To estimate what clicks with no buying intent cost you, multiply your monthly Google Ads budget by the share of your spend that goes to informational, job, tutorial or 'free' searches. You read that share in your own search terms report: no average can replace it. The calculator turns it into a monthly amount, a yearly amount and the number of clicks involved.
Calculator: monthly budget × share of clicks with no buying intent = budget spent on clicks that cannot convert. Turn on JavaScript to run it with your own numbers.
Key takeaway: Every percentage point with no buying intent is budget paid for clicks that cannot convert: measure it, exclude those searches, then sort your next keywords before you pay for the click.
In Google Ads, select Campaigns in the left navigation panel, then Search terms in the Insights and reports sub-menu. Pick a full period, such as one month, and the campaign you want to review.
Use the download button to export the report to a spreadsheet. Keep at least the search term, clicks, cost and conversions.
Give each row one label: buying, no buying intent, or to check. A term that has already converted goes in the buying column.
Add up the cost of the no-buying-intent terms and divide it by the total cost of the listed terms. The result, as a percentage, is the share to enter in the calculator.
Enter your monthly budget, your average CPC and that share. Run it again with the terms to check added in: you get a low estimate and a high estimate.
The core calculation is a single multiplication: your monthly budget times the share of your spend that goes to searches with no buying intent. The result is what you pay each month for those clicks. Multiplied by twelve, it gives you a yearly order of magnitude. Divided by your average cost per click, it gives the number of clicks involved, meaning the number of visits from people who came looking for something other than your offer.
Average cost per click and conversion rate are both in your Google Ads account. Google defines average CPC as the total cost of your clicks divided by the number of clicks, and conversion rate as conversions divided by interactions. Take both over the same period as your search terms report. If you track several conversion actions, Google's conversion rate definition notes that the rate can go above 100%, because several conversions can be counted for a single click: use the rate of the action that really matters, such as a sale or a demo request.
The two optional fields measure what you lose, on top of what you pay. With your conversion rate, the calculator estimates how many conversions that budget would bring in each month if it went to clicks that can convert: clicks involved times conversion rate. Add the average value of a conversion, and it turns those conversions into value per month. This simplifying assumption keeps the same conversion rate and the same cost per click; its limits are covered at the end of this page.
You work out the share in the search terms report, which lists the real searches that triggered your ads. According to Google Ads Help, you get there by selecting Campaigns in the left navigation panel, then Search terms in the Insights and reports sub-menu. Google spells out the difference: a keyword is what you target, a search term is what the person actually typed.
The number to enter is a share of cost, so work it out from the Cost column. Cost per click varies from one term to the next, so 15% of your clicks is not necessarily 15% of your spend. Add up the cost of the terms you label as having no buying intent, divide by the total cost of the listed terms, and you have the percentage the calculator expects.
The report does not show every search, so your result stays an estimate. Google says some search terms without enough query activity are left out of the report to meet its data privacy standards. Your share is therefore based on the visible terms. Nothing says the hidden terms split the same way, so treat the result as an order of magnitude.
Run the calculation campaign by campaign when your campaigns sell different things. The search 'how to make an invoice' is not worth the same to a campaign that sells software and to one that sells an invoicing course.
Count a search term when the person who typed it cannot buy what you sell from that search. The most reliable test is still the term's Google results page. If it is full of definitions, tutorials or job listings, Google has understood that people want something other than a purchase. Take a US invoicing software company that sells to small businesses and freelancers. Here are the groups of terms it would count.
Search terms that carry a buying signal stay out of the calculation. Searches like 'invoicing software pricing', 'best invoicing software for freelancers' or 'invoicing software free trial' come from people choosing a tool. Words like pricing, cost, reviews, compare, trial or quote, next to what you sell, usually point to a buying search. If they convert poorly, look for the cause in the ad or the landing page: this calculation does not measure it.
An informational search can convert, depending on what you sell. For a training school, 'how to become a bookkeeper' can be a future student's very first search. For software with a free plan, 'free invoicing software' is a buying search, since the product answers exactly what was asked. The same query is waste for one advertiser and a possible customer for another.
Your own conversions come before your gut feeling. Show the Conversions column in the report: a term that has already converted does not count, even if it reads like a question. On the other hand, a term with three clicks and no conversion proves nothing. Look at its results page before you label it.
Keep a 'to check' column for ambiguous terms. A search like 'invoice for contractors' can come from someone looking for a template, a rule or software. Count those terms separately, then run the calculator twice, with and without them. You get a low estimate and a high estimate, which is more honest than a single number.
Searches on your own brand need separate handling. A search like '[your brand] login' usually comes from an existing customer. That click brings no new sale, but no longer showing an ad on those searches can leave room for other advertisers. Take them out of the calculation and decide based on your brand strategy.
The monthly amount is what you pay today for visits from people who wanted something else. It is not a guaranteed saving. Part of it comes back when you exclude those terms. Another part will return in new forms as long as your keywords stay on broad match: the report will surface other terms of the same kind.
An example shows the calculation without talking about money. Picture a month in which our software company's account pays for 1,200 clicks. Sorting the report puts 210 clicks in the no-buying-intent group, which is 17.5% of clicks. Those terms cost less per click than the account average, so they make up only 15% of the Cost column. The share to enter is 15%. With the month's spend as the budget and the account's average CPC, the calculator will then show 180 clicks involved out of 1,200, a little less than the real 210.
