Create negative keywords

Starting March 2022, Yahoo! Gemini engine accounts within Search Ads 360 will be migrated to engine track accounts. Learn more.

Negative keywords can help you reach the most interested customers, reduce your costs, and increase your return on investment. When you add terms as negative keywords, your ad won't show to people searching for those terms. For example, the negative keyword cruise tells the engine  to not show your ads for any search containing the term cruise.

You can add negative keywords at the campaign level or the ad group level. Negative keywords at the campaign level apply to all ads in the campaign, while negative keywords at the ad group level prevent specific ad groups from showing ads for specific queries.

Create negative keywords for an entire campaign

1. Navigate to a campaign.

   Steps for navigating to a campaign

   1. In the left navigation panel, click All accounts.
      What if the left navigation pane isn't visible?

   2. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   3. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   4. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser that contains the engine account.

   5. In the "Account" list, click on the engine account that contains the campaign.

   6. In the "Campaign" list, click on the campaign.

   7. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the campaign page.

2. Click the Keywords tab and select Negative.

3. Click + Negative keyword below the Campaign level heading.

4. In the table that appears, enter each new negative keyword in a separate row. The requirements for keyword columns vary for each type of search engine, so see the sections below for details. 

5. Click Save.

Create negative keywords for a specific ad group

1. Navigate to an ad group.

   Steps for navigating to an ad group

   1. In the left navigation panel, click All accounts.
      What if the left navigation pane isn't visible?

   2. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   3. In the "Agency" list, click the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   4. In the "Advertiser" list, click the advertiser that contains the engine account.

   5. In the "Account" list, click the engine account that contains the campaign.

   6. In the "Campaign" list, click the campaign that contains the ad group.

   7. In the "Ad group" list, click the ad group.

   8. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the ad group page.

2. Click the Keywords tab and select Negative.

3. Click + Negative keyword below the Ad group level heading.

4. In the table that appears, enter each new negative keyword in a separate row. The requirements for keyword columns vary for each type of search engine, so see the sections below for details. 

5. Click Save.

Columns for negative keywords

Google Ads

• Keyword:  Enter a word or phrase that prevents your ad from being triggered.
• Match type: Select one of the following: Broad, Exact, or Phrase

Microsoft Advertising

• Keyword:  Enter a word or phrase that prevents your ad from being triggered. Microsoft Advertising supports negative keywords with the exact or phrase match type, specified in the following formats:
  • Keyword (specifies a phrase match. Note that this format does not use quotation marks to specify a phrase match.)
  • \[Keyword\] (specifies an exact match)

For example, the first keyword specifies a phrase match, and the second keyword specifies an exact match:

Keyword
red shoes
[sneakers]

Baidu

• Keyword:  Enter a word or phrase that prevents your ad from being triggered. In Baidu, negative keywords can have a maximum length of 20 Chinese characters or 40 English characters.
• Match type: Select one of the following: Broad or Exact

Maximum number of negative keywords

Baidu allows a maximum of 200 negative keywords per match match type at each level.

For example, at the campaign level, you can create up to:

• 200 negative keywords with the broad match type
• 200 negative keywords with the exact match type

Then if you also need to define negative keywords that apply only to specific ad groups, in each ad group you can create up to:

• 200 negative keywords with the broad match type.
• 200 negative keywords with the exact match type

Yahoo! Japan

• Keyword:  Enter a word or phrase that prevents your ad from being triggered.
• Match type: Select one of the following: Broad, Exact, or Phrase

Yahoo! Gemini

• Keyword:  Enter a word or phrase that prevents your ad from being triggered.
• Match type: Select one of the following: Exact or Phrase.
  Yahoo! Gemini doesn't support the broad match type for negative keywords.