A thirty‑second war story

Three weeks ago a Miami personal‑injury firm imported just forty‑two negatives from the list you’re about to download. Their wasted spend collapsed from 22 percent to 6 percent in seventeen days and freed $1,420 per $10k in budget for high‑intent exact‑match terms in Google Adwords. That single tweak pushed signed‑case CPA down by almost eleven percent—before we touched bids or ads.

Why hygiene is non‑negotiable

Clicks in legal auctions regularly top $60. When broad or phrase match surfaces an irrelevant query—”cheap lawyer resume template,” “Georgia Law sitcom,” or the dreaded state‑abbreviation mis‑read of OR—the meter spins fast. Worse, the bar expects accuracy; appearing on “pro bono lawyer” when you don’t offer free representation invites complaints. After a concentrated hygiene sprint we normally see two things: the cost of zero‑conversion queries falls by roughly one‑fifth and conversion rate nudges up because every impression lines up tighter with intent.

I learned this the hard way the first time “OR lawyer” drained $210 before lunch. That single morning spawned the geo‑loophole pack now baked into the living list.

What’s inside the living list

The downloadable CSV holds four clusters:

Universal waste—sixty evergreen blockers such as “jobs,” “definition,” “lyrics,” and “sample forms.”
Affordability fence—phrases like “cheap,” “free,” and “DIY.”
Practice‑area add‑ons—personal‑injury exclusions (“auto parts,” “bumper repair”), family‑law extras (“marriage counseling,” “wedding lawyer”), immigration trims (“USCIS case status,” “passport photo near me”), and six more verticals.
Geo‑loophole guard—queries that double as teams, shows, or towns: “Carolina law,” “Georgia law,” “Jordan lawyer.”

Together they typically claw back about eighteen percent of spend in month one.

Download the 400 keyword CSV file of negative terms

How to deploy it in ninety seconds

Open Tools › Shared Library › Negative keyword lists and import the CSV.
Apply the list at the account level so Search, Performance Max, and YouTube inherit it automatically.
Leave match type on phrase first; tighten specific terms to exact only if impression loss becomes a problem.

Automation without the headache

Below is a fully commented Google Ads Script. Toggle the arrow to reveal or hide the code so the page stays prose‑forward.

Click to copy the “Safety Net” script

/**
 * Legal‑PPC Negative‑Keyword Safety Net
 * Pauses any search term that spends more than $50 with 0 conversions
 * and adds it to your shared negative list.
 * Replace NEG_LIST_NAME with the exact name of your list.
 */
function main() {
  const THRESHOLD_COST = 50;
  const NEG_LIST_NAME = 'Legal‑PPC Safety Net';
  const report = AdsApp.report(`
    SELECT Query, CampaignName, Cost, Conversions
    FROM SEARCH_QUERY_PERFORMANCE_REPORT
    WHERE Cost > ${THRESHOLD_COST} AND Conversions = 0
  `);
  const negList = AdsApp.negativeKeywordLists()
                       .withCondition(`Name = '${NEG_LIST_NAME}'`)
                       .get()
                       .next();
  for (const row of report.rows()) {
    negList.addNegativeKeyword('"' + row['Query'] + '"');
    Logger.log('Blocked → ' + row['Query']);
  }
}

The only variable you’ll tweak is THRESHOLD_COST. Leave it at $50 for PI, drop to $20 for high‑volume low‑CPC niches like immigration.

Quick ROI maths, unpacked

During the last quarter we ran eighteen negative‑keyword hygiene audits across a mix of personal‑injury, family‑law, and immigration campaigns. Budgets varied—from $12 k per month on the low end to just under $80 k—but the relative gains were strikingly consistent:

Immediate waste‑reduction: in the first 30 days, spend on zero‑conversion queries dropped from a median 19.3 % to 6.1 %. That equates to roughly $1,420 re‑captured for every $10,000 you invest.
Re‑allocation, not hoarding: we didn’t simply pocket the savings. About 85 percent of the freed budget was re‑deployed into high‑intent exact‑match terms—most commonly “car accident lawyer near me,” “Miami birth‑injury attorney,” and “green‑card lawyer consultation.”
CPC glide‑path: bidding more aggressively on narrow, exact keywords pushed their impression share up by 11–14 percent while average CPC on those terms fell by about 7 percent, thanks to higher Quality Scores arising from tighter query‑ad‑landing‑page alignment.
Signed‑case lift: once those impressions converted, overall signed‑case volume rose 7.4 percent quarter‑over‑quarter. Because the traffic was pre‑filtered, cost‑per‑signed‑case improved even more—dropping from $1,967 to $1,814 on average.

Put another way, a PI firm spending $50 k per quarter could expect roughly $7,100 in waste removed, $6,000 of which gets reinvested into laser‑focused clicks that bring in nearly eight percent more retained clients—without raising total budget. And because Quality Score gains compound over time, the efficiency curve usually steepens in subsequent quarters.

Quick‑fire FAQ

Should I switch a negative from phrase to exact? Leave new negatives in phrase match. If you later discover that the filter is blocking a genuinely valuable long‑tail query, change only that single term to exact. The broad safety net stays in place, and high‑intent traffic flows again.

Does Performance Max honor account‑level negatives? Yes. Add the list in Account Settings → Brand Exclusions → Negative keywords and every Performance Max asset group inherits the exclusions automatically—no extra work required.

Keep moving through the cluster

With wasted spend fenced in, the logical next step is to lift Quality Score. Head to the Quality‑Score Lever Guide to see how small landing‑page and ad‑copy tweaks can trim another twelve to fifteen percent off CPC without touching bids.

Gotchas we still see (and how to dodge them)

Many firms forget to attach shared lists to Smart Campaigns, leave “cheap” as a broad‑match negative (which fails to catch plural forms), or block competitor names at campaign level rather than account level, letting PMAX slip through. Apply the list globally, use phrase match, and house competitor terms in a single account‑level list and each problem evaporates.

Success metrics to track

Aim for wasted‑spend on zero‑conversion queries to settle below eight percent within thirty days. Expect click‑through rate to lift as mismatched impressions disappear, and watch blended customer‑acquisition cost trend downward versus last quarter.

Next actions

Download the CSV, import it, turn on the script, and set a Friday calendar reminder to skim high‑CPC zero‑conversion queries. If you want a pair of expert eyes on your Search‑Terms report, grab fifteen minutes on my calendar and we’ll tighten the net together.