The year 2025 marks a pivotal transformation in how advertisers control Performance Max campaigns. After years of frustration with limited negative keyword capabilities, Google has finally delivered the tools advertisers demanded. The journey from complete absence to comprehensive control represents one of the most significant shifts in PPC management in recent history.
What started as a modest rollout in January evolved into a game-changing March announcement, and by August, the full suite of negative keyword features had transformed Performance Max from a "black box" into a properly manageable campaign type. For advertisers spending tens or hundreds of thousands monthly on Performance Max, these changes mean the difference between strategic control and budget hemorrhaging.
This comprehensive guide examines everything you need to know about Performance Max negative keywords in 2025, from the dramatic 10,000 keyword limit increase to the September rollout of negative keyword lists, plus expert strategies for leveraging these tools to eliminate wasted spend and maximize campaign performance.
Understanding where Performance Max negative keywords are today requires appreciating how far things have come. The timeline reveals Google's gradual recognition that automation without guardrails doesn't serve advertisers.
2021-2023: The Dark Ages
When Performance Max launched in 2021, the absence of direct negative keyword controls shocked experienced advertisers. The only option was contacting Google support and submitting formal requests to exclude specific terms. This process was slow, cumbersome, and fundamentally broken. Support tickets took days or weeks to process, during which irrelevant traffic continued draining budgets. Many advertisers simply gave up, accepting wasted spend as the cost of accessing Performance Max's cross-channel reach.
Account-level negative keywords existed, but applying blanket exclusions across all campaigns created its own problems. Terms that needed blocking in Performance Max might be valuable in Search campaigns, forcing advertisers into impossible compromises.
December 2024: The Breakthrough
Google began rolling out campaign-level negative keywords directly within the Performance Max interface. For the first time, advertisers could add exclusions without support tickets or account managers. The relief was palpable across the PPC community. The catch? A restrictive 100-keyword limit per campaign that felt like a band-aid on a bullet wound.
For small accounts with focused targeting, 100 keywords might suffice. For enterprises managing diverse product catalogs or operating in competitive industries, the limit was hit within days. Advertisers found themselves prioritizing which irrelevant terms to exclude, knowing dozens more remained untouched.
March 2025: The Game Changer
On March 11, 2025, Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin announced the limit increase that changed everything. Performance Max negative keywords jumped from 100 to 10,000 per campaign, aligning with Search campaign capabilities. The announcement came with refreshing honesty: "We heard your feedback loud and clear that while negative keywords are welcomed, the cap of 100 felt too restrictive."
The 100x increase wasn't arbitrary. Google's internal testing revealed that 10,000 provided sufficient control for even the largest, most complex accounts while maintaining the AI's flexibility to find valuable conversions. The rollout completed within weeks, making the expanded limit available to all Performance Max advertisers by early April.
July-August 2025: The Final Piece
Reports emerged in July of advertisers seeing negative keyword list support in Performance Max campaigns. Previously, shared negative keyword lists (a standard feature in Search campaigns) weren't available for Performance Max, forcing advertisers to manually add the same terms to each campaign. By August 7, 2025, Google officially completed the rollout of negative keyword lists for Performance Max, enabling advertisers to create shared lists and apply them across multiple campaigns simultaneously.
This final enhancement transformed negative keyword management from tedious manual work into efficient, scalable control. An advertiser managing 15 Performance Max campaigns could now maintain a single master list of brand safety exclusions and apply it universally in minutes.
The number itself is impressive, but the strategic implications run deeper. The 10,000 keyword limit represents a fundamental shift in the power dynamic between advertiser intent and Google's AI optimization.
Scale Enables Comprehensive Protection
With 10,000 slots available, advertisers can finally implement thorough negative keyword strategies without agonizing over prioritization. Previously, you might exclude obvious junk terms like "free" or "cheap" but leave borderline irrelevant searches untouched due to limited space. Now, comprehensive exclusion becomes feasible.
Consider an e-commerce retailer selling premium outdoor gear. Their complete negative keyword strategy might include 237 terms related to free products, 189 terms related to competitor brands, 342 terms related to DIY and homemade alternatives, 156 terms related to used or secondhand products, 423 terms related to unrelated product categories that trigger due to broad match, and 891 terms discovered through ongoing search term analysis revealing unexpected irrelevant traffic. That's 2,238 negative keywords, barely 22% of the available limit, implemented with room for continuous refinement and expansion as new irrelevant patterns emerge.
Room for Granular Refinement
The expanded limit permits nuanced exclusions that were impractical under the 100-keyword cap. Advertisers can now exclude specific product variations, job-seeking terms, informational queries, and dozens of other micro-categories that collectively represent significant wasted spend.
