Discover how excluding trending negative keywords ensures that your ads only surface alongside content that aligns with your brand, giving you greater control over your YouTube advertising placements.

Improving Targeting by Excluding Trending Negative Keywords in YouTube Ads

What seems like an attractive keyword and suitable content today may quickly become unsuitable tomorrow. For instance, Russia was a popular tourist destination before the pandemic and before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a travel agent, targeting terms related to Russian tourism was beneficial then. However, with the current news about Russia, obtaining searches and leads for travels to Russia may be close to zero.

Optimizing YouTube ads with trending negative keywords is often overlooked in exclusion strategies. While establishing a negative keywords list sets a solid foundation, the dynamic nature of YouTube advertising demands a continuous effort to stay relevant. Therefore, integrating the practice of optimizing YouTube ads with trending negative keywords ensures your campaigns align with current user preferences.

What Are Trending Negative Keywords in YouTube Advertising

To understand the function of trending negative keywords, it’s essential first to grasp the fundamental concept of negative keywords. In simple terms: 

“Negative keywords are specific words or phrases designated during campaign setup to ensure your ads don’t appear when these words or phrases are searched.”

When structuring your YouTube advertising campaign, you can include up to 5,000 negative keywords on your exclusion list. Particularly in expansive campaigns targeting a broad audience, it’s seldom practical to utilize the full 5,000. Here’s where the optimization of YouTube ads with trending negative keywords comes into play. This strategic approach involves keeping your list updated with emerging news and current events, making sure your ads steer clear of undesired placements.

This practice entails the routine addition of new keywords reflecting current events. For instance, if you’re a media buyer representing a banking company, it becomes prudent to distance your ads from searches related to interest rate rises and news on financial crises.

How To Identify Trending Negative Keywords For YouTube Ads

When it comes to pinpointing trending negative keywords for your YouTube video ads, there are two distinct methods you can utilize:

Using these methods, how can you accomplish a trending negative keyword list in YouTube ads?

Let’s start with this example:

Brand: Real estate agent for luxury properties in Chicago.
Campaign: Back-to-school sale for a property near a school district.

A. Identify the most relevant trending negative keywords for YouTube ads based on search queries

1. For example, take one of your selected target keywords, “Top Chicago school districts” and enter it into Google News.

• Tip: Add the closest timeframe to your campaign launch to make it more timely and relevant. e.g. “Top Chicago school districts 2024”

2. As you search, examine the trending news related to your chosen topic. This could encompass both positive and negative trends.

To focus on the negative aspects, refine your search by adding the phrase “negative news”.

3. From the results, you can identify and add the following to your trending negative keywords list for YouTube ads:

• School shootings
• State of emergency

B. Predict upcoming trending negative keywords for YouTube ads with AI tools and analytics

Drawing insights from the web, Bard, Google’s AI tool, offers users accurate and high-quality responses when looking up trending negative keywords. Its integration with Google enhances efficiency, delivering comparable results in less time with the right prompts.

Going back to our example:

Brand: Real estate agent for luxury properties in Chicago.
Campaign: Back-to-school sale for a property near a school district.

To utilize Bard effectively, you can input a tailored prompt to obtain a trending list of negative keywords for your YouTube advertisements.

Sample prompt for Bard:

I am a real estate agent for luxury properties in Chicago. I am launching a campaign for back-to-school sales for a property near a school district. My main target keyword is “luxury real estate Chicago 2024”.

What are the trending negative keywords this 2024 that I should avoid? Copy

Advantages Of Implementing A Trending YouTube Ad Negative Keyword List

Incorporating a trending YouTube ad negative keyword list into your campaigns holds numerous advantages, particularly during heightened interest or hype periods. Let’s explore the key benefits:

Efficient management of your trending negative keywords list in YouTube ads is an ongoing process that requires continual upkeep and fine-tuning. Consider the following recommendations:

How Trending Negative Keywords Contribute to Brand Suitability on YouTube

At its core, your main goal may be to attract views and conversions through your YouTube advertisements. However, it’s crucial to understand that viewers form perceptions based on the content linked to your video ads. This connection is what makes a lasting impression on them.

Maintaining the suitability of your ads for viewers is a continuous effort, mirroring the continuous change in the landscape of YouTube advertising. Adapting to these shifts is essential for media buyers. Incorporating a trending list of negative keywords into your YouTube ads is a significant step toward achieving overall brand suitability for your campaigns.

Expand your expertise. Browse Strike Social’s latest blogs here:

• 
  YouTube Ads for Traffic and Action Campaigns: Do They Work?
• 
  Shifting From TikTok to Instagram Reels Ads Without Losing Performance
• 
  7 Emerging Digital Marketing Trends for 2025
• 
  Inspiring Insights for Your 2025 Valentine’s Day Ad Campaigns
• 
  Play to Win With Our 2025 Super Bowl Ads Strategy Guide
• 
  Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising in 2025

The post Optimize YouTube Ads with Trending Negative Keywords appeared first on Strike Social.

Reconnect With Your Target Audience By Implementing Negative Keyword Targeting in YouTube Ads

Achieving success in your YouTube ad campaigns hinges on precision – getting your ads in front of the right eyes and steering clear of the wrong ones. The key players in this strategy are keyword targeting and its counterpart, negative keyword targeting.

Keyword targeting ensures your ads align with specific keywords, placing them alongside relevant content. Conversely, negative keyword targeting in YouTube ads acts as a filter, keeping your brand away from content associated with flagged keywords.

