Why epoxy Google Ads leads are junk: the negative-keyword list
Most "Google Ads doesn't work for epoxy" stories are really a search-terms story. The word epoxy belongs to kit shoppers, river-table hobbyists, and countertop DIYers before it belongs to you. Here are the searches that eat a coating contractor's budget, the negative-keyword list that cuts them, and what a real account's search-terms report looks like after 46 days.
By Setline Digital · Published September 2, 2026
Skip to the list ↓Where junk epoxy leads come from
Google matches your ads to what people type, and "epoxy" is one of the broadest words in home improvement. Semrush puts epoxy resin alone at about 33,100 US searches a month, epoxy countertops at 12,100, and epoxy floor kit at 6,600. None of those people want to hire you. Left alone, a broad or phrase-match campaign will happily spend on all of them. Seven buckets cover most of it:
DIY-kit shoppers
"garage floor epoxy kit," "do it yourself epoxy floor kits." They want a box from a store, not an installer.
Paint and retail products
"epoxy floor paint," "rustoleum garage floor epoxy," "home depot." Product research, price-checking, weekend projects.
Resin art and crafts
"epoxy resin art," "river table," "resin molds," tumblers, jewelry. Hobby traffic, and a lot of it.
Countertops and tabletops
"epoxy countertops," "stone coat countertop." A different trade with a different buyer.
Non-floor uses
glue, wood filler, grout, foundation crack repair, boats, pools, bathtubs. Epoxy the material, not epoxy the floor.
Jobs, training, suppliers
"epoxy flooring business," careers, certification, franchise, wholesale. People who want to be you, not hire you.
Out of area
the neighboring city you don't serve. Not a keyword problem, a location-settings problem, and it burns budget just the same.
The cure is boring: a negative-keyword list applied before the first dollar, and a weekly look at the search-terms report to extend it. Below is the list, then the report.
The list
Grouped so you can paste a bucket at a time. Volumes in section 01 and 05 are Semrush US estimates (monthly, pulled September 2026); the list itself is keyword research, not a rule. Skip any line that describes work you actually sell.
kit, kits, diy, "do it yourself", yourself, "how to", tutorial, instructions, video, youtube, reddit
Catches epoxy floor kit (6,600/mo), garage floor epoxy kit (5,400), do it yourself epoxy floor kits (880), how to epoxy garage floor (1,900).
paint, paints, rustoleum, "rust oleum", "rust-oleum", "home depot", lowes, "lowe's", "harbor freight", amazon, walmart, menards, sherwin, behr, valspar, kilz, questmark, armorpoxy, "stone coat", totalboat, artresin
Catches epoxy floor paint (8,100), epoxy garage floor paint (2,900), rustoleum garage floor epoxy (1,300). Add the brands your own report shows.
art, arts, craft, crafts, mold, molds, mould, casting, "river table", tumbler, tumblers, jewelry, coaster, coasters, "cutting board", pigment, glitter, "deep pour", "clear cast"
Catches epoxy resin art (2,900), epoxy resin molds (1,900), epoxy resin crafts (1,900). Do not blanket-negate "resin": epoxy resin floor (2,400) and epoxy resin flooring (1,300) are people describing your product.
countertop, countertops, counter, counters, "table top", tabletop, table, tables, "bar top", desk, "kitchen island"
Catches epoxy countertops (12,100), epoxy countertop kit (1,900), epoxy resin table (2,900).
glue, adhesive, filler, putty, grout, anchor, anchors, "crack repair", "crack filler", boat, boats, marine, pool, tub, bathtub, shower, sink, wood, plastic, metal, fiberglass, jewelry
Catches epoxy resin glue (2,400), epoxy resin wood filler (1,300), foundation crack repair kits. Keep "pool deck" and "patio" if you coat them.
job, jobs, career, careers, hiring, salary, resume, training, certification, certified, course, class, classes, school, franchise, "start a", "business plan", supplier, suppliers, wholesale, distributor, manufacturer
No volumes pulled for this bucket; it shows up in every contractor account's search-terms report.
cheap, cheapest, free, "price list", calculator
Leave "cost" and "how much" alone if you sell the estimate. Epoxy garage floor cost (3,600) and cost to install epoxy garage floor (2,400) are homeowners deciding whether to call. Cheap and free are not.
What a real search-terms report looks like
This is our own account: Lakebound Marine, our founder's marine flooring company in Knoxville. Boats, not garages. We use it because it is the account we can show in full, and because the junk pattern is identical to a coating account with the nouns swapped. Google Ads went live July 18, 2026; this covers July 18 through September 2 (46 days).
| Month | Unique terms | Clicks | Cost | Tracked leads | Added as keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 18–31 | 187 | 30 | $91.56 | 2 | 12 |
| August | 295 | 102 | $410.74 | 5 | 23 |
| Sept 1–2 | 26 | 5 | $18.10 | 0 | 4 |
Search-terms rows only carry the clicks and leads Google attributes to a visible term, so they run lower than the campaign totals. Campaign totals are on the SEO vs Google Ads page.
The terms that produced leads (August)
| Search term | Clicks | Cost | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|
| eva foam boat flooring | 5 | $19.15 | 1 |
| boat flooring | 3 | $11.33 | 1 |
| gator step boat flooring | 2 | $7.94 | 1 |
| custom boat flooring near me | 2 | $7.04 | 1 |
| boat eva foam | 1 | $3.98 | 1 |
Every one of them is someone describing a finished floor on their own boat. The coating equivalents are "garage floor coating near me," "polyaspartic floor coating [city]," "epoxy garage floor contractors."