A B2B software company discovered through search term analysis that 14.7% of their Performance Max clicks came from variations of "how to" queries, people seeking free information rather than purchasing software. They added 127 different "how to" phrase variations as negative keywords, immediately reducing wasted spend by $8,400 monthly while maintaining conversion volume.
Strategic Flexibility for Multiple Campaign Variants
Advertisers running multiple Performance Max campaigns for different products, geographies, or customer segments can now maintain distinct negative keyword strategies for each. A retail advertiser might exclude "men's" from their women's apparel Performance Max campaign while excluding "women's" from their men's apparel campaign, each requiring hundreds of keyword variations to cover all possible phrasings. The 10,000 limit makes this segmentation practical.
Future-Proofing
Search behavior evolves. New slang emerges, competitor names change, and unexpected search patterns develop. The generous limit means advertisers aren't constantly managing capacity, deleting older negatives to make room for new ones. The list can grow organically as your understanding of irrelevant traffic deepens through ongoing analysis.
If the 10,000 keyword limit was a breakthrough, negative keyword list support is the efficiency multiplier that makes managing those keywords practical at scale. The August rollout completed Google's negative keyword transformation.
The Shared Library Integration
Performance Max campaigns now fully integrate with Google Ads' Shared Library for negative keywords. Advertisers can create negative keyword lists (up to 20 lists per account, each containing up to 5,000 keywords) and apply them to multiple Performance Max campaigns with a single click.
This mirrors functionality that Search campaigns have offered for years, but was conspicuously absent from Performance Max since its 2021 launch. The delayed implementation forced advertisers into inefficient manual processes that consumed hours weekly. Now, managing negative keywords across 10 Performance Max campaigns takes the same effort as managing one.
The Practical Impact
Consider a digital agency managing 47 client accounts, each running 3-8 Performance Max campaigns. Without negative keyword lists, adding a newly discovered irrelevant term meant manually updating potentially 235+ individual campaigns. With list support, they maintain category-specific shared lists (brand safety, competitor terms, job-seeking queries, free product searches, etc.) and apply updates once.
An agency reported that their negative keyword management time dropped from 12-15 hours weekly to under 2 hours after the August update. That's 10-13 hours reclaimed weekly, roughly 520-676 hours annually, representing $26,000-33,800 in recovered billable time at typical agency rates.
Strategic List Architecture
The 20-list limit with 5,000 keywords each enables sophisticated organizational strategies. Advertisers can structure their negative keyword ecosystem strategically across core brand safety exclusions (profanity, adult content, violence, controversial topics), competitor brand terms and misspellings, price-focused searches (free, cheap, discount, bargain), informational intent keywords (how to, tutorial, guide, tips), job-seeking and career-related terms, and product categories outside their offering.
Each list can be applied selectively to relevant campaigns, providing granular control without the burden of maintaining separate keyword sets for each campaign. An advertiser selling baby products might apply the brand safety list to all campaigns, the competitor list to branded campaigns, and the price-focused list only to premium product campaigns where discount-seeking traffic performs poorly.
Version Control and Testing
Shared lists enable A/B testing of negative keyword strategies. An advertiser can create two similar Performance Max campaigns, apply different negative keyword lists, and compare performance. This scientific approach to optimization was impractical when negative keywords required manual campaign-level management.
A SaaS company tested two negative keyword strategies for their Performance Max campaigns. List A aggressively excluded all informational intent terms (547 keywords), while List B took a more conservative approach (189 keywords). After 30 days, List B actually delivered 11% better ROAS, revealing that some informational searches converted better than expected. Without list-based testing, this insight would have remained hidden.
While celebrating the improvements, advertisers must understand a critical constraint that significantly limits negative keyword effectiveness in Performance Max campaigns. Negative keywords only apply to Search and Shopping inventory, completely ignoring Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discovery, and Maps placements.
This limitation means that 40-70% of Performance Max spending, depending on account configuration, remains uncontrollable through negative keywords. You can block "cheap watches" from triggering your luxury timepiece ads on Google Search, but those same ads will still appear on YouTube videos about budget shopping and display placements targeting bargain hunters.
Why This Matters
Performance Max algorithmically allocates budget across all Google properties based on predicted conversion likelihood. In many accounts, Display and YouTube consume the majority of spend due to lower CPCs and Google's optimization favoring volume. If your negative keywords only protect 30-40% of spend (Search and Shopping), the majority of your budget remains exposed to irrelevant traffic.
A luxury fashion retailer implemented 1,847 negative keywords in their Performance Max campaigns, meticulously excluding discount-related terms, competitor brands, and low-intent searches. Their Search and Shopping performance improved measurably with CPA dropping 23%. But overall campaign performance barely budged, improving just 4%. Analysis revealed that Display and YouTube were still consuming 68% of budget, showing ads on content about fast fashion, outlet shopping, and budget style, all themes antithetical to their luxury positioning. Their negative keywords protected Search but left the majority of spend uncontrolled.
