How to Build a Negative Keyword Strategy for Agencies Managing Multiple Google Ads Accounts

A negative keyword strategy for agencies is mostly a governance problem. Adding negatives to one account is easy. Doing it consistently across 15 accounts, with different people touching them, without blocking good traffic, is where agencies get burned. By the end of this guide you'll have a repeatable process you can roll out to every client: shared lists, a review schedule, and clear rules for who blocks what.

Before you start, make sure you have access to each client's Google Ads account and at least a few weeks of Search Terms Report data per account.

Step 1: Set Up a Negative Keyword Framework Before You Touch Any Account

Start with structure, not terms. Decide on three layers, and give each one an owner and a review cadence:

• Agency-wide universal lists: junk that is irrelevant for nearly every client. Owned by a senior strategist, reviewed rarely.
• Vertical lists: patterns for home services, SaaS, legal, and so on. Owned by whoever leads that vertical, reviewed quarterly.
• Client-specific lists: terms that only make sense for one business. Owned by the account lead, reviewed on the account's own schedule.

Next, get your vocabulary straight so handoffs and client reports don't get muddy. A search term is what a person actually typed into Google. A keyword is what you bid on. A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ad for matching searches, while a positive keyword tells it what to target. People mix these up constantly, and "we added 200 keywords" means something very different from "we added 200 negatives."

Then write a one-page rule sheet. It should cover:

1. What counts as junk by default (job seekers, "free," DIY, and competitor names only where they're truly irrelevant to that client).
2. Who can add negatives, and at which level.
3. What needs sign-off from the account lead, such as broad match negatives, anything touching brand terms, and any change to a shared list.

The most common mistake here is dumping one giant list on every client. The same word can be junk for one business and the best converter for another. "Cheap" is noise for a luxury remodeler and the whole point for a discount mattress store. Keep the universal layer small and boring. If you want a deeper look at how to structure a negative keyword strategy, that guide covers the layers in more detail.

Step 2: Audit Each Account's Search Terms Report to Find Real Waste

Pull the Search Terms Report for the last 30 to 90 days. Use the longer window for accounts with thin volume and the shorter one for high-spend accounts where 90 days of data is mostly noise from old campaign structures.

Sort by cost first, then look at terms with clicks and zero conversions. Spend-first matters because it keeps you fixing the expensive leaks instead of burning an afternoon on one-click oddities that cost a couple of dollars in total.

Before you judge anything by conversions, confirm tracking works. Check that the right conversion actions are set up, that they're counting what the client actually values, and that they've been firing during your date range. If tracking was broken for three weeks, "zero conversions" tells you nothing, and you'll block traffic that was fine.

As you go, sort terms into three buckets:

• Clearly irrelevant: the searcher wants something the client doesn't sell.
• Relevant intent, wrong audience: for example, job seekers, students, or people outside the service area.
• Unsure: could be fine, could be waste.

Don't block the unsure bucket yet. Leave those terms running, let more data come in, and ask the client if the term touches something only they would know. For a fuller walkthrough of this kind of review, see how to audit negative keyword performance.

This is where Keywordme fits the workflow. It's a Chrome extension that works inside the Search Terms Report, so you can mark junk terms with clicks rather than exporting to a spreadsheet, filtering, and re-uploading. You still make the call on each term; the tool just removes the busywork around acting on it.

Step 3: Choose the Right Match Type for Each Negative

Negative match types don't behave like positive ones, and this trips up a lot of people. As of 2026, according to Google Ads Help, negative keywords don't use close variants: a negative broad match won't catch synonyms, and negatives generally won't match misspellings, plurals, or other variations automatically. If you want to block "job" and "jobs," add both. Check Google's current negative keyword matching documentation before you finalize your rule sheet, since details can change. You can also read more on how match types work for negative keywords.

Here's an illustrative example. Say you run ads for a CRM tool:

• A negative phrase match on "jobs" blocks searches that contain "jobs" in that order within the query, such as "crm jobs near me" or "sales jobs crm". It won't catch "job" or "careers."
• A negative exact match on "free crm template" blocks only that precise query. "Free crm templates" or "crm template free" would still get through unless you add those too.

A workable rule of thumb:

• Exact for narrow, specific bad queries.
• Phrase for bad modifiers that appear in a consistent order.
• Broad for single words that are never relevant to the client. Use it sparingly, because broad negatives are the easiest way to over-block.

The classic mistake is a broad negative that kills a converting query sharing the same word. Block "free" broadly for a software company that offers a free trial, and you may cut off "free trial crm," which could be your best query.

Before you save any batch, compare it against the client's positive keyword list and recent converting search terms. If a new negative would match one of your own keywords, stop and rethink it. A quick cross-check takes a minute and saves you a confusing performance dip later. If you suspect it already happened, learn how to check for conflicts in negative keyword lists.

Step 4: Decide Where Each Negative Lives: Ad Group, Campaign, or Shared List

Placement matters as much as the term itself. Each level does a different job.

Ad group and campaign level

Ad group negatives steer queries to the right ad group. If a query about "emergency plumber" keeps landing in your general plumbing ad group, a negative there (paired with the matching positive keyword in the emergency ad group) stops your own ad groups from competing with each other.

