Search Terms Report Audit Checklist for Google Ads and Microsoft Ads

Overview

A search term is the actual query a person typed into a search engine. A keyword is the targeting instruction you added to your campaign. That distinction matters because performance often breaks down in the space between the two.

Google’s own documentation makes the report’s purpose clear: the google ads search terms report shows how your ads performed when triggered by actual searches on the Search Network. It is also useful for identifying new keyword opportunities, refining landing page messaging, and understanding customer intent. Google also distinguishes the search terms report from search terms insights: insights group terms into themes and may include aggregated low-volume behavior, while the report itself may omit some low-volume queries for privacy reasons. In practice, that means your search terms report analysis should treat the report as highly actionable but not perfectly exhaustive.

The safest evergreen way to use the report is as a recurring search query audit, not a one-time cleanup. Review it to answer five practical questions:

• Which queries are clearly irrelevant and should be excluded?
• Which queries are relevant but belong in a different ad group or campaign?
• Which queries deserve to become new keywords?
• Which keyword match types are too loose for the budget and goals?
• Which queries reveal missing intent, weak ad copy, or a landing page mismatch?

This is where strong google ads keyword management becomes real. Instead of optimizing around platform suggestions or surface metrics alone, you optimize around the language that generated the click.

For both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, the workflow is similar enough to standardize. Pull the report over a meaningful date range, sort by cost, conversions, clicks, or impression volume depending on account size, and work from the highest-impact queries downward. If your account is large, start with campaigns spending the most or campaigns using broader keyword match types. Those usually create the biggest swings, for better or worse.

Checklist by scenario

Use this section as your reusable ppc audit checklist. The goal is not to review every query equally. The goal is to make the right action quickly and consistently.

Scenario 1: You want to cut wasted spend

Start here if CPA is rising, lead quality is slipping, or spend is growing faster than revenue.

• Filter by highest-cost search terms with zero conversions. Look for themes, not just individual outliers.
• Mark clearly irrelevant intent. Queries containing research-only, free, jobs, meaning, definition, tutorial, DIY, or unrelated product modifiers often belong on a negative keyword list, depending on your business model.
• Check geo mismatches. If you only serve certain regions, search terms with other locations may signal targeting leakage.
• Check audience mismatches in the query itself. Terms like student, wholesale, enterprise, used, cheap, or consumer can be expensive if your offer serves a different segment.
• Add negatives at the right level. Use account, campaign, or ad group negatives based on whether the term is universally bad or only wrong in one context.
• Document the reason for each exclusion. A short note such as “unqualified”, “support intent”, or “wrong product line” makes future audits faster.

If you need a broader framework for exclusions, pair this review with the site’s Negative Keyword List Guide: High-Waste Terms to Review by Campaign Type.

Scenario 2: You want to discover new keyword opportunities

Sometimes the report shows waste. Sometimes it shows demand you failed to model during research.

• Filter for converting or high-engagement queries. Look for search terms with conversions, strong CTR, or low CPC relative to intent.
• Promote strong queries into keywords. Add them as exact or phrase match when they consistently align with your offer.
• Create tighter ad groups for emerging themes. If several related terms perform well, cluster them into a dedicated group with tailored ad copy.
• Review landing page alignment. If a term converts despite weak alignment, it may perform better with a page built for that theme.
• Use query language in headlines. Real search phrasing often improves ad relevance and click-through rate more than internal brand language does.

This is also where keyword clustering for ppc helps. Instead of treating every good query as a one-off win, group similar high-intent terms into a coherent structure.

Scenario 3: Broad match is driving too much noise

Broad match can help discovery, but it can also blur intent. If query drift is widening, audit more often.

• Segment the report by campaign or ad group using broad match keywords.
• Compare broad-led search terms against your actual offer. Are they adjacent, or fundamentally different?
• Look for pattern-based negatives. One bad query matters less than a recurring modifier that keeps appearing.
• Promote proven terms into tighter match types. This gives you more control without shutting off discovery entirely.
• Check whether automated bidding is being fed low-quality traffic. Smart bidding cannot fix intent problems if bad queries keep entering the auction mix.

If your team needs a refresher on structuring intent by match type, see Keyword Match Types Explained: When to Use Broad, Phrase, and Exact in 2026.

Scenario 4: CTR is acceptable, but conversions are weak

This usually points to an intent or landing page problem rather than a visibility problem.

• Find search terms with solid CTR but poor conversion rate.
• Classify each query by intent stage. Informational, comparative, navigational, and transactional searches should not be treated the same.
• Review ad copy promises against landing page delivery. A mismatch here often creates wasted clicks from relevant terms.
• Split mixed-intent terms into separate campaigns or ad groups. For example, “software pricing” and “software tutorial” may both click, but only one may buy.
• Check tracking before making major cuts. Weak conversion volume can reflect a measurement issue, not only poor traffic.

When revenue visibility is incomplete, connect your audit to a more robust attribution process. A useful companion is Measuring Campaign ROI Without Traditional IOs: Keyword-Level Attribution Tactics.

