Google has started rolling out two massive new features for Performance-Max campaigns.
The negative keywords tool was announced several months ago and finally started appearing in accounts towards the end of March. Shockingly, Google also started rolling out P-Max Search Terms reports around the same time. While we’re seeing fewer accounts with the second, unannounced, feature, we’ve been able to get it added through our agency rep noting we’re a Premier Partner agency.
So what’s the big deal?
About the Negative Keywords Tool
The ability, or inability, to add negative keywords to P-Max campaigns has evolved a lot since the original launch way back in November 2021.
Initially there was no way to add negative keywords. Eventually Google facilitated adding negative keywords directly to P-Max campaigns by requesting your Google rep implement it. While this “worked” there was no record anything was ever implemented and no way to track what negative keywords were a applied after the fact. Also, as many advertisers don’t have Google reps they were left out in the cold.
Over time Google introduced some new functionality. First up was their account-level negative keywords list. Adding up to 2,000 negative keywords here applied to all campaigns and blocked relevant queries in search, shopping, and content. This was a nice feature for sure, but meant that you still couldn’t directly add negative keywords to P-Max without Google Rep intervention.
Later, Google added brand lists. This allowed advertisers to block their own brand, third party brands they offer, or competitor brands in select P-Max campaigns. This feature originally allowed positive targeting in search campaigns and was recently expanded to allow for exclusions in that campaign type as well. This was a nice add-on as many advertisers complained about overstated P-Max performance due to many conversions coming from branded query searches.
More recently Google launched a web form and spreadsheet submission to facilitate excluding keywords, placements, and topics. The spreadsheet allows you to “save” your work and makes requesting exclusions relatively fast and easy. Even so, most advertisers haven’t bothered using the tool. Furthermore, once you submit several rounds of negatives it’s easy to get confused about what negatives have been implemented if you’re not well organized.
Fast forward to today and we finally have full-fledged negative keywords management directly in the web interface. This is the way it should have always been and allows for direct/granular control over your negative strategy.
You can find the new tool under the Audiences, keywords, and content tab. The tool is simply called “keywords.”
About the Search Terms Report
Right out of left-field, Google has launched a P-Max search terms report in conjunction with the negative keywords tool. While this is something advertisers have been clamoring for, I don’t believe anyone thought we’d actually get it.
While the negative keywords tool is really useful, it’s so much more powerful when used in conjunction with the search terms report.
As with search terms reports for other campaigns, a good portion of search queries along with a full set of KPIs (impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, conversion rate, CPA, ROAS, etc.) are provided in all their glory. One small deficiency, which I don’t see as a big problem, is that there is no breakdown by asset group.
This tool can be found under the Insights and reports tab and is called “search terms.”
How to Use the Negative Keywords Tool
I recommend starting by adding all negative keywords you’ve previously requested directly to your P-Max campaigns. You may also want to send a retraction to Google using the online web form tool. What the retraction will do is ensure that if you later remove negatives from the online interface, that those aren’t still active from Google’s side.
Once you’ve taken care of that you should take stock of your existing account level negatives, negative lists applied to other campaigns, content exclusions, and brand lists. Develop a new strategy to apply relevant negatives directly to the P-Max campaigns wherever it makes sense. Note these important facts before you begin:
The “keywords” tool doesn’t support negative keyword lists for P-Max. You will need to copy the keywords from lists over manually. The fastest way to do so it by downloading each list into a spreadsheet and then copying/pasting them into the P-Max negatives interface.
Negative keywords directly applied to P-Max campaigns only affect search and shopping channels. They do not block content keywords for placements. If you plan to migrate account-level keywords (remove them from your account in the process), you should consider adding them back to your account level content keyword exclusions. This tool can be found in the content suitability tab.
If you’ve previously added branded negatives by requesting those from your rep or uploading a sheet to support, I do not recommend adding those directly to your P-Max campaigns. I would, instead, use the branded keywords list to manage those. This method is much more robust, particularly for brands that may include common words.
Avoid starting out aggressively, adding every single negative keywords you use in search campaigns to your P-Max campaigns. P-Max, by design, works the entire funnel which includes less specific queries with lower intent. Remember that Google uses thousands of signals besides the query to determine when and how much to bid. Absolutely consider adding “no go” negatives for competitor brands, adjacent industries, and historically low performing words. But otherwise do give P-Max some room to breath, it’ll function a lot better.
Otherwise, the tool works exactly the same as for other campaigns. You can add broad, phrase, and exact match negatives. They will function as expected. Have at it!
How to Use the P-Max Search Terms Report
One of the ways you should think about P-Max is as a prospecting tool. This is particularly important for non-shopping P-Max campaigns.
As such, you should already be looking at P-Max insights regularly and using that information to optimize your other campaigns. The search terms report allows you to take this one step further. Start harvesting high performing search terms and adding those back as target keywords in relevant search campaigns. One huge complaint from advertisers is P-Max cannibalizing search ads. Now you can start to reverse this issue while gaining way more control!
Then there is the obvious, adding negatives to block low performing queries.
Here are a couple of obvious ways to filter the data to streamline search terms analysis:
Sort your search terms by highest to lowest conversion volume. You may, optionally, filter out high CPA results. Copy high performers over to the appropriate search campaign. Note this also works with ROAS if you’re tracking conversion values.
Sort your search terms by highest to lowest impressions. Filter out queries above a desirable minimum CTR. Add these as negatives to limit exposure to low relevance queries. This will help increase your overall CTR and you may see your CPC start to drop as a result. Keep an eye out here for queries with low click through rates that actually convert.
A more advanced way is to consider using N-Grams. I don’t know whether a standard N-Grams script will work with P-Max search terms yet but if not you can use a third party service such as Premavor to perform the analysis. N-Grams evaluates root words in aggregate rather than individual search queries. The results can be pretty powerful in some cases. However, Google already performs this optimization for you with AI so we’ve seen the tool become less useful over time. Of course I can argue that Google already fully optimizes your keyword strategy in P-Max, but that doesn’t mean we should not intervene.
Summary
After a long and complex history of limited options for keyword management in P-Max, Google has finally introduced two amazing tools to make it a snap.
The “Keywords” tool allows advertisers to directly add broad, phrase, and exact match negative keywords to their P-Max campaigns, providing granular control over where their ads appear on search and shopping channels.
Getting the P-Max Search Terms Report tool was a big surprise to advertisers as it wasn’t previously announced by Google. This report, found under the “Insights and reports” tab labeled “search terms,” provides a detailed view of the actual search queries that triggered P-Max ads, along with standard performance metrics (impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, etc.).
In combination, advertisers can now identify high-performing search terms to add as keywords in other campaigns and, crucially, identify low-performing queries to add as negative keywords in their P-Max campaigns.
These two long-awaited features give advertisers significantly more transparency and control over their Performance Max campaigns, addressing previous limitations and enabling more effective optimization. Note that I’ve also made a short video explaining the new features.
