Bulk negative keywords in Google Ads: hundreds of terms in one request
Where to find the terms before writing the list, which match type and level to choose, what bulk adding looks like in practice and three common mistakes.
Tecrube-Team
Marketing-Automatisierung
Find the terms first, write the list second
The worst way to build a negative list is guessing from memory. The right source is the search terms report: queries that spent in the last 90 days, did not convert and carry an intent that does not match your business.
Tell Tecrube “group the search terms that spent over 50 dollars in the last 90 days without converting, by intent” and the result arrives in clusters: information seekers, job seekers, free seekers, unrelated brands. The list comes out of those clusters.
Which match type?
Match types behave differently for negatives; close variants are not covered automatically. An exact negative blocks only that precise query, a phrase negative blocks every query containing that phrase, and a broad negative blocks queries that contain the words in any order.
The practical rule: broad match for single generic words (such as “free”), phrase match for multi-word irrelevant patterns, exact match when there is a risk of cutting valuable queries. Plurals and misspellings must be added separately.
Which level to write at
There are three levels: ad group, campaign and shared list. Terms that never fit your business model, “jobs” for a service company for example, belong in an account-wide shared list. Terms that only cause trouble in one campaign stay at campaign level.
Ad group level is for stopping groups from triggering each other: keeping the “sofa cleaning” ad from showing on a “carpet cleaning” query.
What bulk adding looks like in practice
In Tecrube the flow has three steps. Request: “Add these 140 terms as phrase negatives to the ‘Global Exclusions’ shared list and attach the list to every search campaign.” Preview: terms, match types, target list and affected campaigns appear as a table; anything colliding with an existing positive keyword is flagged.
Approval: once you confirm, the list is created and attached in one operation. It is logged, and if you want to undo it, “remove the list you just added” in the same chat is enough. The same flow works from Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code or Cursor through the MCP connector.
Three common mistakes
First, over-aggressive broad match: make “cheap” a broad negative and you also cut the customer searching “not cheap but quality”. Second, a negative that collides with a positive keyword: the account quietly loses impressions and nobody knows why.
Third, building the list once and forgetting it. Search behaviour shifts and new leaks appear. Switch on the weekly search term scan in Tecrube and new candidates arrive every week as a preview; approving takes a minute.
Getting started
A free account comes with 75 credits; the first search term analysis and the first bulk list run within that. Pro ($49) adds the weekly scan, and Agency ($99) lets you share a list template across client accounts.
A negative list is not a tool for cutting spend; it is a tool for steering budget to the right query. Every irrelevant click removed is an impression that reaches the right customer.
An example list structure to start with
A typical starting point for service businesses is three shared lists: jobs and careers (vacancy, salary, internship), information seekers (what is, how to, homework) and free seekers (free, download, no cost).
Ecommerce adds patterns such as second hand, repair and user manual. Tecrube’s search term analysis shows which patterns actually spend in your account; fill the lists with data, not guesses.
After creating the lists, attach each to the relevant campaigns and reflect which campaign uses which list in the naming. Everyone in the team then recognises the same structure.
Frequently asked questions
How many terms fit in one shared list? Google Ads allows thousands of terms per shared negative list; in practice the limit is manageability, not the cap. A few topic-based lists (jobs, free, competitor brands) are far easier to maintain than one giant list.
Will negatives cut my impressions? They cut irrelevant impressions, which is the point. If impressions fall while CTR and conversion rate rise, the list works. Watch the search terms report for the first two weeks to make sure no valuable queries were cut.
Can I add negatives to Performance Max? Account-level negative keyword lists cover Performance Max too. Campaign-level options are more limited; Tecrube states in the preview which level applies to which campaign type.
Should competitor brands be negatives? Usually yes, unless you run a dedicated competitor campaign; those queries are expensive and convert poorly. If you do run one on purpose, add competitor terms as negatives only in the other campaigns.