How do you use negative keyword lists in Google Ads?

A negative keyword keeps a campaign off searches that contain it. When the same unwanted searches reach several campaigns, Google’s answer is a negative keyword list: one named set of negatives, applied to as many campaigns as need it, so you don’t add the same negatives to each by hand, and a change to the list reaches all of them at once.

Google’s limits are generous: 20 lists an account, and up to 5,000 negatives in each. A list applies to whole campaigns, never to a single ad group. Separately, an account-level list of up to 1,000 negatives applies itself to all your search and shopping inventory in the campaign types it covers.

Make a list from negatives you’re adding anyway:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Keywords and open the Negative keywords tab.
2. 02Select the plus button, then Select a campaign and pick one.
3. 03Enter or paste one negative keyword per line.
4. 04Tick Save to new or existing list, name the list, and select Save.

Apply it to other campaigns:

1. 01From the Tools menu, open Exclusion lists and the Negative keywords lists tab.
2. 02Tick the list, select Apply to campaigns, choose the campaigns and confirm.

Then look for the gaps. Write down which campaigns carry each list. A campaign that sells what the others sell and doesn’t carry it is usually one someone forgot, and it goes on paying for the searches the list keeps the others off.

And for copies. In the Negative keywords tab, sort by the negative keyword: the same negatives added separately to several campaigns are a list waiting to be made.

A list is built for some campaigns and not others. A list of your brand’s words keeps generic campaigns off brand searches, and would stop your brand campaign serving at all. A list of rivals’ names belongs off the campaign that bids on them. A list named for one product line may not suit the next.

So before applying a list to a campaign, check that none of its negatives blocks one of the campaign’s own keywords, and that it wouldn’t have blocked a search that converted there. Google flags a negative that blocks a keyword once it’s in place; the search terms guide covers reading what a campaign actually bought.

Every day Goldbeater reads every list, the campaigns carrying each, every campaign’s own negatives and the searches each campaign bought in the last 30 days. It raises a list that at least two thirds of the campaigns it fits carry, three at least, missing from another it fits. A campaign counts as fitting where none of the list’s negatives blocks one of its keywords or a search that converted there, and where its name has the words the list’s name shares with every campaign carrying it: a list named for one line of campaigns isn’t offered to the others. It marks the finding medium where the list would have kept out $20 or more of the campaign’s searches, and drafts applying the list.

It also raises three or more negatives kept as their own by the same three or more campaigns, with the advice to make them a list. That one is advice only: which campaigns a new list belongs on is yours to say.

How many negative keyword lists can I have?

Google allows 20 lists in an account, with up to 5,000 negative keywords in each.

Can I apply a negative keyword list to one ad group?

No. A list applies to whole campaigns. For one ad group, add the negatives to that ad group itself.

What’s the difference between a list and account-level negatives?

A list reaches the campaigns you apply it to. Account-level negative keywords, up to 1,000, apply by themselves to all search and shopping inventory in the campaign types they cover.

Should every campaign carry every list?

No. A list belongs on the campaigns it was built for. Check that none of its negatives blocks a campaign’s own keywords, or a search that converted there, before applying it.