The terms that spent and produced nothing (August, two or more clicks)
| Search term | Clicks | Cost | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|
| non slip boat decking | 2 | $23.76 | 0 |
| sea deck | 5 | $18.34 | 0 |
| flooring for pontoon boat | 3 | $11.82 | 0 |
| boat carpet | 3 | $11.38 | 0 |
| seadek flooring | 3 | $11.11 | 0 |
| boat rug runners | 2 | $7.96 | 0 |
| pre cut carpet for boats | 2 | $7.96 | 0 |
| seadek boat flooring | 2 | $7.91 | 0 |
| outdoor boat carpet | 2 | $7.90 | 0 |
Read the losers again. "Pre cut carpet for boats" and "boat rug runners" are product shoppers. "Sea deck" and "seadek flooring" are people searching a material brand. Those are the marine versions of "garage floor epoxy kit" and "rustoleum." Another 53 August terms took exactly one click each and went nowhere, which is what the long tail of a broad word looks like. 295 unique terms in one month, five carried the leads.
The negatives actually in the account
Fifty-three, all campaign-level, read straight from the account on September 2, 2026. Read them as buckets, not as a list to copy: swap the nouns and you have a coating account.
adhesive, amazon, basement, by the foot, camper, canoe, cleaner, cleaning, diy, ebay, "ez roll", for sale, garage, glue, hiring, home, home depot, how to, install yourself, jobs, kayak, lowes, "mat", "mats", paddle board, "pre cut", rental, rolls, "rug", "rugs", rv, trailer, truck, used, walmart
Product and retail shoppers (amazon, ebay, walmart, home depot, lowes, for sale, used, by the foot, rolls, pre cut, mat, rug, ez roll). DIY (diy, how to, install yourself, glue, adhesive, cleaner, cleaning). The wrong vehicle (camper, rv, truck, trailer, canoe, kayak, paddle board). The wrong space (garage, basement, home). Jobs (hiring, jobs). Rental.
"dock", "docks", "ez roll", "golf cart", "golf carts", "jet ski", "jetski", "kayak", "paddle board", "paddleboard", "pwc", "rug", "rugs", "sea doo", "seadoo", "surf", "surfboard", "waverunner"
Same idea, tighter: everything that floats and isn't a boat, plus docks and golf carts.
Two honest caveats. Marine terms are not epoxy terms, so the list in section 02 is research plus this pattern; the account's own negatives are above, nouns and all. And Google shows you only the terms with enough volume to display, so some of the spend is always invisible.
How to add them
- Account-level first. Put the universal buckets (DIY, retail, crafts, countertops, jobs) in a shared negative list under Tools → Shared library → Exclusion lists, and apply it to every search campaign. One list, edited once.
- Campaign-level for the judgment calls. "Pool," "patio," "commercial," and "cost" depend on what you sell. Keep those on the campaign so a second campaign can make a different call.
- Phrase match for negatives, most of the time. A phrase negative like "epoxy kit" blocks any search containing that phrase in that order. Exact-match negatives are for one-off oddities; broad-match negatives don't exist in Google Ads the way people assume, so don't count on them.
- Plurals and misspellings count separately. "kit" does not block "kits." Add both. Add "rustoleum" and "rust oleum."
- Fix the location setting. Campaign settings → Locations → "Presence: people in or regularly in your targeted locations," never "presence or interest." That one toggle is most of the out-of-area waste.
- Weekly, five minutes. Open the search-terms report sorted by cost, mark anything with clicks and no lead that isn't installer intent, extend the list. The list above is a starting point; your own report is the real one.
What not to negate
The mistake in the other direction is cutting the people who want to hire you. Leave these alone:
- "near me." Epoxy flooring near me (9,900/mo), epoxy garage floor near me (2,400), epoxy flooring companies near me (3,600). That is the buyer.
- contractors, installers, companies, services. Epoxy garage floor coating contractors (1,600), epoxy floor installers (2,900). Bid on them.
- polyaspartic and polyurea. Polyaspartic floor coating (9,900), polyaspartic garage floor coating (3,600), polyaspartic floor coating near me (1,300). Homeowners have learned the word; the "polyaspartic vs epoxy" (1,600) crowd is deciding, and you can be the one who answers.
- cost and how much, if you sell the estimate. Epoxy garage floor cost (3,600) is a homeowner deciding whether to call. Answer it on the landing page and take the call.
- commercial and industrial, if you do them. Commercial epoxy flooring (4,400). Cut it only if you're residential-only.
Common questions
Should I negate "cost" and "price"?+
Not by default. Cost searches are late-stage homeowners deciding whether to call. Negate "cheap," "cheapest," and "free," and keep "cost" and "how much" unless your own report shows them never booking.
Phrase or exact match for negative keywords?+
Phrase for almost everything on this list. Exact only for a specific oddity you want to block without catching its neighbors. Remember negatives don't expand to close variants the way positive keywords do, so add plurals and common misspellings yourself.
How often should I check the search-terms report?+
Weekly for the first two months, then every two weeks. Sort by cost, look at anything with clicks and no lead, ask whether that person wanted an installer. Five minutes.
Who owns the website and the ad account if I cancel?+
You do — 100%. The website, the domain, the Google Ads account, the tracking number, and every lead in them are yours from day one, in your name. If you ever leave, all of it transfers with you and nothing gets switched off or held. Month-to-month, no long contract, and it's in writing before you sign.