With the optional fields, the same example gives an order of magnitude for lost conversions. If the account converts 3% of its clicks, those 180 clicks, moved to searches that can convert, would bring in about 5.4 more conversions a month. Multiplied by the average value of a conversion, they give what the calculator shows as the possible gain.
Then compare that number with your other projects. If the share is small, the gain is probably elsewhere: the ad copy, the landing page or the bidding strategy. If it is large, keyword selection comes first, and our guide on how to choose Google Ads keywords walks through the method from the start. There is no official threshold: your budget and your margin decide what is acceptable.
The first move happens in the report itself: exclude the search terms with no buying intent. Check the boxes next to those terms, then click 'Add as negative keyword' to add them to an ad group, a campaign or a negative keyword list, as described in Google Ads Help on negative keyword ideas. By default, each term is added as an exact match negative keyword. When you can, exclude the word that carries the intent instead: in its article on the search terms report, Google's example is an eyeglasses seller who sees 'wine glasses' trigger the ads and adds 'wine' as a negative keyword.
A negative keyword does not cover its variants, so add them yourself. According to Google's page on negative keywords, negative keywords do not match close variants. You need to add synonyms and singular or plural forms yourself, for example 'job', 'jobs' and 'hiring'. Google also warns that with too many negative keywords, your ads might reach fewer customers. Our comparison of negative keyword tools helps organize that work.
Next, tighten the match type of the keywords that attract those searches. The report's Keyword column, hidden by default, shows which of your keywords matched each search term. Google says broad match can show ads on searches related to your keyword, including searches that do not contain its direct meaning. A broad match keyword like 'invoicing software' can end up on 'how to make an invoice'. Of the three options, exact match gives you the most control over who sees your ad, but it reaches fewer searches, according to the page on keyword matching options.
The cheapest option is still to decide before you pay for the first click. The report measures waste you have already paid for. Should I Bid's intent analysis reads the Google results page for each keyword before launch, compares it with what your company sells, and returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100. Each analysis also recommends negative keywords, ready to export as a CSV file for Google Ads. If you are starting from scratch, Vision generates keyword ideas from a product or a URL, then sends them to analysis.
Should I Bid can also sort the report's search terms for you; the amount itself is worked out on this page. It does not connect to your Google Ads account and does not calculate this waste: the calculation on this page runs on your own numbers. You can, however, import your search terms report export: each term gets a verdict, and the ones marked Skip become exact match negative keywords. It does not do backlinks, organic rank tracking or technical SEO audits. It works with credits, one credit per keyword or search term analyzed, with free analyses to try it and no credit card: see pricing. For the full method, read our guide to reducing wasted Google Ads spend.
Run the calculation again a month after your changes. If the negatives did their job, the no-buying-intent share goes down. If it goes back up, look for the new terms that appeared and the keyword that triggers them. Before you add a keyword, go back to our method: should you bid on this keyword?
The calculator simplifies, and each assumption can push the result either way. The result helps you decide where to look first. It does not predict your revenue. Keep the following assumptions in mind when you read the number.
| Tool | Starting price | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Should I Bid | Per credit (see Pricing page) | Per credit (1 credit = 1 keyword analyzed). 5 free analyses to try, no credit card, then paid subscription plans with no commitment and credits renewed every month. Plans described on the Pricing page. | Source |
Prices verified on . Public prices observed on the vendors’ websites on the date shown. They may have changed since: the source prevails.
Multiply your monthly budget by the share of your spend that goes to searches with no buying intent. You work out that share in the search terms report: add up the cost of informational, job, tutorial or 'free' terms, then divide by the total cost of the listed terms. Multiply by twelve for the year, and divide by your average CPC to get the number of clicks involved.
In your Google Ads account, select Campaigns in the left navigation panel, then Search terms in the Insights and reports sub-menu. The report lists the real searches that triggered your ads, with their clicks, cost and conversions. The download button lets you export it to a spreadsheet so you can label the terms one by one.
The ones from which the person cannot buy what you sell: definitions, how-to questions, tutorials, job listings and salaries, courses, free templates when you have no free plan, and logins to another tool. Keep out of the calculation the terms that have already converted for you and the ones that carry a buying signal, such as pricing, reviews, compare or trial.
Google leaves some search terms without enough query activity out of the report, to meet its data privacy standards. The calculation is therefore based on the visible terms, and nothing guarantees that the hidden terms split the same way. That is why the calculator gives an estimate, to be read as an order of magnitude rather than an exact figure.
No. An informational search can convert depending on your offer: 'how to become a bookkeeper' can bring a future student to a training school, and 'free invoicing software' is a buying search for a tool with a free plan. Check the Conversions column and the term's results page before you exclude it, and keep doubtful cases in a separate column.
Not the amount: Should I Bid does not connect to your Google Ads account, and this calculation runs on your own numbers. It can do the sorting, though. Import your search terms report export: it reads the Google results page for each term, returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100, and the terms to skip become negative keywords you can export for Google Ads. Each term analyzed uses one credit; free analyses let you try it, with no credit card.