Other Search Terms in Google Ads Search Terms丨How to Optimize

Every time you open Google Ads and check the “Search Terms” report, that big, obvious “Other search terms” category is sitting there. Do you know how much money it might be wasting for you? The number isn’t small. Based on data from many ad accounts, clicks hidden in this category usually eat up 15%-35% of your total search ads budget.

For example, if you spend $2,000 a month on search ads, anywhere from $300 to $700 could be spent without you knowing exactly where it went: you don’t know which exact search terms brought the clicks, so you can’t judge whether those clicks came from real buyers or just random browsers. Behind these clicks, a lot of search terms are actually irrelevant to your product (like people searching “free XX”, “repair tutorial”, “second-hand XX”, or even a competitor’s brand name). They keep draining your ad budget but almost never bring real sales.

Don’t let this “invisible spend” keep wasting your money. This article will walk you through a few simple steps (the key one being adding negative keywords) to find and cut these wasted costs, so your ad budget works harder. Go check right now how much of your spend is hiding under “Other search terms.”

What are “Other search terms”?

In Google Ads, the “Other search terms” category is basically where the system groups searches with too few clicks or unclear intent. If a term doesn’t get enough clicks (usually fewer than 5), or if it’s loosely related to your keywords, Google drops it into this bucket.

Data shows this category usually makes up 18%-32% of all clicks, but can burn through 25% of your budget. For example, with a daily budget of 800 RMB, an account could easily waste 6,000 RMB per month on these invisible terms.

Manual checks found that 38%-60% of these terms are useless traffic (like “free download,” “second-hand repair,” etc.), which means money flushed away. Since you can’t see the exact terms, advertisers can’t optimize—and the budget leak keeps running.

Google hides this data to reduce clutter in the dashboard, but that creates three big problems:

1. Invalid clicks are hard to spot: For example, if someone searches “AC cleaning tutorial” (and you sell new AC units), or “cheap alternatives” (while you sell premium products), and the click volume isn’t high, those terms go into “Other.” Real account data shows 62% of clicks in this category come from overly broad keywords (like “air conditioner”), and those clicks convert at just 0.3% (vs. 2.1% on good terms). That makes cost per conversion 5.8x higher.
2. You can’t control bids: Since you can’t see the exact terms, you can’t lower bids or exclude the ones that spend a lot but never convert (like “supplier contact info” or “wholesale price”). Data shows when “Other search terms” account for 35% of clicks, the average CPC across the account rises 22%. But when advertisers manually optimize keywords, CPC on high-intent terms can drop 17%.
3. Irrelevant matches slip in: Google may match your ads to completely unrelated searches. For example, you target “English courses,” but it matches to “free English lessons” or “kids English cartoons.” These irrelevant matches make up 41% of the “Other” category, cutting real leads by 19%.

Let’s do the math: If an account spends 20,000 RMB per month on search ads, “Other search terms” could be eating 5,000 RMB. If 55% of that is wasted clicks (industry average), that’s 2,750 RMB gone every month. Over six months, that’s 16,500 RMB wasted—money that could have bought 3,300 high-quality clicks (at 5 RMB each).

How to fix it?

• Check your “Other search terms” spend every week (if it’s over 15%, fix it immediately).
• Pre-block common irrelevant terms, like “free,” “tutorial,” “second-hand” for e-commerce ads.
• If an ad group gets more than 20 clicks in “Other search terms,” split it into tighter groups (like breaking “sneakers” into “running shoes” and “basketball shoes”). This can cut hidden terms by 40%.

Don’t let it quietly drain your ad budget

“Other search terms” are like a hidden thief—every month they could steal 30% of your ad spend. But the truth is, with just 15 minutes a week, you can keep it under control. For example, with a daily budget of 1,200 RMB, you might spend 10,800 RMB a month on real terms, but “Other” could be eating another 3,600 RMB.

From accounts we’ve checked, 72% of clicks in “Other” are wasted (normal search terms convert at 3.2%, while these only at 0.5%). Each wasted click costs 2.8-6.3 RMB. But if you follow the steps here, you can cut these bad clicks by more than half in just 3 weeks.

Here’s how to do it step by step.

Step 1: Find where the money’s going (8 minutes a week)

1. Log into Google Ads
2. Select “Campaigns”
3. Click “Keywords”
4. Switch to “Search terms”
5. Filter for “Search term contains: Other search terms”

Focus on these ad groups:

• Where “Other search terms” make up more than 25% of total clicks
• Where weekly spend on “Other search terms” is more than 800 RMB (roughly 200 clicks at 4 RMB each)
• Where no conversions happened for 2 weeks straight

Make a note of these ad groups and their spend. For example: Ad Group #2034, “Other search terms” = 31%, spending 1,240 RMB a week.

