The negative list, or how to stop sponsoring job hunts
A negative keyword tells Google which searches should never show your ad. Google's help page on negative keywords explains the mechanics, and the list below is where every HR tech Google Ads account should start.
| Category | Negatives to add | Match type | Why it goes |
|---|
| Jobs and careers | jobs, careers, hiring, salary, resume, interview, internship, remote jobs, near me | Phrase | Job seekers, the biggest leak in HR software accounts |
| HR job titles | hr manager salary, hr generalist, hris analyst, chro salary | Phrase | People researching a role, not a product |
| Students and certification | course, certification, exam, degree, class, study guide, thesis | Phrase | Learners who will never have a budget line |
| Employee self-service | login, sign in, password, pay stub, w-2, direct deposit | Phrase | Employees of companies already on a system |
| Free templates and forms | template, free download, sample, example, pdf, form | Phrase | Template hunters, unless you run a template campaign on purpose |
| Support for other tools | support, customer service, phone number, outage, cancel | Phrase | Customers of competitors with a problem you can't solve from an ad |
Phrase match on negatives blocks the phrase wherever it appears in a search, which is what you want for words like jobs. Keep broad and exact negatives for special cases, and read Google's notes on how keyword matching works before you add single words that could block a buyer.
Free is the classic trap. Blocking it outright also blocks free trial, which is one of the better searches a buyer can make.
A list is a starting point, and the search terms report is where it improves. This weekly routine keeps it honest.
- Open the search terms report every week for the first two months, then every other week.
- Add new junk searches to a shared negative list at the account level, so every campaign inherits it.
- Check the last week's negatives against converting searches, so you haven't blocked a buyer by accident.
- Move searches that convert into their own exact match keywords with their own ad.
Clean searches only help if Google knows which clicks turned into buyers. Import qualified demos and opportunities from the CRM as offline conversions, so automated bidding learns from the deals sales accepted and stops chasing every template download.
Running Google Ads for HR software on form fills alone teaches the algorithm to find more form fillers. Feeding it pipeline teaches it to find people who look like your customers.
Should HR tech companies bid on competitor names?
Usually yes, with care. Someone searching a competitor's name plus alternative, pricing or versus is weighing a switch, and that's a buyer with a budget already approved.
Run competitor terms in their own campaign with their own budget, so they can't quietly eat the money meant for category terms. Send the click to a comparison page that names the difference honestly, because a rival's name followed by your homepage is a polite way to pay for someone else's brand awareness.
Block the competitor's login, support and careers searches inside that campaign. Those are their employees and customers having a bad day, and none of them is shopping.
Expect a lower click rate and a higher cost per demo than on category terms. Competitor campaigns earn their place on deal size, since a switching buyer often arrives with a contract value and a deadline.
Is Microsoft Ads worth it for HR tech?
For most HR software companies it's worth a test, and the reason is targeting. Microsoft Advertising offers LinkedIn profile targeting, which lets you adjust bids by a searcher's company, industry or job function from their LinkedIn profile.
That means you can bid more on an HR director at a company in your segment and less on everyone else typing the same words. Google search can't do that, and for a category full of HR professionals who aren't buying, it's a useful filter.
Volume is smaller and clicks usually cost less. You can import your Google campaigns as a starting point, then rewrite the bids around the profile data. Our Microsoft Ads team treats it as a second search channel, never a copy of the first.
The week somebody read every search term
Picture the marketing manager at that HR software company the morning after the CFO's pencil found the jobs search. She exports the full search terms report for the quarter and reads every line, which takes most of a day and two coffees.
The pattern is obvious once it's on one screen. Category campaigns are catching job seekers, the competitor campaign is catching a rival's employees trying to log in and a broad pricing keyword is showing for salary searches.
She builds the shared negative list, splits the competitor terms into their own campaign and moves the best pricing and comparison searches into exact match. The next month's clicks drop noticeably.
The CFO asks whether marketing cut the ads. Demo requests held steady, so she shows him the cost per demo instead, which went the right way for the first time all year.
Who reads your search terms report
We run Google Ads and Microsoft Ads for B2B software companies, with senior marketers doing the work and changes shipped weekly. You can buy search as one à la carte monthly service, priced in writing, and our pricing page lays out every model.
The software result we point to is Conduit Tech, an HVAC platform that ServiceTitan later bought. Its Google Ads spend returned 4.2x, and organic search grew 1,389% year over year alongside it.
New to the platform? Our explainer on how Google Ads work for business covers auctions and quality score.
For where search sits beside LinkedIn and review sites, read our guide to HR tech advertising, and for the whole budget, the HR tech marketing budget guide. Search ads and organic search share the same keywords, so SEO for HR tech is worth a read too, and our HR tech marketing agency page shows the full program.
Share your last 90 days of search terms. We'll circle every click that never had a chance. Book a free strategy session and get the negative list back, whether you hire us or not.
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