Campaign negatives handle exclusions that belong to one campaign only. The common case is brand versus non-brand: you may want the client's own name blocked in the non-brand campaign so brand searches go to the campaign built for them. If you're unsure of the mechanics, this guide on where to add negative keywords in Google Ads walks through each level.

Shared lists and manager accounts

Shared negative keyword lists sit at the account level and can be applied to multiple campaigns. They're the right home for universal junk, because one edit updates every campaign using the list. Google limits how many shared lists and how many keywords per list an account can have, and those numbers have changed over time, so check the current limits in Google Ads Help rather than trusting memory or an old blog post.

If you work from a manager account (MCC), look at what Google currently allows for sharing negative lists across client accounts. As of 2026, availability and restrictions on what can be shared at the manager level should be confirmed in Google's documentation before you design your setup around it. If cross-account sharing doesn't fit your situation, the fallback is simple: keep a master copy of each template list and apply it to each client account yourself.

A good default: universal and vertical junk in shared lists, campaign exclusions at campaign level, and query-routing fixes at ad group level.

Step 5: Build and Maintain Reusable Negative Lists by Theme

One big "negatives" list becomes unmanageable fast. Split lists by theme so you can mix and match per client:

• Job seekers (jobs, careers, hiring, salary)
• Free and DIY
• Research and informational (definition, meaning, examples, how to)
• Geography (locations the client doesn't serve)
• Unrelated products or services

A tutoring company might use job seekers, geography, and unrelated products. A SaaS client might use all five, minus parts of free and informational if it runs a freemium model. Themes let you make that call per list instead of per word. For a starting point on terms, see this list of common negative keywords every campaign should have.

Use a naming convention so any team member can find the right list without asking. For example (illustrative): "NEG - Jobs - Universal", "NEG - Informational - SaaS", "NEG - Geo - ClientName". Prefix, theme, scope. Keep it consistent from day one, because renaming dozens of lists later is miserable.

Seed your vertical lists from patterns you see across several clients in the same industry. If three home services accounts all waste money on the same DIY phrases, that belongs in the vertical list. Anything that appears in only one account stays client-specific.

Confidentiality deserves a hard rule. Client brand names, competitor lists, and any term that reveals strategy should never live in a shared agency template. Templates should be safe to copy to any account without leaking one client's information into another's.

When you're building lists across many accounts, Keywordme's multi-account and team support and its bulk actions can speed things up. Confirm the exact current feature set in Keywordme's documentation so your process reflects what the tool actually does. Once your list count grows, it's also worth reading about negative keyword strategy at scale.

Step 6: Set a Review Cadence and Document What You Block

Negative keywords aren't a one-time cleanup. New search terms keep arriving, and campaigns change. Tie your cadence to spend and volume. As a suggestion, not a rule: review new or high-spend campaigns weekly, and stable, low-volume ones every few weeks or monthly. Put the review on the calendar per account, with a named owner. For more on timing, see how often to review your negative keyword list.

Keep a simple change log. A shared spreadsheet or project tool works fine, with these columns:

• Date
• Term
• Match type
• Level (ad group, campaign, or shared list)
• Reason

It pays off at handovers, when a new manager wonders why "software" is blocked, and in client calls, when someone asks what you've actually been doing.

After each round of changes, check the effect. Look at impressions, clicks, and conversions on key campaigns over the following days. A sharp drop in impressions or conversions right after a batch of negatives is a sign you may have over-blocked. Use the change log to find the likely culprit, remove it, and note that in the log too. This is covered further in how to set negative keywords without hurting performance.

Once a quarter, do a quick clean-up. Remove negatives that no longer fit, such as terms blocked before the client launched a new product, added a service line, or expanded into a new area. More negatives is not automatically better. A list that was right a year ago can quietly cap growth today.

Step 7: Report Negative Keyword Work to Clients Without Overpromising

Clients can't see negative keyword work unless you show it. Report what was blocked, how much the account spent on those terms before blocking (pulled from the account's own data), and what changed afterward in the account.

Be careful with promises. Wasted spend varies a lot by account, and a blocked term doesn't guarantee that budget will convert somewhere else. Say "we stopped spending on these searches" rather than "we saved you this much." Skip industry savings claims unless you can name a source and year. To back up your reporting, learn how to track performance of negative keywords.

A simple report template is enough:

1. Top blocked themes (for example, job seekers, DIY, out-of-area).
2. A handful of example search terms, approved by the client.
3. Notable changes in spend, clicks, or conversions since the last report.
4. The next review date.

Flag borderline terms for client input, especially anything tied to their business knowledge. A client will know instantly whether "refurbished" searchers are a good lead or a time-waster. Asking shows you're careful, and it keeps the unsure bucket from turning into a blocking mistake.

Roll It Out One Account at a Time

Run the framework on a single client account first. Wait a couple of weeks, check for over-blocking against your key campaigns, fix what needs fixing, and then roll the process out to the rest of your accounts.

If you want to speed up the Search Terms Report side of this, Keywordme is built for it. Optimize Google Ads Campaigns 10X Faster. Without Leaving Your Account. Keywordme lets you remove junk search terms, build high-intent keyword lists, and apply match types instantly, right inside Google Ads. No spreadsheets, no switching tabs, just quick, seamless optimization. Start your free 7-day trial (then just $12/month) and take your Google Ads game to the next level.