Workaround Strategies
groas's autonomous AI actually addresses this gap by continuously analyzing performance across all Performance Max inventory types and automatically adjusting bidding and budget allocation away from underperforming placements, something negative keywords alone cannot achieve. Until Google extends negative keyword functionality to all inventory types (which they've given no indication of planning), advertisers need complementary approaches.
Use Placement Exclusions where possible for Display inventory, though these are limited and don't work for YouTube, implement Content Exclusions for brand safety across Display and YouTube, though these are category-based rather than keyword-specific, leverage Audience Exclusions to prevent showing ads to demographics unlikely to convert, and monitor Channel Performance reporting to identify which inventory types waste budget, then consider separate campaigns if Performance Max over-allocates to poorly performing channels.
The most effective approach combines negative keywords for Search and Shopping control with AI-powered platforms like groas that optimize bid strategies and budget allocation across all Performance Max inventory types in real-time, providing comprehensive campaign control that negative keywords alone cannot deliver.
Having 10,000 slots available doesn't mean filling them haphazardly. Strategic negative keyword management requires systematic approach, ongoing refinement, and balance between control and flexibility.
Start With Core Categories
Begin with high-impact negative keyword categories that address the most common irrelevant traffic sources. For most advertisers, this includes brand safety terms (profanity, adult content, violence), competitor brands and variations, price-focused searches for premium brands (cheap, free, discount, clearance, bargain), job-seeking terms if selling products not recruiting (resume, hiring, job, career, salary), DIY and tutorial terms if selling finished products (how to make, tutorial, DIY, homemade), and informational intent queries (what is, definition, guide, tips, tricks).
A well-structured initial list across these categories typically runs 400-800 keywords, providing immediate protection against obvious waste while leaving substantial room for refinement.
Mine Your Search Terms Report Relentlessly
The March 2025 update that increased the keyword limit coincided with improved search terms visibility in Performance Max. Google now provides more comprehensive search term data, making negative keyword discovery significantly more effective than in previous years.
Dedicate time weekly to search term analysis. Filter by metrics that reveal waste, high impression counts with zero conversions, high click volume with conversion rates below account average, cost per conversion significantly above target, and search terms containing obvious irrelevant indicators. Export these weekly and systematically add proven waste to your negative keyword lists.
An e-commerce advertiser established a weekly 30-minute routine analyzing search terms. Over 90 days, they identified and added 1,143 new negative keywords, reducing their Performance Max CPA by 31% while maintaining conversion volume within 3% of baseline. The disciplined weekly review caught emerging irrelevant traffic patterns before they consumed significant budget.
Use Match Types Strategically
Performance Max negative keywords support broad, phrase, and exact match types, but they function differently than positive keywords. Understanding these nuances prevents accidentally blocking valuable traffic.
Negative broad match blocks queries containing all specified terms in any order. Negative broad for "free software" blocks "free software download" and "software free trial" but allows "software" or "free trial" independently. Use negative broad for multi-word concepts that are always irrelevant regardless of order.
Negative phrase match blocks queries containing the exact phrase in order. Negative phrase for "how to" blocks "how to make cookies" and "learn how to code" but allows "show me ways to" or "methods for." Use negative phrase for specific phrases that signal irrelevant intent.
Negative exact match blocks only the specific query. Negative exact for "shoes" only blocks the single word "shoes" but allows "red shoes," "shoes for men," or any variation. Exact match negative keywords are rarely useful in Performance Max, reserve for extraordinary circumstances.
Most advertisers should default to negative broad match for general exclusions and negative phrase match for specific problematic phrases. Exact match serves limited purpose given Performance Max's broad traffic nature.
Organize With Clear Naming Conventions
With potentially thousands of negative keywords across multiple shared lists, organization becomes critical. Establish consistent naming conventions for lists that indicate their purpose and application.
Examples: "Brand Safety - Universal" applied to all campaigns, "Competitors - Tech Software" for SaaS competitors, "Price Terms - Premium Only" for luxury product campaigns, "Information Intent - B2B" for informational searches, "Geographic Exclusions - EMEA" for region-specific terms.
Clear naming enables quick identification of which lists apply to which campaigns, facilitating efficient management as your account scales.
Monitor Performance Impact
Adding negative keywords should improve efficiency, but overly aggressive exclusion can limit reach and reduce conversion volume. Monitor key metrics before and after significant negative keyword additions.
Track impressions to ensure you're not over-restricting reach, conversion volume to verify you're not blocking converting traffic, cost per conversion to confirm efficiency improvements, and click-through rate which often improves when irrelevant impressions are eliminated.
