A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ad for a search — and it's the single most overlooked way Singapore property agents stop bleeding budget. Without a negative list, you pay S$5–12 a click for people searching "property agent jobs," "free HDB valuation," or "rent room cheap" who will never become a client. Below is the starter exclusion list every SG agent should add today, and how to find your own money-wasters.
Here's where your ad budget quietly dies: not in one big mistake, but in a hundred S$8 clicks from people who were never going to buy. Someone searching "how to become a property agent" clicks your ad, costs you S$8, and bounces. Multiply that across a month and you've funded a competitor's holiday. Negative keywords are how you turn that tap off.
This is a practical guide — the exclusion list to paste in now, and the routine to keep finding more.
01 What a negative keyword does
When you bid on a keyword like "condo for sale," Google can match your ad to many related searches — including irrelevant ones. A negative keyword blocks specific terms from ever triggering your ad. Add jobs as a negative and you'll never again pay for "property agent jobs." It's pure waste-reduction: you keep the good searches and stop funding the useless ones.
02 The starter negative list for SG agents
Add these as campaign-level negative keywords on day one. They block the most common budget-wasters for property agents.
| Category | Negative keywords to add |
|---|---|
| Job seekers | jobs, career, salary, hiring, recruitment, RES course, RES exam, how to become |
| Freebie hunters | free, cheap, cheapest, budget, low cost |
| DIY / research-only | calculator, valuation tool, guide, meaning, definition, what is |
| Wrong service | rent room, room rental, co-living, hostel, short term |
| Wrong audience | commercial, industrial, factory, warehouse (if you only do residential) |
| Education / news | news, forum, reddit, review, complaints, scam |
Tailor it to your niche
If you only sell condos, add hdb and landed as negatives. If you only do resale, add new launch. The starter list stops the obvious waste; your niche list stops the expensive near-misses.
03 How to find your own waste
The starter list is generic; your real money-wasters hide in your search terms report — the list of actual queries that triggered your ads. Most agents never open it. Here's the weekly habit:
- In Google Ads, go to your campaign and open
Search terms. - Sort by cost. Scan the top spenders for anything irrelevant to a ready buyer.
- Add each irrelevant term as a negative keyword. Done weekly, this compounds fast.
Within a few weeks you'll have a custom negative list worth more than any template — because it's built from your actual wasted spend.
04 Match types matter
Negative keywords have match types too, and getting them wrong either blocks too much or too little.
| Match type | Blocks | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Broad (default) | Searches containing all the words, any order | Most cases — safe default |
| Phrase ("term") | Searches with the exact phrase | Specific unwanted phrases |
| Exact ([term]) | Only that exact search | Surgical exclusions you don't want over-blocking |
Be careful not to negate a word that also appears in good searches. Blocking rent broadly would also kill "for sale near rental hotspots" — use phrase or exact match when a word is double-edged.
05 The payoff
Negative keywords don't get you more leads directly — they make every dollar buy more of the right ones. By cutting irrelevant clicks, you lower your cost per qualified lead and, because your ads now show to more relevant searchers, you often lift Quality Score too, which lowers your CPC further. It compounds.
This is one piece of a larger fix. For the full picture of why paid campaigns leak, read the $2,000 Google Ads mistake, and to size your spend correctly see the budget-by-tier guide.
Free Google Ads teardown
Send us your search terms report (or grant view access) and we'll send back a tailored negative keyword list plus the top three terms quietly draining your budget right now.
Request a free teardown →
