How to Use Negative Keywords in Performance Max: A Step-by-Step Guide

Performance Max campaigns now support negative keywords at the campaign level (as of 2024), giving advertisers more control over where their ads appear. This guide walks you through the exact steps to add negative keywords to Performance Max, from accessing your account-level lists to using the new campaign-level feature. We'll cover when to use each method, what types of negatives work best, and how to monitor your search terms to keep refining your exclusions. Whether you're managing one account or dozens for clients, you'll learn how to stop wasting budget on irrelevant searches—without leaving Google Ads. Let's get into it.

Here's the thing about Performance Max: when it first launched, the lack of negative keyword control drove PPC managers absolutely nuts. You'd see your budget bleeding on "free," "jobs," and "how to" searches with zero way to stop it beyond contacting Google support. That changed in early 2024 when Google finally added campaign-level negative keywords. But even with this update, most advertisers still don't know how to properly implement negatives in Performance Max—or worse, they add them blindly without reviewing their actual search data first.

The process isn't complicated, but it does require a methodical approach. You can't just dump a list of 500 negative keywords into your campaign and call it done. You need to understand what searches are actually triggering your ads, build your negative lists strategically, and monitor performance to avoid accidentally blocking converting terms. In most accounts I audit, I find either zero negative keywords in Performance Max campaigns or massive lists that are blocking potential customers along with the junk.

Let's fix that. This guide will show you exactly how to add negative keywords to Performance Max using both account-level lists and the newer campaign-level feature, so you can take control of your search traffic and stop wasting budget on irrelevant clicks.

Step 1: Review Your Search Terms Report First

Before you add a single negative keyword, you need to know what searches are actually triggering your Performance Max ads. This is where most people mess up. They assume certain terms are irrelevant without checking the data, then accidentally block searches that were converting.

Performance Max doesn't show search terms the same way Search campaigns do. Instead of a traditional Search Terms Report, you'll find search data in the Insights tab of your Performance Max campaign. Navigate to your campaign, click on Insights, and look for search categories and themes. Google groups your search traffic into broader categories rather than showing every individual query, though you'll see more specific terms than when Performance Max first launched.

What usually happens here is you'll spot obvious patterns immediately. In a recent client account selling software, we found search themes like "free project management tools," "project manager salary," and "project management certification" eating up 30% of the budget. None of these searches had any chance of converting because the searchers weren't looking to buy software—they wanted free alternatives, job information, or training.

Export or screenshot your findings so you can reference them when building your negative keyword list. I typically pull this data into a simple spreadsheet with three columns: Search Theme, Impressions, and Why It's Irrelevant. This creates a paper trail for clients and helps you spot patterns across multiple campaigns.

Look for these common red flags in your search themes:

Job seekers: Terms containing "salary," "jobs," "careers," "hiring," "resume," or "interview." These searchers want employment, not your product.

DIY and free searches: Anything with "free," "how to," "DIY," "tutorial," or "guide" typically indicates someone researching, not buying.

Irrelevant industries: If you sell B2B software but see searches for "student," "school," or "homework," those are clear excludes.

Competitor names you don't want: Sometimes you'll see your ads triggering on competitor brand terms you're not intentionally targeting. Decide whether to exclude these or let them run based on your strategy. You can even identify negative keywords from competitor campaigns to inform your exclusion strategy.

The mistake most agencies make is rushing this step. Spend at least 15-20 minutes reviewing your search themes before you start adding negatives. You need enough data to make informed decisions, which usually means waiting until your campaign has at least a few hundred impressions and some conversions to establish a baseline.

Step 2: Create an Account-Level Negative Keyword List

Once you've identified your initial batch of negative keywords, it's time to create an account-level negative keyword list. This is where you'll store negatives that should apply across multiple campaigns, not just your Performance Max setup.

Navigate to Tools & Settings in the top right corner of Google Ads, then go to Shared Library > Negative Keyword Lists. Click the blue plus button to create a new list.

Naming your list matters more than you think, especially if you manage multiple accounts or have team members who need to understand what each list does. I use descriptive names like "PMax Brand Exclusions," "PMax Irrelevant Terms," or "Universal Negatives - All Campaigns." Avoid generic names like "Negative List 1" because you'll forget what it contains three months from now. Learning how to organize negative keywords by theme will save you headaches down the road.