By combining these two tactics, you create a hyper-focused campaign. Your ads reach viewers with shared keyword interests while avoiding those looking for terms that don’t align with your brand. In the following discussion, we’ll uncover how negative keyword targeting works and the benefits it brings to advertisers who leverage a well-defined negative keyword list in their YouTube advertising.

What is Negative Keyword Targeting?

Implementing a negative keyword targeting strategy can be commonly overlooked in advertising efforts. This oversight often stems from advertisers concentrating excessively on where they want their YouTube ads to appear. Yet, it is equally crucial to monitor the type of content with which you don’t want your ads associated. Before going through the intricacies of this strategy, let’s take a step back to comprehend the essence of negative keyword targeting.

Negative Keyword Targeting Defined

Negative keyword targeting was first introduced by Google when it was still known as Google AdWords (later rebranded as Google Ads in 2018). Since then, it has become a standard practice, especially in YouTube advertising.

Google defines a negative keyword in digital marketing as a type of keyword that prevents a certain word or phrase from triggering your ad. Applying negative keywords ensures that your ads are not displayed to anyone searching for that specific phrase.

Why Negative Keyword Targeting Matters

By excluding specific words or phrases, you prevent your video ads from appearing in irrelevant searches. Advertisers can create and utilize negative keyword lists to streamline the process across multiple campaigns. 

This process improves your ad targeting in YouTube, ensuring your message reaches those genuinely interested in what you offer. It keeps your ads focused on the right audience, elevating the precision and effectiveness of your YouTube advertising efforts.

---

Further Reading

Using Topic Exclusions to Avoid Misaligned Content

Topic exclusions help advertisers filter out content categories like news, politics, religion, sensitive regions, crime, and mature themes. These customizable settings enable campaigns to align better with brand values while maintaining flexibility for different objectives.

---

How to Initiate Your Negative Keyword Strategy in YouTube Advertising

To kick off your negative keyword strategy in YouTube advertising, consider adding these keywords at the campaign or ad group level, depending on what aligns better with your objectives. This guide offers a thorough walkthrough on seamlessly integrating negative keywords into your YouTube ad campaigns:

Campaign Level Negative Keywords

By adding negative keywords at the campaign level, advertisers automatically exclude specified terms from all ads within the campaign.

Ad-group Level Negative Keywords

Advertisers can add negative keywords at the ad-group level for a more focused approach. This allows for tailored exclusions, ensuring that selected ads do not appear with undesirable keyword associations.

Contextual Targeting

You can use negative keyword lists to manage and apply negative keywords across multiple campaigns efficiently. This way, you can select the existing list to apply them to your YouTube advertisements.

Limitations of negative keyword targeting in YouTube ads:

• It’s important to note that negative keywords on the Display Network may not be as precise as on the Search Network. Moreover, a maximum limit of 5,000 negative keywords is allowed as exclusions on your YouTube video ads. 
• To further refine your targeting, consider applying content theme exclusions to exclude specific channels and content.

---

Further Reading

Why Excluding YouTube Kids’ Channel Is A Priority

Protecting your brand’s reputation starts with understanding why it’s crucial to keep your ads off YouTube Kids channels and the advantages of taking this precautionary step.

---

For a clearer picture, here’s a sample negative keyword targeting list for a luxury watch brand conducting a Winter Collection campaign:

Note: These are sample keywords only. For a more specified negative keyword list, you can utilize Google Bard prompts and prompt it for a negative keywords list that is more aligned with your brand and YouTube advertising strategy.

Need a Head Start? Strike Social Has You Covered.

If you’re unsure about where to begin your negative keyword targeting strategy, Strike Social offers a curated list of 5000+ keywords. This comprehensive list includes terms related to sexual, hot-button, off-color, and NSFW topics. Easily incorporate these keywords at the launch of your campaign for targeted and brand-safe advertising. Get your first 500 keywords here.

Advantages of Negative Keyword Targeting for YouTube Advertisers

Using negative keywords may be counterintuitive. However, the benefits are substantial and can significantly impact the success of your ad campaigns. Here’s a breakdown of why incorporating negative keyword research tools is a smart move:

Elevate Brand Suitability

• A negative keyword list aligns the brand with safe and suitable content, fostering a positive association and avoiding appearances with harmful or undesirable content.
• Strike Social’s brand suitability strategies go beyond just negative keyword targeting. For an overview of the various strategies we employ to ensure brands are aligned with the right content, visit our Strike Social brand safety and suitability guide.

Reduce Wasted Clicks

• Negative keywords enhance click-through rates by ensuring ads appear only for relevant queries.
• Excluding irrelevant search terms minimizes wasted clicks, ensuring ads reach users actively searching for specific keywords, optimizing budget usage.

More Relevant User Experience

• Negative keywords allow you to steer clear of unrelated channels or videos, ensuring your ads are seen by a more relevant audience.

The Positive Effects of Incorporating Negative Keyword Targeting

It’s essential to view negative keyword targeting not as a standalone solution but as a fundamental step in enhancing the suitability of your brand within the platform’s content.

Launching a campaign today is an elaborate process beyond mere clicks and conversions. It demands attention to the positive tone associated with your brand’s visibility. And that’s where negative keyword targeting plays in—a tool in guiding your brand towards positive interactions.

Recognizing and harnessing the positive effects of negative keyword targeting positions your brand for success, ensuring every interaction leaves a favorable impression.

The post Eliminate Irrelevant Impressions: Could Negative Keywords Be the Solution? appeared first on Strike Social.