How Do I Add Negative Keywords to Performance Max?

Until 2025, blocking a search in PMax was clumsy. You used account-level negatives, or you asked Google for help. A lot of guides still tell you to do that. They are out of date.

In early 2025 Google launched campaign-level negative keywords for every Performance Max campaign. The first cap was 100 per campaign. Advertisers told Google the cap of 100 felt too restrictive, so it raised the limit to 10,000. Later in 2025 it added shared negative keyword lists for PMax too.

That gives you three levels: one PMax campaign, the whole account, or a shared list you build once and attach to as many campaigns as you want. Brand names get their own tool on top, called brand exclusions. The steps above cover the campaign route, because that is the one most people are looking for.

These are the caps Google publishes. The tightest is the account level, at 1,000. Save it for words that are wrong in every campaign.

The level decides how far a block reaches. Pick the smallest level that covers the problem.

Most public negative lists are written for lead gen. A store needs its own. These groups waste money on store accounts again and again. Read your own search terms before you add any of them.

Jobs: jobs, careers, hiring, salary. How-to: how to make, DIY, pattern, tutorial. Free stuff: free, download, PDF, template. Wrong condition, if you only sell new: used, refurbished, repair, parts. Trade buyers, if you sell to shoppers: wholesale, supplier, bulk.

Our post on negative keyword examples for an online store has the full list, group by group, with the traps in each one.

Go slow on price words. Google's example is a luxury store blocking "cheap" and "bargain". Right for them. If you sell on price, "cheap" might be your best search.

For a term that fits no group, let the money decide. My rule of thumb: once a term has spent 1.5 times your target cost per sale with zero sales, block it. Say your target is $40 (a made-up number, to show the math). That puts the line at $60. The term "dog bed pattern" has spent $62 and sold nothing, so it goes. The term "orthopedic dog bed large" has spent $22 and sold nothing. Too early. Leave it and look again next week.

Nothing new here. A PMax negative uses the same three match types as any other negative, set with the same symbols. Our answer on what a negative keyword is covers each match type and why "dog beds" can slip past a block on "dog bed".

Google built a preview tool for PMax negatives. Before you add one, it estimates what the block costs you. You add the terms, click "Preview impact", and it shows a change in conversions or conversion value, based on your bid strategy.

A -10% result on a campaign doing 100 conversions a day means it would drop to about 90 (that is the example Google uses). You can preview 10 terms at a time.

Use it on anything that looks borderline. If blocking a word costs you real sales, that word was not waste.

In its August 2025 update, Google adds that PMax "is designed to find performing Search traffic for your brand, so negative keywords aren't always needed". And it warns that too many exclusions can limit your reach. Block the clear losers. Do not block everything you do not like the look of.

The hard part is picking which terms and where.

Scaley Media Buyer ($99/mo + 1% of total ad spend) is ours, so weigh that. It reads your live Google Ads account read-only. Ask it "which PMax terms should I add as negatives, and at which level?" and you see your waste right away: each term, what it cost, and whether it belongs on one campaign, on the account or in a shared list. The dashboard also keeps a running count, like "Scaley found $X in wasted spend this week", so you see it without asking. It only works when you ask, and it changes nothing. You add the negatives.

Scaley Suite ($199/mo + 4% of total ad spend) takes the next step. It queues each negative with the level and the reason, and each one waits for your yes before it goes live. Scaley Consultant ($99/mo flat) works from a search terms CSV or screenshot you upload and connects nothing.

Media Buyer and Suite come with the Leak Guarantee. The terms are in the questions below. Every tier starts with a 3-day free trial, card required.

You do not need a tool for this. On a small account, a weekly read of the report and a few negatives is enough. Agencies with many accounts can look at rule tools like Adalysis, which flag PMax search terms to add as negatives. And if you would rather hand the whole account to a person, ZenoX Media, my Google Ads agency, has run 400+ store accounts.