Performance Max Negatives in Beta
The word on the street is that you will soon be able to add negative keywords on to performance max campaigns. If you are familiar with Google Ads, you are most definitely familiar with the struggle that is adding a negative keyword to your performance max.
Why are negative keywords important?
By adding negative keywords to a performance max campaign, you can lower your costs by removing any unwanted impressions and clicks from your campaign. For example, if you notice your ad serving for competitor search terms, you might want to negate these, as the user is searching for your competitor, not you so it’s unlikely they will convert if they click on your ad.
On the other hand, if a user is searching for your brand, they are already aware of you and want to buy from you. This means that if your ads are showing up when a person is searching for your name, you could potentially be paying for a click that otherwise could have been free.
Since the switch to performance max, this has been a grating issue for many advertisers. Adding these negative terms can be essential for success, as you can lower your costs and optimise towards a targeted audience that will drive actual conversions and maximise your budget.
How to add negative keywords to a performance max
The current process of adding a performance max negative keyword isn’t hard, but it is a lengthy and time-consuming process when it could be as quick as a click of a button (as it is with Google Search campaigns). Currently, you have to contact the Google CSS team and ask for an email template, in which you have to insert the account number and campaign you wish to add the negative keyword into. You also have to be admin of an account, so if you rely on a client or someone else to add these in, the whole process can become quite lengthy.
Such a faff right? All the more reason we need to be able to add them on ourselves, so can we?
The new process in Beta
There is a new easier process currently in Beta for larger international clients. This process cuts out the communication, and quite frankly the time wasted with Google.
Your account first must be whitelisted to have access to this setting. However, they should then roll this out to all Google advertisers in the future. Once you have been whitelisted you can go onto your Google ads account and access an account setting that allows you to add a list of up to 1,000 negative keywords to your account.
Okay, so this isn’t specifically Performance Max, but they do get added to the whole account, so if you are wanting to create a performance max and negate all the brand terms you can.
The negative keyword list can include, broad, match, and phrase-type keywords.
Once whitelisted you should see in your account settings a negative keywords section. This is where you can simply add all the keywords you want to negate! As easy as pie.
It is important to note these negative lists are at account level. If you’re looking to do cross-campaign negation, there may still be a process to go through with Google but this definitely feels like a step in the right direction!
When will everyone be able to add negative keywords into performance max?
It’s unknown when this process will be accessible to everyone, however, we do know that it’s in Beta and available to some accounts. Beta is a program that tests out new features on Google. You may find if you are working with several accounts that some clients have features in Google and others don’t. This means that some are in Beta. Beta includes new ideas, new products, and features.
But for now, we do have to stick with the current process of contacting Google for your negative keywords. Fingers crossed they see our struggles and implement this globally for everyone. If you are having trouble with your performance max campaigns check out some of our performance max hacks or if you’re looking for help with your Pay Per Click strategy, please feel free to contact us for help.