Here's why account-level lists are powerful: they work across multiple campaigns simultaneously. If you add "free" to your account-level negative keyword list and apply that list to three different Performance Max campaigns, all three campaigns will exclude searches containing "free" without you having to manually add it to each one. This is especially useful for agencies managing dozens of client accounts where certain negatives (jobs, salary, careers, free) apply universally.

Start adding your initial batch of negative keywords to the list. I recommend starting with 20-50 negatives based on your search term data—enough to block obvious waste, but not so many that you risk over-excluding. You can always expand the list later as you gather more data.

In most accounts I audit, I find a core set of universal negatives that almost always make sense: free, jobs, careers, salary, resume, DIY, how to, tutorial, course, training, certification, school, student, homework. These terms rarely indicate purchase intent for B2B or e-commerce products. But here's the key: only add these if you've actually seen them in your search data or you're certain they're irrelevant to your business model.

One client selling premium software initially wanted to exclude "cheap" and "affordable" as negatives. After reviewing their search data, we found that "affordable project management software" was actually converting at a decent rate—those searchers weren't looking for the cheapest option, just reasonable pricing. We kept those terms in and saved potential conversions.

Once you've added your negatives, save the list. You're not done yet—the list exists now, but it's not connected to any campaigns until you apply it in the next step.

Step 3: Apply Your Negative Keyword List to Performance Max

Creating a negative keyword list doesn't automatically apply it to your campaigns. You need to manually link it to each Performance Max campaign where you want those exclusions to take effect.

Select your Performance Max campaign from your campaign list, then navigate to Settings in the left sidebar. Scroll down until you find the Negative Keywords section. Click to expand it, and you'll see an option to apply negative keyword lists.

Click Use negative keyword list and select the account-level list you just created from the dropdown menu. You can apply multiple lists to a single campaign if you've organized your negatives into different categories (for example, one list for job-related terms, another for competitor brands, and a third for industry-specific exclusions).

Here's the limitation you need to understand: in the older setup before the 2024 update, you could only use account-level lists for Performance Max campaigns. You couldn't add individual negative keywords directly at the campaign level like you could with Search campaigns. This meant every negative had to live in a shared list first, which was clunky if you wanted campaign-specific exclusions. If you're running multiple campaigns, understanding how to manage negative keywords across multiple campaigns becomes essential.

Verify the list is properly connected before moving on. You should see the name of your negative keyword list displayed in the campaign settings with the number of negatives it contains (for example, "PMax Irrelevant Terms (37 keywords)"). If you don't see it, the list isn't applied, and your ads will still trigger on those searches.

What usually happens here is advertisers create the list but forget to apply it to their campaigns, then wonder why they're still seeing irrelevant traffic. Double-check that the connection is live. You can also apply the same list to multiple Performance Max campaigns in one go by selecting multiple campaigns from your campaign list and using the bulk edit feature to apply negative keyword lists.

Once applied, give it 24-48 hours for the exclusions to fully propagate through Google's system. You won't see an immediate drop in impressions, but over the next few days, your search traffic should shift away from the terms you've blocked.

Step 4: Use Campaign-Level Negative Keywords (The 2024 Update)

This is where things got significantly better for Performance Max advertisers. Google rolled out campaign-level negative keywords in early 2024, ending the previous limitation where you could only use account-level lists. Now you can add individual negative keywords or phrases directly to a specific Performance Max campaign without needing a shared list.

Navigate to your Performance Max campaign, then click on Keywords in the left sidebar. You'll see a Negative Keywords tab. Click on it, and you'll find an interface similar to what you'd see in a Search campaign—a blue plus button to add new negative keywords directly at the campaign level.

Click the plus button and start adding your campaign-specific negatives. You can add them one at a time or paste in a list separated by line breaks. As you add each negative, you'll choose the match type (broad, phrase, or exact), which we'll cover in detail in the next step. For a comprehensive walkthrough of the entire process, check out this guide on how to set up negative keywords for a campaign.

