeniable. Your customers text their friends, family, and service providers. Many of them would be delighted if you could help solve the problem you usually solve for them by text.

“My sales team doesn’t have time”.

Correct. 100%. I couldn’t agree more. Good employees aren’t easy to find in 2024 so your sales team has likely never had less time for tasks like maintaining lead records. Your talented sales people need to be sitting with or on a live zoom call with the customer. These top performers with good people skills love connecting on a human level and winning the customer’s business. Most of them aren’t huge fans of maintaining the CRM, qualifying internet leads, leaving voicemails and managing their calendar with endless back and forth emails.

As the marketing or executive team, your job is to make it easy for the top performers on your sales team to go perform as you can. If you could use AI to automatically qualify 30% of your internet leads so your sales team doesn’t have to, why wouldn’t you? What salesperson says “No” to this? What salesperson says “Forget about it boss. I know half or better of the leads will never work out and I have to log every text I send or receive in the database. I also know that customers want to text before/after business hours once they have my number, but I like all that stuff. Whatever you do, don’t make my commission sales job have less of that!” The answer is no sales person ever got made about these admin tasks being done for them by AI or any other tool.

Digital marketing in 2024 is all about data. It’s notoriously difficult to get sales teams to log all of the data that would help improve the marketing campaigns. Adding Prince Charming to your lead qualification process is a simple way to improve both the quality of data your marketing campaign has access to and the click to appointment rate for your campaigns.

We can make it easy for you to use AI to note the customer record with touch point time, marketing channel, campaign, keyword, qualifying question answers, progress along your deal stages/funnel and many other valuable data points that are automatically or can be custom recorded. Our Prince Charming can answer common questions, overcome common objections and book a time (deconflicted with your sales/onboarding team’s Google calendar) for a member of your sales team to help the customer answer any final questions and make their purchase. So yes, if you’re not texting your customers because your sales team doesn’t have time to text them, you’re right. Let’s fix it.

I would, but I’m not sure how to track it

My Droid Works is here to show you how to make it easy to text your customers in a smart, easy to track, user friendly way. Every interaction is automatically logged in detail and customer records are updated based on the latest information that the customer has provided without any interaction from you. Prince Charming often maintains data quality as high as 95% for key PII details such as email or phone number. The days of data getting lost in employee cell phones are over. Prince Charming ensures that your good data makes it to the database.

Once you become a client, you’ll be set up with an AI powered sales assistant that can text your prospects and book them into appointments with your sales team automatically, usually in about 2 weeks.

Just how charming is this Prince?

We created a demo bot that takes in new leads for our PPC Management services, qualifies them, and if qualified directs them to book an appointment. This could, and would for live use, easily be enhanced with bump messages to users to remind customers who requested an appointment but didn’t get book one. Here’s an example conversation.

Kelly Highly Qualified

It’s Kelly from PPC Better here. Thanks for contacting us about PPC Management. Could you help me out with a little more information about your business?

User

I guess so. Let’s make it quick

Kelly Highly Qualified

Thank You. How long have you been in business?

User

7 years

Kelly Highly Qualified

How many people work full time at your company?

User

Kelly Highly Qualified

About how much do you spend monthly or yearly on advertising?

User

I’d rather not say

Kelly Highly Qualified

I totally understand wanting to keep certain details private. Just to get a general idea, could you share a range of your monthly or yearly advertising budget? It helps us tailor our strategy session more effectively to your needs.

User

hhhmmm it’s more than 10000 but less than 100000 per month

Kelly Highly Qualified

Thank you so much! You’re a highly qualified client to work with PPC Better. Are you ready to schedule a strategy session with our team?

User

i don’t know. I’ve been burned by other agencies that overpromised in the past

Kelly Highly Qualified

I completely get where you’re coming from. It’s so important to find a partner you can trust, especially after a bad experience. At PPC Better, we’re committed to transparency and setting realistic expectations right from the start. What do you say we take this opportunity to talk about where those past experiences fell short and how we might approach things differently? This could be a valuable step in rebuilding your confidence in what targeted, well-managed PPC can achieve for your business. How about we pencil in a non-committal chat to explore this further?

User

sounds good

Kelly Highly Qualified

Great! Here’s our team calendar for you to book in a time – https://rightad.agency/booking

Looking forward to speaking with you and hopefully putting those past experiences behind to start fresh with better results!

Kelly started a conversation with the lead. Collected some key demographic information which could help the sales team tailor the pitch, confirmed that the client has sufficient budget to work with our team, and booked them into an appointment. Kelly even dealt with an impatient customer and overcame an objection in the process.

