Search Terms Ninja turns search-term review into a fast, one-card-at-a-time flow: you see a single search term, decide what to do with it, and move on. It works on every plan — you just need an account that has finished its first sync.
Open it from the left navigation: next to Search Terms, click the 🥷 icon, or go straight to /dashboard/search-terms-ninja.
The card
Each search term is a flip card, with an “X of Y” counter so you always know how far through the deck you are.
- Front — the term plus its performance for the date range you picked: impressions, clicks, conversions, cost, avg CPC, conversion rate, and cost/conversion, along with any recommendation or policy badge.
- Back — where the term sits in your account (campaign / ad group / matched keyword), the ratios (CTR, CPC, conversion rate, cost per conversion), when it was last seen, and longer-range history.
Flip the card any time to see the back — Space on desktop, double-tap on mobile.
The three decisions
For each term you’ll do one of these.
Block it (add as a negative)
If the term is irrelevant or wasteful, Block it. By default it’s added as an Exact-match negative at the ad-group level. Press and hold Block (or use the on-screen button) to open the options:
- Ad Group Level — Block for: [ad group]
- Campaign Level — Block for entire campaign: [campaign]
- Match type — Broad, Phrase, or Exact (default).
Add it as a keyword
If the term is a query you should be bidding on, Add keyword. Hold the button to choose:
- Add to an existing ad group — Add to: [ad group]
- Create a new ad group — creates a new ad group for the term and, so the two don’t compete, automatically adds the term as an Exact negative to the original ad group.
- Match type — Broad, Phrase, or Exact (default Exact).
Skip or Hide it
- Skip just moves to the next term without doing anything.
- Hide removes it from your deck: Hide now (you’ll see it again later), Hide & don’t show today (back tomorrow), or Hide & don’t show ever (permanent). Tick Remember my choice to skip the prompt next time.
Nothing is sent to Google Ads yet — every Block and Add is staged in a queue first (see Your queue below).
On desktop: buttons and keyboard
Action buttons sit on the left of the card (Block, Skip, Hide) and the right (Add keyword, Flip, Undo), with Prev / Next and the counter in the middle. If you’d rather use the keyboard:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← | Block (add as negative) |
| → | Add as keyword |
| ↑ | Next term |
| ↓ | Previous term |
| Space | Flip the card |
| S | Skip |
| H | Hide |
| U | Undo last action |
Press and hold Block or Add keyword to open the options dialog (level, ad group, match type) instead of using the default.
On mobile: swipe
Turn on swipe in Settings (the gear icon), then flick the card:
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| Swipe left | Block term |
| Swipe right | Add keyword |
| Swipe up | Next term |
| Swipe down | Previous term |
| Double-tap | Flip the card |
The card shows directional hints — Block term, Add keyword, Next, Prev — and a Double tap to flip hint. The same on-screen Block / Skip / Hide / Add buttons are there too if you’d rather tap than swipe.
Your queue — review, then apply
Every Block and Add goes into the Queue (shown as [n] changes). Nothing reaches Google Ads until you apply it, so you can review a whole session first:
- Undo — reverse your last action and put the term back in the deck.
- View — see everything you’ve staged.
- Clear — empty the queue (or just the failed items).
- Execute — send the queue to Google Ads.
When you Execute, the changes are applied in the background — you’ll get a confirmation with a rough time estimate, and you don’t have to wait on the page. Successful items leave the queue; anything that fails stays put with the reason, so you can fix it and retry. The queue is saved in your browser, so a refresh won’t lose it.
Choose your date range, sort, and filters
- Date range — Today, Yesterday→Today, Last 3 / 7 / 14 / 30 days, or a custom range (default: last 30 days).
- Filter breadcrumb at the top scopes the deck to specific accounts, campaigns, or ad groups.
- Filter & sort (the filter icon) — sort by conversions, clicks, cost, impressions, avg CPC, conversion rate, or cost/conversion; pick the sort period (current / 30d / 365d); and filter by status (None / Added / Excluded / both) or by performance thresholds (clicks, conversions, impressions, cost, each with ≥ / ≤ / =).
Tip: sort by Cost ↓ to clear your most expensive wasted terms first.
Terms that can’t be added
If a term violates a Google Ads policy, the card shows a “Can’t add — [policy]” badge and you won’t be able to add it as a keyword. You can still Block it as a negative. Policy status is checked up front, so you don’t waste a click finding out.
Earn your belt
Reviewing is gamified to keep you moving:
- A session strip tracks Reviewed, Blocked, Added, and Est. saved.
- A belt chip shows your rank and points — White → Yellow → Green → Blue → Brown → Black belt — with a progress bar to the next belt and a streak (today’s points, current streak, and your best).
- Make several decisions quickly in a row and a combo multiplier pops up.
It’s purely for motivation — it never changes what happens to your account.
Prefer a spreadsheet view?
Click Table view at the top of the page to switch to the classic table at /dashboard/search_terms, where you can sort and scan everything at once. The actions are the same; only the layout differs.