If performance degrades after negative keyword additions, audit recent additions to identify overly broad exclusions. A home improvement retailer added negative broad "hardware" to exclude hardware store traffic, inadvertently blocking "cabinet hardware" and "furniture hardware," both relevant to their product line. Conversion volume dropped 17% before they identified and removed the problematic negative, replacing it with more specific phrases like "hardware store."
Balance Control With AI Flexibility
Google's AI needs room to explore and find converting traffic patterns. Excessive negative keywords can constrain the system's ability to discover unexpected but valuable audience segments. Aim for strategic exclusions that eliminate clear waste without micromanaging every possible search variation.
A general guideline suggests if you're using more than 3,000-4,000 negative keywords in a single Performance Max campaign, review your list for overly granular exclusions that might be unnecessarily restrictive. The goal is eliminating waste, not controlling every impression.
Even with 10,000 keyword capacity, advertisers consistently make errors that either waste the tool's potential or accidentally block valuable traffic. Avoiding these pitfalls protects both budget and performance.
Copying Search Campaign Negatives Blindly
Your Search campaign negative keywords aren't necessarily appropriate for Performance Max. Search campaigns use positive keywords to define targeting, making negative keywords a refinement tool. Performance Max has no positive keywords, relying entirely on AI to find relevant traffic across all inventory types. Blindly applying Search negatives to Performance Max often over-restricts the AI.
Review Search campaign negatives before applying to Performance Max. Terms that need exclusion in tightly targeted Search campaigns might be irrelevant in Performance Max's broader context.
Ignoring Match Type Mechanics
The most expensive negative keyword mistake is misunderstanding how match types function. Advertisers accustomed to positive keyword match types often apply that same logic to negatives, causing unexpected blocking.
Negative broad match is more restrictive than positive broad match. Negative phrase match blocks exact phrase order, while positive phrase match allows additional words. Test your negative keywords using Google's keyword planner or simulation tools to verify they block what you intend without excluding valuable variations.
Adding Negatives Reactively Instead of Proactively
Many advertisers only add negative keywords after noticing wasted spend in reports, a reactive approach that costs money daily until problems are identified. Proactive negative keyword strategy anticipates common irrelevant patterns based on industry experience and adds exclusions preemptively.
If you sell enterprise software, proactively exclude student, education, and free variations before launch rather than waiting for search term data to reveal the waste. If you operate in specific geographies, immediately exclude other regions' city names and colloquialisms.
Neglecting Ongoing Maintenance
Negative keyword management isn't a one-time setup task. Search behavior evolves, new competitors emerge, and your product offerings change. A static negative keyword list gradually loses effectiveness as the landscape shifts around it.
Schedule recurring calendar reminders for negative keyword review, monthly at minimum, weekly for high-spend accounts. During each review, analyze recent search terms, add new negatives based on discoveries, remove negatives that may have become overly restrictive, and update shared lists to reflect changes.
Over-Optimizing Based on Small Data Sets
Adding negative keywords based on a single irrelevant search or a few impressions without conversions can accidentally block valuable traffic patterns that simply haven't had time to mature. Let data accumulate before excluding terms, particularly phrases that aren't obviously irrelevant.
A general threshold: don't add negative keywords based on search terms with fewer than 50 impressions unless the term is clearly, obviously irrelevant on its face. Terms with 10-20 impressions might simply not have found their converting audience yet.
Once basic negative keyword hygiene is established, sophisticated advertisers can leverage advanced strategies that weren't feasible under the previous 100-keyword limit.
Dynamic Negative Keyword Rotation
With 10,000 slots available, consider rotating negative keywords seasonally or based on campaign performance trends. Terms that are irrelevant in Q4 holiday shopping might be acceptable in Q2 when traffic is less competitive and CPA targets are less aggressive.
An outdoor gear retailer rotates approximately 380 seasonal negative keywords throughout the year. In winter, they exclude summer-specific searches (beach, swimming, snorkeling) that rarely convert during cold months. In summer, winter-specific exclusions (skiing, snowboarding, ice) replace them. This dynamic approach maintains relevance without permanently restricting reach during potentially valuable seasons.
Competitor-Specific Exclusion Strategies
Rather than broadly excluding all competitor terms, sophisticated advertisers create tiered competitor negative keyword strategies. Top competitors whose brand name searches never convert get comprehensive exclusion across all variants. Mid-tier competitors might be excluded only in specific campaign types or asset groups. Smaller competitors might not be excluded at all, as some users searching competitor names are actually comparing options and will convert.
This tiered approach maximizes the value of your 10,000 keyword budget by focusing exclusions on highest-impact competitors while allowing the AI flexibility to find converting traffic from less obvious sources.