Ready to start using AI powered SMS to boost your sales team?

Great. The first step is to schedule a strategy session with a PPC Better Advisor,

Start a new Google or X Ads Campaign with $500 in Free Ads

If you’ve been thinking about getting started with digital advertising, PPC Better can help. Our real world tested strategies help you connect with more customers, accurately measure performance, and run profitable campaigns. Right now Google is offering $500 in free ads when you spend your first $500. X ads is even more generous, offering $500 in free ads when you spend $250.

Want to find out if Google Ads or X Ads could work for you business? Schedule a strategy session with PPC Better to get all the details.

How to disable “Auto Apply Recommendations” in Google Ads

Maybe you want to fully automate your campaign because you trust that Google will only spend your money in ways that benefit you. In that case, this post isn’t for you. Why not google some cute cat videos?

Why disable “auto apply recommendations” in Google Ads?

Google’s AI and machine learning doesn’t understand actual advertiser goals as well as a skilled human can. There are many campaign management tasks which if done manually by a skilled professional will provide the advertiser with a strong advantage compared to ads on autopilot, even still in 2024. Google please don’t ban me for saying that.

How to disable “auto apply recommendations” in Google Ads

To check your account status or make changes to your opt in regarding google ads automatically making changes to your account/campaign, the steps are pretty simple. (Posted August 2024, interface likely to change in the future)

Sign in to ads.google.com
Click “Recommendations” in the upper left menu.
Click “Auto Apply” icon
Check the list of automations. If the box is unticked the automation is disabled

Now Hiring – Junior Campaign Owner

Junior Campaign Owner opportunity

***At this time we can only onboard employees who live in Tennessee. If you are not a current Tennessee resident please do not apply.***

PPC Better is a digital marketing agency that focuses on helping clients win with Google Ads. We focus exclusively on lead generation and ecommerce ad campaigns which perform better than those managed by other ad agencies. The successful junior campaign owner will learn to plan, deploy, and optimize campaigns based on our proven strategies to help clients win with Google Ads.

Junior Campaign Owners are responsible for the day to day management of client digital ad campaigns. Successful Junior Campaign Owners may earn the opportunity for promotion to Campaign Owner and leadership opportunities as we scale PPC Better to serve more clients.

Common tasks include:

Identify keywords to target in client campaigns
Create ad groups and campaigns around those keywords
Manage campaign settings like geo targeting, bids and budgets
Draft text ad copy
Analyze search query reports
Add/remove/edit keywords based on performance
Analyze and report on campaign performance
Create/customize client facing dashboards
Attend client calls with a senior team member
Learn to set up and monitor conversion tracking using GA4, Google Ads tag, Offline conversion tracking and other methods

Pre-requisites:

High school diploma or equivalent
Proficient with word, excel, and powerpoint/slides
Basic math skills
Buy in to our culture of extreme ownership
Some experience working with at least one of the following platforms
- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- Google Analytics
College degree not required

Expectations:

Pass five google certification exams within the first 90 days of employment
Take ownership of the campaign performance and client relationship for several client engagements within the first 90 days of employment

Compensation

Salary Range: $32,000-$38,000 depending on experience
Annual, performance based discretionary bonus
We do not offer health insurance benefits at this time

Perks

Work on a company provided Macbook Pro
99% remote workplace
Weekly one on one coaching

To apply email a resume to hello@ppcbetter.com

What Is Dynamic Keyword Insertion and How Does it Work for Google Ads?

If you’re buying Google Ads and you haven’t heard about dynamic keyword insertion, you’re missing out. Dynamic Keyword Insertion, or DKI, has been available in Google Ads (formerly AdWords) for about a decade.

What is Dynamic Keyword Insertion in Google Ads?

Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to switch out a default ad text with the keyword which triggered your ad. This can be especially useful if the ad group in which you’re using this copy has many variants of a keyword. By matching the ad copy to the specific keyword which fired the ad, you can increase the probability of appearing relevant to the customer who did the search, which can help you earn the attention or click.

How it looks in Google Ads

Let’s imagine we have a very simple ad group which only has three exact match keywords. Here are the keywords:

[ppc management agency]
[best google advertising manager]
[google ads agency]

Here’s how the ad preview will look in the platform.

How does the replacement/insertion work?

If we write the ad headline like this: {KeyWord:Nashville PPC Management} How would the headline appear for each of the three keywords?

