# Search terms and wasted spend

> See what people searched before your ads showed, find the searches and keywords that cost money without conversions, and exclude them as negative keywords.

Open **Search terms** in the sidebar of your workspace. It shows what people typed before one of your Google Ads or Microsoft Ads ads showed (ChatGPT Ads has no search terms or keywords), per ad group, over the last 7, 30 or 90 complete days, with what each search cost and brought in. The data is as fresh as the account's last sync (**Sync now** on the [Ad accounts](/docs/ad-accounts) page updates it).

## Finding searches

- Pick the **period** with the switch, and an **ad account** and a **campaign** from their menus (the campaign menu lists the current campaigns of the chosen account). You can also open **Search terms** from the [Campaigns](/docs/campaigns) page to start on that account or campaign.
- **Search** narrows the list to searches containing your text.
- Searches are sorted by spend, largest first. An **Excluded** badge means you already excluded this exact search through Roasby.
- Searches that cost money without a conversion can carry an AI label: **Irrelevant** (red), **Competitor** (amber), **Brand** (blue) or **Relevant** (green). Confidently irrelevant ones show up on the [Recommendations](/docs/recommendations) page.

## Wasted spend

The **Wasted spend** tab shows the money spent without any conversion in the period:

- the total spent on searches without conversions, one card per currency (amounts are never converted between currencies);
- the costliest **searches** without conversions that are not excluded yet;
- the costliest **keywords** without conversions, which you can pause on the Campaigns page.

A search you excluded directly in Google Ads or Microsoft Ads can still show here until it stops costing money. Excluding it again in Roasby is harmless: existing negative keywords are left as they are.

## Excluding a search

**Exclude** on a search adds it as a negative keyword: choose **From the campaign** or **From the ad group**. To exclude several searches at once, tick them (all from one campaign) and choose **Exclude selected**; **From the ad group** shows when they are all in one ad group. You can edit the list and choose the match type before you confirm. Like every change, it goes through the [safety model](/docs/safety-model) and the [change log](/docs/change-log), where reverting it takes away exactly the negative keywords it added.

## Ask your AI assistant

**Ask your AI** at the top of the page gives you a ready prompt: find the wasted search terms in your workspace and suggest negative keywords. **Copy prompt** copies it; **Ask Claude** and **Ask ChatGPT** open a new chat with the prompt typed in. The prompt names only your workspace: your assistant reads the searches through Roasby and shows you any change before it makes it.

Your assistant reads the same data with `get_search_terms` and `find_wasted_spend`, then suggests negative keywords and is told to add them only after you confirm (`preview_add_negative_keywords`, then `add_negative_keywords`). Try *"Find the search terms that wasted money last month and suggest negative keywords"*. `list_recommendations` returns the exclusions Roasby already suggests.

Roasby also copies the negative keywords set directly on campaigns and ad groups in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads when it syncs them, at most about twice a day (once a day in workspaces that sync less often), and leaves those searches out of Wasted spend and recommendations. Shared negative keyword lists are not read.

## Limitations

- ChatGPT Ads has no search terms or keywords, so it doesn't appear here.
- Ad platforms leave out searches too rare to report. Your assistant gets that spend as **other search terms** (the search campaigns' spend no listed search shows), so wasted spend may be larger than the listed searches.
- The data is as fresh as the account's last sync.
- Shared negative keyword lists are not read, so searches they exclude can still show here.
- Up to 100 negative keywords in one change. Broad match negative keywords are Google Ads only.
- Search terms show what people searched for your ads; for keywords you don't advertise on yet, ask your assistant for [keyword research](/docs/keyword-research).

See every limit by platform on [Limitations](/docs/limitations).