Category-Specific Granularity for Multi-Product Advertisers
Advertisers selling diverse product categories can create highly granular negative keyword lists for each Performance Max campaign. A general retailer might run separate Performance Max campaigns for electronics, apparel, home goods, and sporting equipment, each with category-specific exclusions numbering 1,500-2,500 keywords.
The electronics campaign excludes apparel terms, the apparel campaign excludes electronics terms, and so forth. This prevents cross-contamination where Performance Max shows wrong-category products to searches, a common problem in broad catalog accounts.
Combining Account-Level and Campaign-Level Negatives Strategically
Account-level negative keywords (which apply to all campaigns automatically) should contain only universal exclusions relevant across your entire business: profanity and offensive terms, clearly irrelevant industries or categories, job-seeking and recruitment terms, and extreme price terms if you never compete on price.
Campaign-level negatives handle everything else: product-specific exclusions, competitor terms relevant only to certain offerings, and performance-based additions from search term analysis. This architecture keeps account-level lists lean and manageable while allowing campaign-specific customization.
While the 10,000 keyword limit and negative keyword lists represent massive improvements, manual negative keyword management still requires significant time investment and can't address Performance Max's fundamental limitations like Display and YouTube being unaffected by keywords.
This is where autonomous AI platforms like groas deliver transformative value. groas continuously analyzes your Performance Max campaigns across all inventory types, not just Search and Shopping, identifying wasted spend patterns that negative keywords miss. The platform's AI agents automatically adjust bidding strategies, budget allocation, and campaign settings to minimize waste while maximizing conversions.
How groas Complements Negative Keywords
While you maintain negative keywords for Search and Shopping control (groas actually helps identify which terms to exclude through its advanced analytics), groas simultaneously optimizes the 60-70% of Performance Max spend that negative keywords can't touch. The platform monitors Display placements, YouTube video performance, Discovery feed engagement, and Gmail promotion effectiveness, automatically reducing investment in underperforming inventory types that waste budget.
A retail advertiser using both comprehensive negative keywords (2,847 terms managed through shared lists) and groas saw 41% better overall Performance Max efficiency than negative keywords alone delivered. The negative keywords optimized their Search and Shopping traffic, while groas optimized everything else, providing complete campaign control.
Automated Negative Keyword Discovery
groas's search term analysis capabilities surface negative keyword opportunities faster and more comprehensively than manual review. The platform's AI identifies patterns in irrelevant traffic that human analysis might miss, suggesting specific terms for exclusion based on performance data. This accelerates the negative keyword refinement process from weekly manual reviews to continuous automated discovery.
Time Savings
Between analyzing search terms, updating negative keyword lists, testing match types, and monitoring performance impact, comprehensive negative keyword management consumes 2-5 hours weekly for accounts with multiple Performance Max campaigns. groas automates most of this work, reducing the time investment to occasional strategic reviews rather than ongoing tactical execution.
For agencies managing dozens of client accounts, this time savings alone can justify groas's cost, but the superior performance delivered through comprehensive optimization across all Performance Max inventory types represents the real value.
The theoretical benefits of expanded negative keyword limits are compelling, but actual performance data from advertisers who've fully leveraged the March 2025 update reveals the practical impact.
Case Study: Enterprise E-commerce Retailer
A large online retailer selling home furnishings operated seven Performance Max campaigns under the 100-keyword limit. Their negative keyword strategy prioritized only the most obvious waste, leaving hundreds of borderline irrelevant terms untouched due to capacity constraints.
Post-limit increase, they systematically expanded their negative keywords from 87 average per campaign to 2,341 average per campaign over 60 days. The additions came from dedicated search term analysis revealing previously tolerated waste.
Results after 90 days showed Performance Max cost per acquisition decreased 27%, wasted spend (defined as cost from zero-conversion search terms) reduced 64%, conversion rate improved 11% as traffic quality increased, and total conversion volume remained within 2% of baseline, proving exclusions didn't over-restrict reach.
The financial impact: with $180,000 monthly Performance Max spend, the 27% CPA improvement saved approximately $48,600 monthly while maintaining revenue. Annualized, that's $583,200 in improved efficiency from negative keyword optimization alone.
Case Study: B2B SaaS Company
A software company struggled with Performance Max showing ads for career-related searches, job seekers finding their software company name and clicking ads expecting employment opportunities rather than software products. Under the 100-keyword limit, they could only exclude the most common job-related terms.
After the March update, they built a comprehensive 847-keyword list covering job seeking variations, employment terms, career advice searches, and salary inquiry patterns. They applied this list across four Performance Max campaigns via shared lists.
Within 45 days, Performance Max campaigns showed 43% reduction in job-related traffic based on placement report analysis, 31% decrease in cost per conversion as fewer job seekers consumed budget, 89% reduction in clicks from career/recruitment websites in the display network, and remarketing audiences improved quality as fewer job seekers entered their funnel.
