Keyword Planning Worksheet template.

What's inside — the exact file

This is the complete template, not a sample. The rows are worked examples — replace them with your data (and delete them before any platform import).

What this template is for

Keyword lists fail when they're just lists — a hundred terms with no intent classification, no funnel position, and no landing page decision, dumped into one ad group. This worksheet forces the four decisions that make a keyword plan executable: what the searcher wants, where they are in the funnel, which page they land on, and which match types to run.

The pre-filled rows model the buy/compare/learn split for a single product area, because that's the pattern most plans need: transactional terms get the money pages and exact match, comparison terms get versus-content, informational terms get guides — each with budgets and expectations to match.

How to use it, step by step

1. Brainstorm wide, then classify hard. Collect candidates from search term reports, competitor research, and sales-call language. The classification into intent and funnel stage is the actual planning — a keyword you can't classify is one you don't understand yet.
2. Name the intent honestly. 'CRM software' is ambiguous; 'buy crm' is transactional; 'what is a crm' is informational. Ambiguous terms deserve their own row and a cautious match-type plan, not optimistic labeling.
3. Assign a destination page per keyword. Every keyword lands somewhere specific — transactional to conversion pages, comparisons to comparison content, informational to guides. A keyword without a right page is a content gap, and the worksheet just found it.
4. Choose match types per keyword, not per account. Exact for proven converters and expensive terms; phrase for controlled discovery. The match_types_to_run column is where budget discipline is actually decided.
5. Group into ad groups by theme and intent. Keywords sharing a row-theme and destination page become an ad group with genuinely relevant ads. Mixed-intent ad groups produce generic ads that convert nobody.
6. Revisit with search-term data monthly. New discoveries from the search terms report enter the worksheet, get classified, and earn their match types — the plan stays a living document instead of a launch artifact.

What each column means

Common mistakes to avoid

• Bidding transactional budgets on informational keywords and concluding search 'doesn't work' when guides don't convert like money pages.
• Sending every keyword to the homepage — relevance between search, ad, and landing page is what quality scores and conversion rates are made of.
• Broad match everywhere as the default instead of a deliberate discovery tool with negatives and budget caps around it.
• Planning once at launch and never reclassifying — search language shifts, and last year's transactional term is this year's ambiguous one.

Questions, answered

Should we bid on informational keywords at all?

Sometimes — deliberately. Informational terms build audiences for retargeting and capture early-stage buyers, but they need informational budgets, informational landing pages, and patience. The worksheet's funnel_stage column exists so those expectations are set before the spend, not after.

How many keywords per ad group?

Small and thematic — commonly five to fifteen truly related terms sharing one destination and one ad message. When ads can't speak to every keyword in the group specifically, the group is too broad; split it.

Where does ChatGPT advertising fit into keyword planning?

Prompt-based ad surfaces reward the same intent discipline — understanding what buyers ask and where each question sits in the funnel transfers directly. Teams with a rigorous keyword-intent worksheet adapt to conversational ad platforms fastest; see our ChatGPT advertising guides for how we run both.

This is a Market Disrupt worksheet, not a vendor file. Import-format templates follow each platform's documented layout as of July 2026 — platforms evolve, so validate against current documentation before a large import.