Well, what will happen is “Nashville PPC Management” will be replaced with “Ppc Management Agency” for customers who search [ppc management agency], “Google Ads Agency” for customers who search [google ads agency], and it will not be replaced for [best google advertising manager] because inserting that keyword would cause the ad headline to exceed the 30 character limit. Let’s look at the finer details.

When the customer searches [ppc management agency] the keyword becomes capitalized because we used the syntax of {KeyWord:Default Text} Because the K and W are capitalized, the keyword will use capital letters to start each word. In this case that is actually a little bit problematic because the industry standard way to refer to PPC would probably have all three letters or none of them capitalized.

When the customer searches [google ads agency] the headline of “Google Ads Agency” would be shown with the headline format shown above. Now we could get even a little better with a title that looks like this “Best {KeyWord:Nashville PPC Management}” which would produce a headline of “Best Google Ads Agency”. This is because the shorter keyword would not push the created headline over the 30 character limit.

When the customer searches [best google advertising manager] the headline shows “Nashville PPC Management” instead of the keyword. Why? Because the keyword includes 31 characters, thus replacing the default text with the keyword would put the headline over the 30 character limit.

Because of the headline character count limit, it is good to keep in mind when you’re doing Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) what kinds of keywords are in your ad group. If the group is primarily shorter, higher traffic keywords, the DKI is more likely to show the keyword itself. If the ad group primarily targets longer tail keywords, the default text will show more often.

Impacts of DKI on performance and analysis

Improved Click Through Rate (CTR)

Dynamic Keyword Insertion will, in many cases improve ad performance compared to static text in ads because it can be more directly responsive to the customer’s query. That in mind, it can make featuring discounts, offers and specials more difficult, so it is important to use the judiciously and in harmony with your overall marketing goals and strategies.

Analysis & Confounding Variables

When analyzing the performance of ads including DKI compared either to other ads that leverage DKI or fully static ads, it is important to consider how often the ad likely showed with the default text compared to when it showed with the keyword inserted. You can run a keyword report at the ad group level, the use character count feature in a spreadsheet to identify which percentage of your keywords would likely produce a DKI ad vs a static ad. This will be useful when evaluating performance and can help you avoid determining what is or isn’t working with your ads that use DKI.

Conclusion

Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion can help improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns. This feature is available and works similarly in Bing Ads/Microsoft Advertising as well. Understanding how this feature works and what impacts it has on performance analysis is important. If you’d like to learn more about advanced Google Ads strategies, follow this feed, leave a comment with your question, or contact me directly by scheduling a strategy session.

Now Hiring – Digital Marketing Agency Assistant

Overview

PPC Better is a Nashville based digital marketing agency that specializes in Google Ads paid search and YouTube advertising. The appointment setter and marketing assistant is a part time (20 hours per week) entry level role that does not require a college degree. Your time will be split 50/50 between two primary goals.

Identify and nurture new client leads for the agency.
Assist with PPC Management tasks like reporting, campaign creation, keyword research, bid management, search query review and creative testing.

Remote first workplace

PPC Better is a remote first workplace. We primarily connect with internal team members via zoom. To be successful, you’ll need a high speed internet connection and a relatively distraction free place to work. Applicants in middle Tennessee will receive priority, but all qualified candidates will be considered. From time to time we may request employees be available for in person meetings in the Nashville Tennessee area.

Qualifications

This position requires a self-starter who has excellent customer service skills as well as good listening skills. An upbeat telephone voice, ability to ask and get answers, and a persistent but friendly attitude are important in this position. Outgoing- naturally curious people, who are able to ask the right questions and determine who the decision-makers are, identify customer needs, and look for opportunities to schedule meetings are likely to be successful in this role.

The PPC management side of the role requires basic math knowledge, writing skills, and attention to detail. No previous experience deploying digital advertising required. Excellent organizational and time management skills are a plus. Please be highly motivated with the ability to follow a structured marketing process and diligently collect valuable lead information.

Requires ability to type at least 30 words per minute. You can find out your typing pace here.

Responsibilities

Spend a minimum two hours each working day making outbound phone calls to a provided lead list and/or following up with leads you have previously contacted. A successful agent will dial at least 10, and often over 20 times per hour. It’s important to be able to hold a conversation while typing notes and other key data points into our customer relationship management system. Your remaining 2 working hours will be spent assisting with Google Ads management tasks, earning Google certifications, and otherwise helping senior staff serve our clients.

Working hours are between 10AM and 3PM Monday-Friday, Central time.

Compensation

$15 per hour. 20 hours per week. PPC Better does not currently offer benefits to part time employees.