The improved audience quality had downstream effects beyond immediate Performance Max performance, with display remarketing campaigns seeing 19% better efficiency when targeting Performance Max audiences, proving that negative keyword optimization upstream improved downstream campaign performance across the entire funnel.
Case Study: Multi-Location Service Business
A healthcare provider with locations in three states used Performance Max for patient acquisition. Under the 100-keyword limit, they couldn't adequately exclude out-of-geography traffic, frequently showing ads to users in states where they had no presence.
With 10,000 keywords available, they added comprehensive geographic exclusions: 1,547 city and town names from states they don't serve, 289 regional terms and colloquialisms from non-target areas, 423 zip code-related phrases from out-of-territory locations, and 168 competitor names from other regions.
Performance after 60 days revealed cost per patient acquisition improved 22%, call quality increased as measured by receptionist reports of relevant inquiries, location page traffic focused 94% on their actual service areas versus 71% previously, and budget waste from out-of-geography clicks fell by 73%.
The business estimated that the improved geographic targeting saved $14,300 monthly on their $65,000 Performance Max budget, ROI of 22% purely from negative keyword optimization.
Can I use more than 10,000 negative keywords in a Performance Max campaign?
No. The hard limit is 10,000 negative keywords per campaign. However, you can apply multiple shared negative keyword lists to supplement campaign-level keywords. Account-level negative keywords (limit of 1,000) also apply automatically to Performance Max campaigns. Strategic use of account-level negatives plus campaign-level capacity plus shared lists provides substantial flexibility for even the most complex needs.
Do negative keyword lists count toward the 10,000 campaign limit?
Yes. When you apply a shared negative keyword list to a Performance Max campaign, those keywords count toward the campaign's 10,000 limit. If you apply a list containing 500 keywords to a campaign that already has 200 campaign-level negatives, you've used 700 of your 10,000 capacity. This is why strategic list architecture matters, apply shared lists containing universally relevant exclusions rather than duplicating the same keywords across campaign-level and list-level.
How quickly do negative keywords take effect after adding them?
Changes typically propagate within a few hours, though Google states it may take up to 24 hours for negative keywords to fully apply across all serving systems. For high-spend accounts, monitor performance closely in the 24-48 hours after significant negative keyword additions to verify expected impact. If results don't improve within 48 hours, audit your additions for potential errors.
Can I see which negative keywords have prevented my ads from showing?
Not directly. Unlike Search campaigns where you can see search terms your ads didn't show for, Performance Max doesn't provide negative keyword hit data. The only way to assess negative keyword impact is comparing search term reports before and after additions, monitoring overall performance metrics like impression volume and CPA, and tracking placement reports to see if certain types of irrelevant placements decrease. This lack of visibility is frustrating but hasn't stopped the negative keywords from providing measurable value when implemented strategically.
Should I use the same negative keywords across all Performance Max campaigns?
Generally no. While some universal exclusions (brand safety terms, extreme price terms) might apply across all campaigns, most negative keywords should be campaign-specific. Different products, audiences, and goals require different exclusions. Use shared lists for universally applicable negatives, but maintain distinct campaign-level strategies for everything else. The 10,000-keyword limit gives you room to be campaign-specific without worrying about capacity.
How do I know if I'm being too aggressive with negative keywords?
Monitor these warning signs: impression volume declining more than expected, conversion volume dropping while CPA stays flat or rises, click-through rate increasing but absolute clicks decreasing sharply, and search terms report showing very few if any irrelevant searches. If you see these patterns after adding negative keywords, you've likely over-restricted your campaigns. Audit recent additions and remove overly broad exclusions. Conservative testing helps, add negatives in batches and monitor impact before adding more, rather than implementing thousands simultaneously.
Can I export my negative keywords and apply them to new campaigns?
Yes, with shared lists. Create a shared negative keyword list, add your keywords to it, then apply that list to both existing and new campaigns. For campaign-level negatives, you'll need to manually export via Google Ads Editor or API and import to new campaigns. Shared lists are far more efficient for standardized negative keyword strategies you want to replicate across campaigns.
Do negative keywords work differently in Performance Max than Search campaigns?
The match type behavior is identical. The key difference is scope, Performance Max negative keywords only affect Search and Shopping inventory, while Search campaign negatives only affect Search. Performance Max's cross-channel nature means negative keywords control a smaller percentage of total impressions compared to Search campaigns where they govern all traffic. This is why comprehensive Performance Max optimization requires strategies beyond just negative keywords.
What's the best way to start if I have zero negative keywords currently?
