Straight answers for local service businesses
Open Google Ads, click Campaigns in the left menu, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. That's the google ads search terms report, and it shows the actual phrases people typed into Google before clicking your ad. Set the date range to the last 30 days, sort by cost, and read the top 20 rows. That short list usually explains most of your wasted spend.
Most contractors running Google Ads have never opened this report. They look at clicks, they look at cost, they get frustrated, they pause the campaign. Meanwhile the answer to "why is this not working" is sitting in a table three clicks away.
Here's how to find it and what to do once you're staring at it.
Four clicks:
If your account still shows the older layout, look for Keywords in the left menu, then a Search terms tab across the top. Same data, different door.
Set the date range in the top right to the last 30 days. Anything shorter and you're reading noise. Then click the Cost column header twice so the most expensive searches sit at the top.
That's it. You are now looking at the actual phrases real people typed into Google, in your service area, right before they clicked your ad and spent your money.
A keyword is what you told Google you want to show up for. A search term is what a human actually typed.
You bid on "drain cleaning." Google decides that's close enough to "how to clean a drain with baking soda," "drain cleaning jobs hiring," and "roto rooter phone number." All three can trigger your ad. All three can cost you money.
The report has a column called Match type that tells you how loose the connection was. Watch for anything labeled broad match or phrase match on a search term that has nothing to do with your service. That's your leak.
The other columns worth reading:
Because Google won't show them to you. This surprises people and it's worth understanding.
Google only reports search terms that were entered by enough different people to be considered non-identifying. If one person in Medford typed a weirdly specific phrase and clicked your ad, that search gets rolled into an unnamed bucket. Your report will show fewer clicks and less spend than your campaign total, sometimes noticeably less.
You cannot turn this off. What you can do is stop assuming the report is complete. If your visible search terms look clean but your cost per lead is still terrible, the hidden portion is probably where the mess is, and the fix is tighter match types rather than more negative keywords.
Read the top 20 rows by cost and sort each one into three piles.
Searches that will never become a job. The usual suspects for trades:
Check the box next to those rows and click Add as negative keyword. Add them at the campaign level unless you have a specific reason not to.
Searches that produced a call or a form fill, or that describe exactly what you do in words you never thought to use. A landscaper might find "who fixes sprinkler heads" outperforming their own "irrigation repair" keyword. Add those as their own keywords with phrase or exact match so you control them directly instead of hoping Google matches them again.
Most rows. Low cost, on-topic, no conversions yet. Don't fiddle. You'll break more than you fix.
Weekly for the first 60 days of a new campaign, then monthly.
New campaigns are where the damage happens. Google is learning your account and casting a wide net, and a painter can burn through a week's budget on "paint colors for living room" before anyone notices. After the first couple months, once your negative list has some meat on it, fifteen minutes a month is plenty.
Put it on the calendar the same day you do invoices. It's that kind of chore.
Partly, and not at all, in that order.
Performance Max has a search themes and categories view under Insights, but it's grouped and vague compared to a real Search campaign report. You get less control and less visibility. That's one reason a lot of small trade accounts do better with a plain Search campaign than with Performance Max.
Local Services Ads (the Google Guaranteed ads at the very top) don't work on keywords at all, so there's no search terms report and no negative keywords. You control those through your job types and service area settings instead.
Different tool, same instinct. Google Search Console shows the queries that brought people to your website through unpaid results, and your Google Business Profile shows some of the searches that surfaced your listing on Maps.
Those reports are worth reading side by side with your ads data. If "emergency water heater replacement" converts in your ads report, that's a strong hint you should have a page on your site about emergency water heater replacement. Paid search is the fastest way to find out which words your customers actually use. Your website should then reflect those words back.
Open the report. Sort by cost. Read twenty rows. You'll know more about your customers in fifteen minutes than a month of guessing will teach you.
Google withholds search terms that too few people searched, to protect user privacy. Those clicks and that spend still count against your budget, they just don't appear as individual rows. Expect a gap, especially in small local accounts with low search volume.
You can pull historical data by changing the date range, though Google limits how far back search term detail is available compared to other reports. Practically speaking, a rolling 30 to 90 day window is the most useful for a local service business.
No. Focus on the ones that cost real money or repeat often. Adding hundreds of one-off negatives clutters your account and can accidentally block searches you want, especially if you use broad negative match types.
Only if you have login access. Ask whoever runs your ads for admin or standard access to the Google Ads account, and confirm the account is in your name, not theirs. If an agency refuses to show you the search terms report, that tells you something.
Then the problem moved downstream. Check where the ad sends people, how fast that page loads on a phone, and whether your phone number is tappable at the top. Good traffic landing on a weak page still produces zero jobs.
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