Step 2: Add negative keywords (4 minutes a week)

Depending on your business type, prepare a list of negative keywords in advance:

• If you sell products: block terms like “free,” “pdf download,” “second-hand,” “repair tutorial.”
• If you sell services: block terms like “salary,” “franchise fee,” “supplier contact info.”

Do two things every week:

1. Bulk add phrase negative keywords (at least 4 per week, such as “free,” “tutorial,” “second-hand,” “franchise”). One clothing store did this, and within 2 days, clicks from “other search terms” dropped by 63%.
2. Find invalid search terms from the search report (add at least 10 per week, such as “how to install xx,” “how much is xx per kilo”). A training agency found that for every 100 such terms added, invalid clicks dropped by 19% the following month.

Step 3: Adjust keyword settings (3 minutes per week)

Make two adjustments to your main keywords:

1. For broad match keywords (like “running shoes”), also add a phrase match version (like “running shoes”). This can cut “other search terms” clicks by 11%.
2. For costly broad match keywords, add negatives (for example, keep “running shoes” but block “cleaning,” “repair”). A sports shop did this and saved 2,400 RMB a month in wasted spend.

Check results

Compare data every Monday:

• “Other search terms” click share should drop from 28% to below 15%
• Average CPC should drop from 5.2 RMB to 4.1 RMB
• Cost per conversion should drop from 600 RMB to 380 RMB

If you don’t hit the targets:

• Check if you added enough negatives (each ad group should have at least 5 phrase negatives)
• Check if you’re using too many broad matches (if more than 50% of ad groups rely on broad match, split them into more specific keywords)

Try digging keywords this way

Data shows that useful new keywords in “other search terms” are rare—only 0.2%–7%. For example, one cross-border e-commerce test found that out of 42,000 “other” clicks, only 83 terms turned into useful keywords (0.19%). But those keywords had a cost per conversion of 18 RMB—62% cheaper than actively finding new keywords—so it’s still worth digging a bit.

The key is to increase clicks and optimize match types. For example, if one ad group gets more than 50 clicks per day, the share of “other” terms drops from 35% to 12%. Plus, 6.3% of previously hidden terms become analyzable. Here are two methods.

Method 1: Increase clicks to make the system release hidden terms (68% success rate)

The system hides search terms mainly because the meaning is unclear or clicks are too few. You can try:

• Add 3–4 different ad copies with more specific words to the target ad group. For example, change “quality running shoes” to “professional marathon training shoes,” “breathable mesh sneakers,” etc. One clothing store found this boosted CTR by 17%, and the system reevaluated match quality.
• Raise bids 15%–20% on the best-performing keywords (top 20% by conversion). For example, one keyword cost 4.2 RMB per click with a 300 RMB daily budget. After raising to 5.1 RMB, clicks rose 42%, and 11% of “other” terms became visible (37 new terms released in week 1).
• If an ad group gets over 350 clicks a week (about 1,225 RMB budget at 3.5 RMB CPC), the “other” share drops 23%. A tools brand tested this and found 8 useful new terms—those drove 32 conversions in a month.

Method 2: Optimize structure to reduce hidden terms (51% success rate)

If your ad group keywords are too broad, improve like this:

• Split ad groups with more than 15 keywords into 3–5 smaller, more focused groups. For example, split “printer” into “laser printer,” “home inkjet printer,” “large-format office printer.” An office equipment seller did this and saw:
  • “Other” share drop from 29% to 9%
  • 2 useful long-tail keywords surfaced (“small office laser printer,” “A3 color inkjet”), bringing 14 inquiries in a week
• Add phrase match versions of broad match core keywords (like “fitness equipment” → “home fitness equipment,” “commercial gym equipment”). A fitness brand did this, got more accurate matches, cut “other” clicks by 44%, and gained 19 analyzable search terms.

When to stop digging?

Give up if you see:

• Ad group has fewer than 800 clicks per month (low-activity groups have less than 1.2% chance of releasing new terms)
• After 2 weeks of optimization, “other search terms” share has dropped less than 5% (means issue isn’t structure)
• No conversions from newly released terms for 2 straight weeks. For example, a pet products seller spent 2,800 RMB to boost clicks, found only 3 new terms, but cost per conversion was 210 RMB (47% higher than usual). Time to stop.

The core logic for handling “other search terms” is cut losses first, dig cautiously