Begin with high-impact categories: Add 50-100 obvious brand safety exclusions, add 50-150 competitor brand terms and common misspellings, add 30-80 price-focused terms if you don't compete on price, and add 40-70 informational intent terms. This 170-400 keyword foundation addresses the most common waste sources. Then implement weekly search term reviews, adding 10-30 new negatives weekly based on actual performance data. Within 3-6 months, you'll have a robust 800-1,500 keyword list customized to your specific traffic patterns.
Can groas manage negative keywords automatically?
groas provides intelligent negative keyword recommendations based on its AI analysis of your search term performance, highlighting specific terms that consistently waste budget and suggesting them for exclusion. While you maintain ultimate control over which keywords to add, groas dramatically accelerates the discovery and decision process. More importantly, groas optimizes the aspects of Performance Max that negative keywords can't touch, providing comprehensive campaign control.
Will Google eventually remove negative keywords from Performance Max?
Extremely unlikely. The addition and expansion of negative keyword controls came in direct response to sustained advertiser pressure and represents Google acknowledging that automation requires guardrails. Removing the feature after this high-profile rollout would generate massive backlash. The trend is toward more advertiser control, not less, as Google learns that giving advertisers confidence in the platform increases Performance Max adoption.
The 2025 negative keyword transformation represents just one chapter in Performance Max's ongoing evolution from black box to manageable campaign type. Several additional developments are on the horizon for 2026 and beyond.
Expanded Inventory Coverage
The most requested enhancement is extending negative keyword functionality to Display, YouTube, and other inventory types beyond Search and Shopping. Google hasn't committed to this publicly, but industry speculation suggests it's under consideration for late 2026 or 2027. Technical challenges exist, keyword-based exclusions don't translate perfectly to visual inventory, but advertiser demand remains strong.
AI-Suggested Negative Keywords
Google is likely developing automated negative keyword suggestions within Performance Max, similar to existing optimization recommendations. The AI would analyze search term performance and suggest specific exclusions, potentially auto-implementing them with advertiser approval. Early testing of this concept appeared in select accounts during Q3 2025, suggesting broader rollout in 2026.
Performance-Based Auto-Exclusion
More sophisticated automation might enable performance-based automatic negative keyword addition where the system automatically excludes search terms that consistently deliver above-threshold CPAs or zero conversions after minimum impression volume. Advertisers would set parameters, the AI would execute exclusions automatically. This represents the next evolution beyond manual management.
Enhanced Search Term Visibility
Google continues improving search term reporting transparency in Performance Max. Future enhancements likely include search term data at the asset group level, query-level attribution showing which search terms drive which conversions across the conversion journey, and integration with Google Analytics 4 for deeper search term analysis. Better data enables better negative keyword decisions.
Cross-Campaign Negative Keyword Intelligence
Advanced accounts running multiple Performance Max campaigns might benefit from cross-campaign learning where the system identifies terms that waste spend in one campaign and suggests excluding them from others. This horizontal intelligence sharing could dramatically accelerate negative keyword strategy development across complex account structures.
Integration With Third-Party Tools
Expect deeper API integration enabling third-party platforms to manage Performance Max negative keywords programmatically. Currently, tools can read negative keyword data but writing capabilities are limited. Enhanced API access would enable platforms like groas to implement negative keyword recommendations automatically based on their AI analysis, creating seamless optimization workflows.
Reading about negative keyword best practices is valuable. Implementing them drives results. Here's a concrete action plan for leveraging the 10,000 keyword limit starting immediately.
Day 1: Audit and Foundation (2-3 hours)
Export your current Performance Max negative keywords across all campaigns. Review what you have, identify gaps, and establish baseline metrics (current CPA, conversion rate, wasted spend). Create your first shared negative keyword list for universal exclusions, brand safety terms that apply across all campaigns. Aim for 50-150 keywords covering profanity, offensive content, and obviously irrelevant terms.
Add this list to all Performance Max campaigns to establish baseline protection. Document your starting performance metrics, screenshot key numbers for comparison after optimization.
Day 2: Competitor Research (1-2 hours)
Compile a comprehensive list of competitor brands in your industry. Include major competitors, regional competitors in your markets, emerging competitors gaining market share, and adjacent businesses customers might confuse with yours. Research common misspellings of each competitor name using tools like Google's keyword planner or third-party keyword research platforms.
Create a shared negative keyword list titled "Competitors - [Your Industry]" containing these terms. Start with negative broad match for each competitor name to block all variations. Apply this list to all Performance Max campaigns unless you strategically want to show on competitor terms.
Day 3: Category and Intent Exclusions (2-3 hours)
Based on your business model, create category-specific shared lists. For e-commerce, create price-focused exclusions (free, cheap, discount, clearance, bargain, wholesale, bulk), DIY and homemade exclusions (how to make, tutorial, DIY, homemade, craft), and used/secondhand exclusions (used, refurbished, secondhand, pre-owned, thrift). For B2B services, create informational intent exclusions (what is, definition, guide, tutorial, tips, how to), job-seeking exclusions (job, career, salary, hiring, employment, resume), and student/education exclusions (student, education, school, university, assignment).
