Block the searches that were never going to hire you

What CrewBuddy looks at

It reads the search terms report for the campaign: what people actually typed before they clicked, sorted by spend, with clicks, calls and conversions beside each one. Google leaves some low-volume searches out of that report for privacy, so the list is never complete, but the expensive ones show up.

The usual suspects for contractors are job seekers, how-to and DIY searches, store and supply searches, the wrong kind of service, and towns you do not serve. CrewBuddy groups them and explains each suggestion in a few words.

Pick, add, check again

You choose which suggestions to add. Think twice about words like “cheap” or “cost,” which can come from someone ready to hire. CrewBuddy adds the negatives you pick to the campaign as broad, phrase or exact match. Google says negatives do not match close variants, so add plurals or common misspellings yourself.

Run it again next week. New campaigns usually take a few rounds before the junk settles down. Keep the list of blocked words, and CrewBuddy can add it to your next campaign on day one.

Fictional example of a weekly note: “Blocked this week: jobs, careers, how to, DIY, store. Kept on purpose: cost, price, estimate.” A note like that makes the next cleanup faster and keeps you from blocking a word you already decided to keep.

The negative keywords guide explains match types and common junk searches in more detail.