Google Ads Search Terms Audit

---
title: "Google Ads Search Terms Audit Prompt — Find Where Your Budget Is Leaking"
author: "Mahmoud Omar"
author_url: "https://mahmoudomar.com"
category: "paid-ads"
type: "prompt"
level: "intermediate"
works_with: "Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini"
language: "EN"
last_verified: "2026-07-02"
hook: "Your Google Ads account isn't underperforming. It's leaking — and the search terms report knows exactly where."
email_subject: "The 10-minute audit that turns 5,000 search terms into a negatives list"
short_pitch: "Export your search terms report, paste it into this prompt, and get a full leak audit: irrelevant queries flagged, negative keyword list built, and high-intent terms you should be bidding on exact — in minutes, not hours."
---

# Google Ads Search Terms Audit Prompt

> Paste your search terms report and get a structured leak audit: wasted-spend buckets, a ready-to-upload negative keyword list, and the high-intent queries you should promote to exact match.

## ⚡ What it does

Broad match and Performance Max quietly bleed budget into queries that will never convert — and nobody has time to read a 5,000-row search terms report line by line. This prompt turns the raw export into four clean buckets (irrelevant, competitor, research-intent, high-intent unbid) and outputs actions you can apply the same day: negatives to add, exact-match candidates to split out, and match-type fixes.

## 🎯 When I use it (real scenario)

This is the first thing I run when auditing or taking over any Google Ads account — before touching bids, budgets, or creatives. The classic pattern: broad match campaigns matching against queries that are one or two words away from the product but a universe away in intent. The audit compresses what used to be an afternoon of spreadsheet filtering into one prompt run, and the negatives list alone usually pays for the time on day one.

## 📋 The Prompt