Build 3-5 shared lists of 80-200 keywords each covering your most relevant categories. Apply selectively to campaigns where these exclusions make sense.
Day 4: Search Terms Deep Dive (3-4 hours)
Pull search terms reports for your Performance Max campaigns for the last 30 days. Filter for high-cost, zero-conversion terms, high impressions with below-average CTR, and searches that converted but at 2x+ your target CPA. Export these to a spreadsheet and categorize them.
Look for patterns rather than individual terms. If you see "blue widgets free shipping," "red widgets free shipping," and "green widgets free shipping," the pattern is "[product] free shipping" if that's irrelevant. Add discovered waste terms to campaign-specific negative keyword lists or create new shared lists if patterns apply across multiple campaigns.
Set a target of identifying 200-500 new negative keywords from this analysis. Prioritize high-spend waste terms first.
Day 5: Implementation and Monitoring Setup (1-2 hours)
Implement the negative keywords discovered during Day 4's analysis. Apply them strategically to relevant campaigns using appropriate match types. Default to negative broad for most exclusions, phrase match for specific problematic phrases.
Set up performance monitoring to track impact. Create custom columns in Google Ads tracking impression volume, conversion volume, cost per conversion, and wasted spend metrics. Set calendar reminders for 7, 30, and 90-day reviews to assess negative keyword impact and identify needed adjustments.
Ongoing: Weekly Maintenance (30-60 minutes)
Every week, dedicate 30-60 minutes to negative keyword maintenance. Pull the previous week's search terms, identify new waste patterns, add 10-50 new negatives based on discoveries, and review performance metrics to ensure exclusions aren't over-restricting.
This disciplined weekly process compounds over time. After 12 weeks, you'll have discovered and excluded 120-600 additional waste terms, continuously refining your campaign efficiency.
Tools to Accelerate the Process
Manual negative keyword management is time-intensive. Tools accelerate discovery and implementation. Google Ads scripts can automate search term analysis, flagging potential negative keywords based on your performance thresholds. Third-party platforms like groas provide AI-powered negative keyword discovery, analyzing patterns humans might miss and suggesting exclusions based on comprehensive performance data.
groas specifically identifies which search terms consistently waste budget across all your Performance Max campaigns, suggests specific negative keywords with projected impact calculations, and helps prioritize which exclusions will deliver the most significant efficiency gains. This transforms negative keyword management from time-consuming manual work to strategic decision-making.
The evolution of Performance Max negative keywords from non-existent to 10,000 per campaign represents one of the most significant advertiser-friendly changes Google Ads has implemented in years. Combined with the August rollout of negative keyword lists, advertisers now have the tools necessary to control what was previously Google's most opaque campaign type.
The data speaks clearly. Advertisers who've fully leveraged the expanded negative keyword capabilities report average CPA reductions of 20-35%, wasted spend decreases of 50-70%, and improved traffic quality that cascades positive effects throughout their entire marketing funnel. These improvements come from the simple principle of showing ads only to people actually interested in what you offer, something negative keywords enable at scale.
But negative keywords alone don't tell the complete story. The limitation to Search and Shopping inventory means 40-70% of Performance Max spend remains uncontrolled by keywords. This is where comprehensive optimization platforms like groas deliver transformative value, optimizing the aspects of Performance Max that negative keywords can't touch while complementing your keyword strategy with automated discovery and monitoring.
The question isn't whether to leverage Performance Max negative keywords in 2025. The expanded limits and list functionality make them essential for any serious advertiser. The real question is whether you'll manage them manually, investing 2-5 hours weekly in search term analysis and list maintenance, or leverage autonomous AI platforms that automate discovery, monitoring, and optimization while you focus on strategy and growth.
For advertisers spending $15,000+ monthly on Performance Max, the math is straightforward. Manual negative keyword management consumes 8-20 hours monthly at $50-150/hour internal cost ($400-3,000 monthly), while delivering 20-30% efficiency gains on Search and Shopping inventory only. Platforms like groas cost $499/month flat rate, automate most negative keyword work, optimize all inventory types (not just Search and Shopping), and typically deliver 30-45% overall efficiency gains through comprehensive AI optimization.
The 10,000 keyword limit opened the door to Performance Max control. The August negative keyword lists made managing those keywords practical. The question now is whether you'll walk through that door manually or let AI guide you through while simultaneously optimizing everything else.
Your Performance Max campaigns deserve both comprehensive negative keyword strategies and sophisticated AI optimization. The tools exist. The data proves they work. The only remaining question is how quickly you'll implement them.
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