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How Do I Create a Filter Rule avoiding specific Keywords?
How Do I Create a Filter Rule avoiding specific Keywords?
Karin Hollstein avatar
Written by Karin Hollstein
Updated over a week ago

How Do I Create a Filter Rule avoiding specific Keywords?

Creating a Filter Rule to Ignore Keywords: Step-by-Step Guide

In this step-by-step guide, I will walk you through the process of creating a filter using the Rules feature in the Criterion Hub. Filter rules are especially handy when you want to ignore certain keywords – like your competitor’s brand name.

Like this you can enhance your keyword management strategy and ensure that only the desired keywords make their way into your account.

To demonstrate how to create a filter rule, I will use a real-life example that you can adopt for your own use: create a filter rule that ignores competitor’s brand name keywords and does not suggest them as possible criteria for your account.

Let's get started:

❌Careful: Ignore does not mean excluded, it means that specified keywords will not be suggested. Do not mix it up with actual exclusions which are negative additions.

Step 1: Open Rules Advanced Mode and Start the Rule Creation Process

1. Log in to your Adspert account, hover over the Criterion Hub icon and select Rules. If your Rules Mode is Simplified, first switch to Rules Advanced Mode. Then navigate to the level of the Rules table where you want to create the rule (platform, account, campaign, or ad group).

2. Locate the entity for which you wish to set up the rule. From the Manage column, click “...” icon and select "Add/Edit Rule". .

If you’re on the Platform level and click Add/Edit Rule, you’ll land directly on the edit screen.

On every other level, you first need to choose between two different options:

  • Duplicate & Edit Rule or only Edit Rule

  • Add New Rule

Where is the difference? In your starting point.

  • If you want to start with a clean slate, choose “Add New Rule”.

  • If you would only like to change a few aspects, like destination or a match type, then choose “Duplicate & Edit Rule” or “Edit Rule”. This will save you some time so you don’t need to build a rule from scratch and can only modify certain parts of it.

Step 2: Enable Filter Rule

3. Click the "Enable Filter Rule" option. This allows you to create a filter rule. Let’s create a filter rule that ignores adding specified keywords. To better demonstrate this real-life example, I will use made up brand names. Our brand name is Red Pants. Competitor’s brand name is Blue Jeans. Our goal is to create a filter rule that ignores suggesting keywords containing the competitor’s brand name: Blue Jeans.

Step 3: Create a Sub Rule to Set Up the Filter

4. Under Sub Rule #1 and the “Filters” section, choose the appropriate “Filter type”. For this practical example purpose, select "Keyword".

5. Next, define the “Filter operation”. Select "Does not contain" from the drop down menu. This will ensure that specified keywords will be ignored. In this example, we want to ignore keywords containing the competitor’s brand name: Blue Jeans.

6. Under "Filter values," type or copy-paste in the keywords you want to ignore. If you're ignoring multiple keywords, hit "Enter" key after each word or set of words.

Besides “Enter” also commas, semi-colons or breaks act the same way.

So for our example, I would type in “Blue Jeans, Blue Jeans pants, Blue Jeans trousers”.

Step 4: Select the Action

7. Choose the action you want to take for the filtered keywords. In this case, select "Ignore" to indicate that any keywords matching the filter criteria should be ignored and not added to your account.

To repeat, in this example we want Adspert to ignore suggesting keywords containing competitor’s brand name “Blue Jeans”.

Step 5: Edit the Catch All Sub Rule

8. Catch-All Sub Rule catches everything else that does not match with the Sub Rule’s filters.

This step allows you to set up additional actions or destinations for the remaining keywords that don't match the filter criteria. Configure this sub rule to best suit your keyword management strategy.

Step 6: Save Your Filter Rule

9. After ensuring all the settings are correct, click the "Save" button. Your filter rule is now active! It will prevent the specified keywords from being added or suggested for review within your account.

In the example we’ve used, specified keywords that contain the competitor’s brand name “Blue Jeans” will be ignored. Adspert will not suggest them for our advertising account that revolves around the brand “Red Pants”.

Completion: Enhanced Keyword Management

Congratulations! You've successfully created a filter rule to ignore specific keywords from being added to your account as positive or negative/exclusion keywords. This refined keyword management approach helps you maintain better control over your keyword strategy and ensures that only relevant keywords contribute to your account's performance.

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