Scenario 5: Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are drifting apart

A term that works in one platform may behave differently in another because of audience mix, auction dynamics, and volume.

• Pull the google ads search terms report and microsoft ads search terms for comparable date ranges.
• Compare top spend queries by platform. Do the same intent themes appear, or are they diverging?
• Review negatives that should be shared across platforms. Many account teams update one platform faster than the other.
• Preserve platform-specific winners. Do not force symmetry if Microsoft Ads is surfacing a productive niche that Google is not.
• Check ad copy and landing page variants by platform. If query mix differs, the same message may not perform equally well.

This is a practical part of any microsoft ads keyword strategy: standardize the audit process, not necessarily the exact keyword set.

What to double-check

Before you push changes live, slow down and verify the details that most often create accidental losses.

1. Negative keyword level and match behavior

A good exclusion at the wrong level can block valuable traffic elsewhere. If a term is irrelevant to the whole business, account-level negatives may make sense. If it is only irrelevant to one product line, keep it narrower.

2. Conversion lag and incomplete data

Google notes that conversion processing can differ between reporting surfaces, and recent periods may understate performance because of lag. For that reason, avoid making hard decisions from only the last few days unless spend is clearly wasteful and urgent.

3. Privacy thresholds and missing low-volume queries

Because some low-volume queries may be omitted from the report, do not assume “not visible” means “not happening.” If performance changes but visible queries do not explain it, consult search term insights or broader campaign trend data for supporting context.

4. Search intent versus search wording

Two queries can use similar language and still mean different things. “Best CRM for consultants” and “CRM consultant services” may look related, but they imply very different intent. Audit by meaning, not only by shared words.

5. Ad group structure after keyword additions

Adding winning queries as keywords is useful only if you also place them in a structure that improves relevance. Otherwise you simply duplicate targeting and create internal clutter.

6. Tracking consistency across platforms and analytics

If you rely on GA4, CRM events, or offline imports, verify that naming conventions and UTM logic still map cleanly. A search term audit is most valuable when it can be connected to reliable ppc campaign analytics.

For teams standardizing campaign data beyond ad platforms, Contracts & Tracking: Standardizing UTM, Keywords and Reporting in Creator Deals offers a useful process for keeping traffic classification consistent.

Common mistakes

Most search term audits fail for operational reasons, not because the report lacks value. These are the mistakes that usually weaken the outcome.

• Reviewing too late. A monthly review can be too slow for high-spend campaigns, especially those using broader targeting. If one ad group can burn meaningful budget in a few days, monthly is not enough.
• Adding one-off negatives without pattern analysis. The bigger win is often spotting repeating modifiers or intent classes that should be excluded systematically.
• Confusing a search term with a keyword strategy. The report informs strategy; it does not replace account structure, bid strategy, or landing page testing.
• Promoting every converting query into a keyword. Some terms perform fine as discovery traffic but do not merit separate management.
• Ignoring relevance because top-line conversion count looks fine. Weakly relevant traffic can still hurt efficiency, ad copy clarity, and future scaling.
• Trusting optimization score more than query quality. A platform recommendation can increase reach while making query control weaker. The report is where you verify whether that tradeoff is working.
• Failing to align SEO and PPC learnings. Strong query themes can influence organic content, and high-performing SEO terms can inform paid expansion. The overlap matters, especially for high-intent commercial topics.

If you want to operationalize that overlap, the site’s broader catalog on SEO and paid search synergy can help you decide which queries should stay paid, move into content, or support both.

When to revisit

This checklist works best as a recurring operating habit. Revisit it on a schedule that matches spend, volatility, and targeting breadth.

• Weekly for high-spend campaigns, campaigns using broad match heavily, new launches, or accounts with recent conversion tracking changes.
• Biweekly for stable mid-volume campaigns where query patterns are fairly predictable.
• Monthly for lower-volume accounts, provided there is no sign of sudden waste or lead quality decline.
• Before seasonal planning cycles so you can clean out weak traffic and promote emerging demand themes before budgets rise.
• When workflows or tools change, especially after tracking updates, platform migrations, or major account restructures.

Use this five-step action plan each time you revisit:

1. Pull the report for a meaningful date range. Include enough data to judge intent, not just a few isolated clicks.
2. Sort by impact first. Review highest-cost, highest-volume, or highest-converting queries before the long tail.
3. Assign each query one action. Exclude, keep, promote, restructure, or monitor.
4. Log the change. Note which negatives were added, which keywords were promoted, and which landing pages or ads need updates.
5. Review outcomes on the next cycle. A good audit is iterative. You are improving the system, not only cleaning the report.

Over time, this turns search terms report analysis from reactive maintenance into a repeatable keyword management discipline. That is the real value: less wasted spend, clearer intent mapping, and a campaign structure that improves because it is grounded in real user language rather than assumptions.

For readers building a broader keyword review routine, a helpful next step is What In-House Teams Can Learn From Vanguard Agencies About Rapid Keyword Testing, which complements this checklist with a faster testing cadence.