So when should you use campaign-level negatives versus account-level lists? Here's how I think about it:

Use account-level lists for: Universal negatives that apply across all your campaigns. Terms like "free," "jobs," "careers," and "salary" are almost always irrelevant regardless of which product or service you're promoting. Keeping these in a shared list makes them easier to manage and update across multiple campaigns.

Use campaign-level negatives for: Exclusions specific to one campaign or product. For example, if you're running separate Performance Max campaigns for different product lines—say, one for enterprise software and one for small business tools—you might want to exclude "enterprise" from the small business campaign and "small business" from the enterprise campaign. These exclusions don't make sense at the account level because they're campaign-specific.

In a recent account managing multiple Performance Max campaigns for an e-commerce client, we used account-level lists for universal negatives (repair, fix, warranty, return policy) and campaign-level negatives for product-specific exclusions. The men's clothing campaign excluded terms like "women," "girls," and "ladies," while the women's campaign excluded "men," "boys," and "mens." This gave us much tighter control without creating a dozen different shared lists.

The 2024 update also makes it easier to quickly add negatives without jumping through hoops. If you're reviewing your search themes in the Insights tab and spot a new irrelevant term, you can add it directly to the campaign in about 30 seconds. Before this feature, you'd have to go to Shared Library, find your negative keyword list, add the term, save it, and wait for it to propagate. The new workflow is significantly faster.

Step 5: Choose the Right Match Types for Your Negatives

Negative keyword match types work differently than positive keyword match types, and getting this wrong can either leave gaps in your exclusions or accidentally block converting traffic. Let's break down exactly how each match type behaves for negative keywords.

Negative broad match blocks any search containing all your negative terms in any order, but it won't block searches that contain only some of the words. For example, if you add "free software" as a negative broad match, you'll block "free project management software" and "software for free," but you won't block "free tools" or "software download" because those searches don't contain both words. This is more restrictive than positive broad match, which is confusing for a lot of advertisers. Understanding negative keywords broad match behavior is crucial for effective exclusions.

Negative phrase match blocks searches containing your exact phrase in the exact order, but allows additional words before or after. If you add "free trial" as a negative phrase match, you'll block "start free trial today" and "best free trial software," but you won't block "trial free version" because the word order is different. Use phrase match when the sequence matters. For more details, read this guide on how to use phrase match negative keywords.

Negative exact match blocks only that specific search query with no additional words. If you add [free trial] as a negative exact match, you'll only block searches for exactly "free trial" and nothing else. This is the most precise but least comprehensive option.

Here's how I decide which match type to use in real accounts:

For single-word negatives that are always irrelevant, I use negative broad match. Terms like "free," "jobs," "salary," "resume," and "careers" should block any search containing those words, so broad match makes sense. Adding "free" as negative broad will block "free software," "software free download," and "get it free," which is exactly what we want.

For phrases where word order matters, I use negative phrase match. For example, "how to" as negative phrase match will block "how to use project management software" and "how to choose the best tool," but it won't block "to how" (which isn't a real search anyway). Phrase match gives you precision without being overly restrictive.

For exact match negatives, I rarely use them unless I'm trying to block a very specific search without affecting variations. For example, if you sell premium software and want to block the exact search [free trial] but still allow "free trial premium features" (because those searchers might convert to paid plans), you'd use exact match. But honestly, this scenario is rare. In most accounts, broad and phrase match cover 95% of what you need.

The mistake most agencies make is overthinking match types for negatives. They'll add the same negative keyword in all three match types, which creates redundancy and makes your lists harder to manage. Pick the match type that makes the most sense for each term and move on. If you're blocking "free," just add it once as negative broad match. You don't need "free," [free], and "free" all in your list.

One real example from a client account: we initially added "software" as a negative broad match because we thought it would block irrelevant searches. Big mistake. It blocked almost every converting search because we sold software—terms like "project management software" and "best CRM software" all contained "software" and got excluded. We removed it immediately and got way more specific with our negatives instead, focusing on terms like "free software," "software download," and "cracked software." Match type selection matters, but so does choosing the right negatives in the first place.

