Add negative keywords to campaign

  • Negative keywords prevent campaign ads from serving for specific keywords.

  • Negative keywords can be broad, exact, or phrase match.

  • You can create negative keywords using the Google Ads UI or the Google Ads API.

  • Negative keyword lists can be applied to multiple campaigns.

  • Negative keywords can also be added at the ad group level.

Summary

You can use negative keywords to prevent a campaign from serving ads for specific keywords.

Negative keywords can be broad, exact, or phrase match. You can create a negative keyword by following the steps for the Google Ads UI or the Google Ads API.

In addition to creating individual keywords for a campaign, you can create a negative keyword list to apply to multiple campaigns at once.

Manual steps

  1. Create a Shopping campaign.
  2. Sign in to the Google Ads account.
  3. Click the Keywords tab.
  4. Click the Negative keywords tab.
  5. Click the + Keywords button, then choose ad group or campaign.
  6. Select the ad group or campaign to apply the negative keywords to.
  7. Enter your keywords, then click Save.
  8. To change the match type, click on the keyword and select the desired match type, then click Save. Here are the supported match types:
    • Broad match (default)
    • Exact match
    • Phrase match

Automatic steps

  1. Make sure you've successfully created a campaign and have a campaign ID.
  2. Create a MutateCampaignsRequest as follows:
    1. Set the operation to update.
    2. Set the operand to a Campaign as follows:
      • Set the CriterionType to KEYWORD.
      • Set the negative field to true.
      • Set the criterion to keyword by providing KeywordInfo.

You can also add negative keywords at the ad group level.