Open the search terms report on a new plumbing campaign after its first week and you will find things nobody meant to buy. “Plumber jobs near me.” “How to fix a running toilet.” “Plumbing apprenticeship salary.” “PEX crimp tool Home Depot.” Each of them cost a click, and each of them was never going to be a customer.
This is not a sign the campaign is broken. It is what Google Search ads do by default. Broad and phrase match are designed to find searches related to your keywords, and “related” is generous. The tool you have for saying no is the negative keyword: a word or phrase that stops your ad from showing when it appears in a search.
A negative list will not make a campaign good. It will stop it paying for the obvious wrong things while you work out the rest.
Why plumbing attracts the wrong clicks
Plumbing is a trade that a lot of people try to do themselves, a lot of people want to work in, and a lot of retailers sell parts for. Every one of those groups searches with the same nouns your customers use: toilet, water heater, drain, leak, pipe. The difference is in the words around the noun.
Someone who types “water heater leaking” might be a customer. Someone who types “water heater leaking how to fix” or “water heater leaking reddit” almost certainly is not, at least not today. The negative list is the set of words around the noun that reliably mean “not hiring a plumber”.
The starter list
Treat this as a starting point to adapt, not a finished list. Some of these will be wrong for your shop, and the notes say where.
| Theme | Negative keywords | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs and hiring | jobs, job, hiring, career, careers, salary, wage, resume, indeed, apprentice, apprenticeship, union, employment | Remove “union” only if you advertise as a union shop and people search that way |
| Training and licensing | school, course, class, training, certification, license exam, test, study guide, ce credits | Keep “licensed” out of this list; “licensed plumber” is a buyer’s phrase |
| DIY and how-to | how to, diy, yourself, tutorial, video, youtube, step by step, reddit, forum | “How much” is different; see below |
| Parts and retail | home depot, lowes, ace hardware, amazon, parts, part number, wholesale, supply, supplier | “Parts” is aggressive; drop it if you sell parts-included repairs by that name |
| Tools | tool, tools, wrench, crimper, snake rental, rental, rent | “Drain snake” searches can be customers; negate “rental” and “buy” rather than “snake” |
| Specs and research | diagram, schematic, dimensions, specs, manual, pdf, code requirements, definition, meaning | |
| Free and cheap | free, cheap, cheapest, coupon code | “Free estimate” is a buyer phrase in some markets; test before excluding “free” alone |
| Wrong trade or wrong job | plumbing fixtures store, plumbing supply, pool, septic pumping, well drilling | Only the ones you genuinely do not do |
| Wrong geography | names of cities, counties or neighborhoods outside your area | Location targeting catches most of this; negatives catch the searches for there from here |
Add these as phrase match negatives at the campaign or account level, using a shared negative list so every campaign gets the same protection. Exact match negatives are too narrow for this job, and broad match negatives can block more than you meant if a word appears in unrelated contexts.
The words to leave alone
Some words look like tire-kicker language and are not.
- “How much” and “cost” are often people deciding whether to call. “How much to replace a water heater” is a buyer early in the decision. Watch these rather than blocking them.
- “Near me” is a buyer’s phrase. Never negate it.
- “Emergency” and “24 hour” are buyers, but only negate them if you do not answer at night. If you do not, better to schedule the ads off at night than to block the words.
- Brand names of equipment (a water heater or fixture brand) are usually homeowners describing what they have. Leave them in unless the report shows otherwise.
- “Licensed”, “insured” and “reviews” are people vetting you. They belong in the campaign.
Keeping the list current
The list above is day one. The real list is built from your own search terms report, and it keeps growing.
A routine that works for a small shop:
- Weekly for the first month. Open the search terms report, sort by cost, and read the top fifty. Anything that plainly is not a customer becomes a negative.
- Monthly after that. Same routine, less often, because the obvious waste is gone.
- Look for patterns, not single searches. One odd search is noise. Three searches with the same stray word is a negative.
- Check before you block. A word that looks wrong on its own (“commercial”, “landlord”) might be your best work. Look at what those searches did before excluding them.
- Write down why. A note next to each negative saves the next person, or your future self, from undoing it.
Google has been showing less of the search terms report over the years, grouping some searches or hiding low-volume ones. You will not see everything. That is one more reason to start with a solid list rather than waiting for the report to teach you.
What negatives cannot fix
Negative keywords stop your ad appearing for the wrong search. They do nothing about the right search that lands on a weak page, the right call that goes to voicemail, or the right lead that never gets a callback. If the report is clean and the phone still is not booking work, the leak is further down. We compared Search with the pay-per-lead alternative in Local Services Ads versus Search ads; LSA has no keyword list at all, which is either a relief or a problem depending on how particular you are about the work.
If you run plumbing ads yourself, copy the table into a shared negative list this week and read the search terms report next Monday. There is more on how we work with plumbing shops on our plumbing page, and on campaigns generally under paid ads.