Account-level negative keywords

Some searches are wrong for a business everywhere: job seekers, people looking for something free, students after a course. Adding the same negatives to every campaign one by one is slow, and the next campaign created usually misses them.

An account-level list applies once and covers Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns in the account, including the ones created later.

1. Open Admin, then Account settings, then Negative keywords, or search for it in the Google Ads search bar.
2. Add one negative per line, in the match type you mean.
3. Check which campaign types the list applies to in your account.
4. Review it whenever you add a new product or service, in case a word becomes useful.

A heating engineer adds jobs, salary, course and free to the account-level list. Every campaign, including a Performance Max campaign launched later, stops paying for searches like heating engineer jobs or free boiler course.

• Putting brand terms on the list, which also blocks your own brand campaign.
• Using broad match negatives for single common words that appear in good searches too.
• Forgetting the plural: negatives do not match close variants, so job does not block jobs.

The audit checks Oppy runs on this, each with its own page.

• Broad match running with nothing to stop it
• A negative keyword switching off one you chose
• Performance Max with no negative keyword list

• Negative keyword: A word or phrase that stops ads from showing on searches containing it.
• Negative keyword list: A shared list of negative keywords you can attach to several campaigns at once, up to 20 lists per account.
• Brand exclusions: A list of brands a Performance Max or Search campaign must not serve on.