How to Use Optmyzr to Find and Block Wasted Search Spend

The short answer: if the search terms that never converted cost you more than $299 a month, the price of Essentials on the $25K tier per the pricing page checked on 26 October 2026, Optmyzr can earn its fee on this one job; below that, the Google Ads search terms report and a shared negative list do it by hand. Connect only the Google Ads accounts you manage, set a CPA alert, run the default audit, work through the Negative Keyword Finder word by word, upload the negatives to a shared list, let Claude stage further fixes through Optmyzr's MCP for a person to approve, and schedule the pre-built rule for non-converting queries once a week.

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Wasted search spend rarely looks like waste in the platform. It hides in the long tail of a search terms report: hundreds of queries that each cost a little, never converted, and were matched by broad or phrase keywords. This guide does one job with Optmyzr, finding and blocking that spend, and leaves the rest of the product to the Optmyzr glossary entry.

Before you start

Three things, in this order:

1. The ceiling on what this can save. For example, export the last 90 days of search terms from Google Ads and add up the cost of every term with zero conversions. If that sum is $900, a month of Essentials at $299 on the $25K tier, per the pricing page checked on 26 October 2026, is a third of the most you could recover.
2. Admin access and working conversion tracking. The finder judges terms by whether they converted, so broken conversion tracking turns good queries into suggested negatives. Note which shared negative lists you already have.
3. A baseline and a holdout. Write down cost, conversions and cost per conversion for the last 30 days per campaign, and pick one comparable campaign to leave untouched for four weeks.

Step 1: Start the trial and connect only what you manage

The trial is 14 days with no card. Connect Google Ads, Microsoft Ads or Amazon Ads in the onboarding flow, pick up to 10 favourite accounts and set your priorities, as the day one guide describes. If you sign in with a manager (MCC) login, every account under it is connected by default; unlink the extras on the Manage Linked Accounts page.

Step 2: Set one alert before you change anything

The same onboarding lets you set KPI alerts for your favourite accounts on CPA, CPC or ROAS. Set a CPA threshold now. Alerts land in the side tray and by email, and can go to Slack or Microsoft Teams later, so you hear about a bad change before the monthly report does.

Step 3: Run the default audit

Open Audits under Account Health & Audits. The audits article lists four prebuilt account templates: PMax Health Audit, Default Account Audit, Account Structure Audit and Performance Audit. Run the Default Account Audit once by hand and keep the score. Later you can set a template as the primary audit, which then runs daily, and watch the score trend.

Step 4: Read the Negative Keyword Finder word by word

Open the Negative Keyword Finder. Per its user guide, it reads 90 days of search terms, splits them into single words and adds up the data for each. The words appear in bold, with the search terms that contained them underneath, each showing impressions, clicks, CTR, cost, average CPC and conversions. Negatives applied through the tool in the last 14 days are hidden by default.

Read the queries under a word before you judge the word. "Free" under a software brand is a different problem from "free" under a charity.

Step 5: Shortlist with the match type in view

Add the single word, or the whole query, to the shortlist. Both default to phrase match, and you can change the match type or edit the keyword before upload. The bin icon archives a suggestion so it stops coming back.

The finder's FAQ explains why some suggestions look relevant: the tool flags words from queries that did not convert and are not in your keyword list. A relevant word there can be a new theme to target rather than a negative, so treat that list as two lists.

Step 6: Upload to the right list

Click Review And Upload and choose an existing shared negative list, a new one with the campaigns it applies to, or Account Negative for the whole account. Two limits from the FAQ: the Google Ads API does not let Optmyzr write to shared lists at the MCC level, and campaign or ad group negatives go through a different tool, Keyword Lasso.

Step 7: Let Claude find the next batch, and approve it yourself

The agent step. Add the Optmyzr connector from the Claude directory, or add a custom connector with the server URL https://tools.optmyzr.com/OptmyzrMcp and sign in, per the MCP user guide. Then ask it the way the MCP page suggests: find the search terms wasting spend in a named campaign and add the worst offenders as negative keywords.

The agent reads the search terms, maps the negatives already in the account and proposes new ones. Nothing reaches the account yet: the guide says keyword changes are staged as a change request on the Change Requests page, checked against the account's guardrails, and applied by a person on your team. That person is the human check, and the rule for them is simple: open the queries behind each proposed negative, as in step 4, before approving the row.

One data point to settle first. The MCP FAQ says customer match lists in your accounts may be reachable through the MCP, and that what passes through your AI client falls under your agreement with that provider. If your accounts hold customer lists, clear the connection with whoever owns data protection.

Step 8: Make it weekly with a rule

In the Rule Engine, the pre-built strategies include Non-Converting Search Queries for search campaigns on automated bidding, which proposes negatives for queries with a lower CTR than their keyword, or with no conversions despite costing more than the campaign's typical CPA. Preview its suggestions, then automate it weekly. The automation article offers runs in three-hour slots and four options: email notifications (on request), export to a Google Sheet, apply changes, or add to alerts. Start with Add to Alerts, and switch on Apply Changes only after a month of suggestions you would have approved anyway.

Mistakes Optmyzr's own docs flag

• Expecting a schedule in the trial. The trial article lets you build a Rule Engine strategy and run it once, but not schedule it.
• Daily runs on Essentials. Daily automation needs Premium or above; Essentials runs weekly or monthly. Holding daily runs back means an Essentials account that wants the rule every morning pays for the next plan up, and for negatives the weekly run in step 8 is enough.
• Turbo Mode on Microsoft Ads. It lowers the data thresholds to show more terms, and it is not available for Microsoft accounts.
• Expecting suggestions for a new campaign. The finder looks back 90 days, so a campaign with no impressions has nothing to analyse.

A suggestions list is built to produce suggestions, and Turbo Mode exists to fill a short one. On a small or tidy account a short list is the right answer; lower the thresholds only with the cost column in view.

How to know it worked

After four weeks, compare against the baseline: cost on search terms with no conversions, total conversions, and cost per conversion, for the changed campaigns and the holdout. If spend on non-converting terms fell and conversions held in the changed campaigns while the holdout stayed flat, the negatives did their job. The homepage also lists cause charts that show the effect of earlier optimisations, and every change made through Optmyzr is logged on the Optimization History page.

FAQ

How often should I run the Negative Keyword Finder?

Every two weeks fits its own defaults: it reads 90 days and hides what you changed through it in the last 14, per the user guide.

Can I add negatives at campaign or ad group level?

Not from this tool. The FAQ points to Keyword Lasso, whose Turbo Mode shows every search term with even one click.

Will the AI change my account without asking?

No. Changes suggested through the MCP wait as change requests until a person applies them, per the MCP user guide.