How to Apply

Send a cover letter and resume to careers@ppcbetter.com

Equal Opportunity

PPC Better is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

Image Extensions for Google Search Ads – Specs and Best Practices

Google Ads now allows you to add images to search ads. Implementing this can substantially help improve the performance of your ads. We recommend including at least 1 square and 1 rectangle featured images with your ads. It is often good to include more than one image. This may allow you to align the intent of what the consumer is searching for with the image you offer.

Images included with search ads must meet the requirements below

View the full article here

Image specifications

Image resolution: PNG, JPG, static GIF

Aspect ratio:

Aspect ratio	Where can it show	Required
Square (1×1)	Google.com, YouTube search via AdSense For Search (Search Partners)	Yes
Landscape (1.91×1)	YouTube search via AdSense For Search (Search Partners)	Optional, but recommended

Note: You can crop images using the image picker during implementation

Image resolution:

Aspect ratio	Minimum pixels	Recommended pixels
Square (1×1)	300 x 300	1200 x 1200
Landscape (1.91×1)	600 x 314	1200 x 628

Maximum file size: 5120 KB

Recommended image safe area: Place the most important content in the center 80% of the image

So if you’re doing Google search ads and you want to squeeze out a little extra performance, be sure to add image extensions to your ads. Happy advertising!

7 Big Blunders that Most Google Advertisers Make

Google Ads is complicated, but If you set it up right, and operate a business customers want to engage with, running a Google Ads campaign can be very profitable. If you don’t navigate the advanced platform features well, you’ll get a giant credit card bill, a not enough customers to pay it, and a sinking feeling in your stomach about the whole Google Ads experience.

If you’d like to improve your probability of success, avoid these 7 Big Blunders that most Google Advertiser make.

Blunder #1

Bad conversion tracking. A “conversion” can be anything the advertiser decides to define as a conversion. The Google Ads platform is very good at maximizing conversions, but many advertisers set goals that don’t actually generate customers and revenue. If you use clicks on a phone number link, or form fills as the conversion, regardless of how well that traffic converts to actual customers, you’re going to get a lot of bots, and you’re going to have a bad time.

Blunder #2

Buying broad keywords. Buying broad match keywords, or one word phrase match keywords can result in surprising, and horrible results. Queries and Keywords are not the same, and failing to understand that can be disastrous with Google Ads. If you don’t know what your profitable exact match keywords are, you’re missing out.

Blunder #3

Not capturing email only leads and following up with them. If you have a well targeted paid advertising campaign in market, you need to capture email only leads. The email is the first step in many customer journeys, and an opportunity for you to deliver value. If you know your customer’s needs and wants, you should be able to send them an email that speaks to those wants while they are actively searching for information about what you sell. Give your customers who aren’t quite ready to make an ecommerce purchase, or sign up for a demo, an easy way for you to follow up.

Blunder #4

Not using negative keywords. With the wild expansion of “close variants” even on phrase match keywords, it’s more important than ever to review your search query reports. Bidding on a keywords doesn’t mean your ads are showing when customers search that specific phrase in 2023, even with exact match keywords. Some advertisers can benefit significantly from a small universe of very high buying intent queries, but not from stuff Google says is “relevant” like competitor’s brand names, shortened versions of the keyword, or words that have a similar meaning. The only way to sculpt your traffic toward high buying intent queries is to build and maintain a robust negative keyword list, often at the accounts, campaign, and ad group level.

Blunder #5

Not using video. Video content sells. Video content improves your quality score, allowing you to buy more traffic for the same amount of money compared to if you didn’t have video content. If you’re going to spend $3/$5/$20 on a click, spend a couple hours creating a video that sells them your product. You won’t regret it.

Blunder #6

Not using mobile first design. The majority of paid traffic comes from mobile. Your landing pages, especially, but also your website more broadly, should reflect this. Make sure it’s at least as easy for your customers to do things that help them buy from you on their phone as it would be on a desktop. We’re even recommending that if you have to choose between improving desktop or mobile, choose mobile. In any event, make sure you’re giving the customers who use your website a good experience on mobile.

Blunder #7

Too much automation. AI is cool. Machine learning has upsides. Giving Google a website URL and a credit card and website and hoping for the best doesn’t work out well for the credit card holder, most of the time. If/when that changes, we’ll be out of a job, but in the meantime be sure to keep an eye on any automation you put in place.
Hope that helps you avoid some of the most costly mistakes that most Google Advertisers are still making in 2023. If you’d like to put our team to work toward that goal, start by requesting a strategy session.