Google Ads Gains Account-Level Negative Keywords

We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the PPC community is happy about it.

I spotted this first via Melissa Mackey on Twitter who credits @NilsRooijmanSEA with the find on LinkedIn. Melissa wrote, "Account-level negative keywords are here! This is big."

The Google help document on negative keywords has a new section that reads, "Account-level negative keywords."

When you create your account-level list of negative keywords, it will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. This allows you to create a single, global, account-level list that applies negative keywords across all relevant inventory in your account.

You can create a single, account-level list of negative keywords in your Google Ads account settings. In your “Account Settings,” you’ll find the “Negative keywords” section. When you click on this section, you can begin creating your negative keywords list.

You can create your list by defining which search terms are considered negative for your brand. You can then enter this all at once in the “Negative keywords” section of your “Account Settings” in your Google Ads account. You can also specify whether you want to exclude these based on broad, exact, or phrase match. A limit of 1,000 negative keywords can be excluded for each account. Learn more about account-level negative keywords.

Here is a screenshot of this setting, where Nils Rooijmans explained, "Google is rolling out this feature in most of my accounts right now."

11 months ago, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, Ginny Marvin responded to this saying "There are no current plans for a keyword tab in PMax. There are, however, plans to support negative keywords for brand safety at the account level."

And now we got them.

Yay!!! pic.twitter.com/9uzIERjaY9

— dan richardson (@njsdanrich) January 26, 2023

Bit more history:

Ginny mentioned the beta would start 6 months ago fwiw. Longish cycle from planning -> beta -> release https://t.co/eeUnFPjspr

It was spotted on Google's roadmaps for Q4, seems to have been delayed a touch

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) January 27, 2023

And some reaction on this:

The people asked for Performance Max negative keywords. We got account-level instead.

We typically want to exclude keywords from SOME campaigns, not ALL (for branded queries).

— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.

Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.

— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter and LinkedIn.

Update: The Google Ads Liaison has now posted about this on Twitter:

1/3 Some have noticed Account level negative keywords are starting to roll out globally. From Account Settings, you can add keywords to exclude traffic from all Search and Shopping campaigns, and the Search and Shopping portion of PMax for brand safety: https://t.co/B0VBApPVCm

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023

3/3 And a reminder of existing brand suitability controls include inventory types, digital content labels, placement exclusions and negative keywords at the campaign level.

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023