Step 6: Monitor, Refine, and Expand Your Negative List

Adding negative keywords isn't a one-time task. Performance Max campaigns continuously find new search traffic through Google's automation, which means new irrelevant searches will pop up over time. You need a system for regularly reviewing your search terms and expanding your negative keyword lists based on actual data.

Check your Insights tab at least weekly for the first month after launching a Performance Max campaign, then move to bi-weekly or monthly reviews once the campaign stabilizes. Look for new search themes that are generating impressions and clicks but not converting. If you see a pattern—for example, a bunch of searches related to "training" or "certification"—add those as negatives before they drain more budget. Knowing how to research negative keywords effectively will make this process much smoother.

Add negatives incrementally rather than dumping hundreds of keywords at once. I've seen advertisers get overzealous and add 200+ negatives in one session, then wonder why their campaign performance tanked. What usually happens is you accidentally block converting searches along with the junk, and it's hard to pinpoint which negatives caused the problem when you added so many at once.

A better approach: add 10-20 negatives at a time, wait a week, and review the impact on impressions, clicks, and conversions. If performance improves (lower cost per conversion, higher conversion rate), keep going. If performance drops, audit your recent additions to see if you blocked something you shouldn't have. Learning how to balance negative keywords without limiting reach is key to maintaining campaign performance.

Watch for false positives—terms you blocked that might actually convert. This happens more often than you'd think. For example, blocking "cheap" seems logical if you sell premium products, but some searchers use "cheap" to mean "affordable" or "good value," and they might still convert. If you notice your conversion volume dropping after adding certain negatives, review those terms and consider removing them or switching to a more restrictive match type.

Set a calendar reminder for monthly negative keyword audits. I literally have a recurring task in my project management tool that says "Review PMax negatives" on the first Monday of every month. During this audit, I pull the latest search theme data, look for new irrelevant patterns, add 10-20 new negatives, and check if any existing negatives should be removed based on performance changes.

One more thing: if you manage multiple Performance Max campaigns or multiple client accounts, maintain a master negative keyword list that you can reference across accounts. I keep a Google Sheet with tabs for different industries (SaaS, e-commerce, local services, etc.) containing common negatives that apply to each vertical. When I launch a new campaign, I start with the relevant master list and customize from there. This saves hours of repetitive work and ensures I'm not forgetting obvious exclusions.

The goal isn't to block every possible irrelevant search—that's impossible and unnecessary. The goal is to block the searches that are clearly wasting budget so you can allocate more spend to high-intent traffic that actually converts. As long as you're reviewing your data regularly and making incremental improvements, you're doing it right.

Putting It All Together

Quick checklist before you go: Pull your search terms data from the Insights tab and identify patterns of irrelevant traffic. Create a dedicated account-level negative keyword list with 20-50 initial exclusions based on actual data. Apply that list to your Performance Max campaign through the campaign settings. Use the campaign-level negative keywords feature for product-specific or campaign-specific exclusions that don't make sense at the account level. Choose your match types wisely—negative broad for single words, negative phrase when word order matters, and negative exact only when you need surgical precision. Review and refine your negative keyword lists monthly, adding 10-20 negatives at a time based on new search theme data.

Negative keywords in Performance Max aren't a set-it-and-forget-it deal. The more you monitor your search terms and tighten your exclusions, the less budget you'll waste on irrelevant clicks. In most accounts I manage, proper negative keyword implementation reduces wasted spend by 15-30% within the first month, which directly improves cost per conversion and overall campaign efficiency.

The 2024 update giving us campaign-level negatives was a game-changer, but it only helps if you actually use it. Too many advertisers still run Performance Max campaigns with zero negative keywords, letting Google's automation burn through budget on "free," "jobs," and "how to" searches that will never convert. Don't be that advertiser.

If you're managing multiple accounts or want to speed up this process across campaigns, tools like Keywordme can help you identify and add negatives faster—right from your Search Terms Report. Instead of manually exporting data, building lists in spreadsheets, and copying keywords back into Google Ads, you can streamline the entire workflow and optimize your campaigns without leaving the interface. Start your free 7-day trial (then just $12/month) and take your Google Ads game to the next level.