How to add keywords that won't trigger my ads (negative keywords)

Use negative keywords to help prevent your ad from appearing in response to certain search queries or other input. You can add negative keywords at the account, campaign, and ad group levels, or create a shared negative keyword list to use across campaigns. Each negative keyword can contain up to 100 characters. Each shared negative keyword list can contain up to 5,000 negative keywords. You can create one negative keyword list at the account level that contains up to 1,000 negative keywords. Learn more about negative keywords.

Note

There's no way to apply negative keyword lists across all accounts and sub-accounts at once.

You can also turn your dynamic ad targets search terms into negative keywords by following these steps: From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Dynamic ad targets > Search terms. Then, select the checkbox next to the appropriate search terms and select Add as negative keyword.

Add negative keywords at the account level

An account-level negative keyword list is applied to Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns associated with your account and supplements the keywords you add to individual campaigns and ad groups. This means that negative keywords added at the account level will be used in addition to any negative keywords you set at the campaign and ad group level. You can create one list at the account level that contains up to 1,000 negative keywords.

1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Settings > Account level options.
2. Below Negative keywords, select Add negative keywords.
3. Add your negative keywords as phrase match or exact match.
4. Select Save.

Add negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level

For instructions on adding negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns, see below.

1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Keywords > Negative keywords.
2. Select Campaign or Ad group.
3. Select Add.
4. Select the appropriate campaign or ad group, then add your negative keywords as appropriate.
5. Select Save.

Add negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns

Note

Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don't, don't worry—it's coming soon!

You can add negative keywords to your Performance Max campaign during or after campaign creation:

• During campaign creation

  1. Follow the steps to create your campaign.
  2. Below Negative keywords in your targeting settings, enter your negative keywords.

  Note

  Negative phrase match is the default negative keyword match type, which you can edit after creating your campaign in Campaigns > Negative keywords.

• After campaign creation

  You can add negative keywords and negative keyword lists after campaign creation:

  • Add negative keywords
  1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
  2. Select the appropriate Performance Max campaign.
  3. Select Negative keywords.
  4. Select Add.
  5. Enter your negative keywords.
  6. Select Save.
  • Add negative keyword lists

  See the instructions below.

Add negative keyword lists at the campaign level

1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Keywords > Negative keyword lists.
2. Select Add.
3. Choose the appropriate campaign.
4. Select the negative keyword lists you want to apply to your campaign.
5. Select Save.

Note

• When adding negative keywords, do not use a hyphen ( - ) to indicate that the keyword is negative. You can use brackets ( [] ) to indicate exact match negative keywords and quotation marks ( "" ) to indicate phrase match negative keywords.
• If a campaign has multiple ad groups with different language settings, Microsoft Advertising adds the negative keywords only to ad groups that have the same language setting as the account.

Add search terms as negative keywords

You can research search terms, and then add them to your keyword list. You can also use this feature to identify search queries that you want to avoid by creating negative keywords.

Learn about search terms and how to add them as negative keywords.

Edit or delete negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level

1. From the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Keywords > Negative keywords.
2. Select Campaign or Ad group.
3. Select the checkbox next to one or more negative keywords that you want to edit or delete.
4. Select Delete or Edit. If editing, make your changes > Save.

Note

When you edit negative keywords in bulk, Microsoft Advertising uses the account language setting.

Download a negative keyword list

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Campaigns.
2. Select the appropriate campaign.
3. Select Keywords.
4. Select Negative keywords.
5. Select Export.
6. A CSV file containing your negative keywords will automatically download.

Use/view a shared negative keyword list

First you must create a negative keyword list and add your negative keywords. After this, you can add the list to one or more campaigns.

Step 1: Create a negative keyword list

If you simply want to view your negative keyword lists, you can select each list to view the campaigns associated with it.

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > Negative keyword lists.
2. Select Create negative keyword list.
3. Enter a list name, and then enter one negative keyword per line. You can enter up to 5,000 negative keywords at a time.
4. Select Save.

Step 2: Add a negative keyword list to one or more campaigns

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > Negative keyword lists.
2. Select the name of the list you want to add to one or more campaigns.
3. Select Campaigns in this list.
4. Select Add campaigns.
5. Select the plus button next to the campaigns that you want to associate with this negative keyword list.
6. Select Save.

Edit or delete a shared negative keyword list

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > Negative keyword lists.
2. To delete the list, select the checkbox next to the list > Delete.
3. To edit the list, select the list name, and then Add negative keywords or select the checkbox next to one or more negative keywords to Delete them.
4. To edit keywords, select the keyword, enter your changes > Save.

Add a shared negative keyword list to a campaign

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > Negative keyword lists.
2. Select the list name.
3. Select Campaigns in this list.
4. Select Add campaigns.
5. From the available campaigns list, select the plus button next to the campaign you want to associate with this list.
6. Select Done.

Remove a shared negative keyword list from a campaign

1. From the navigation menu on the left, select Tools > Negative keyword lists.
2. Select the list name.
3. Select Campaigns in this list.
4. Select checkbox next to the campaign you would like to delete from the list > Delete.