Earlier this year, Google Ads announced that account level negative keyword lists are now available worldwide. This change helps advertisers manage their negative keywords more efficiently and improve their targeting accuracy.

Previously you had campaign level lists, and so had to manually apply the list to each campaign. This method increased the likelihood of human error, as one campaign or more could slip through the cracks.

Negative keyword lists are useful in excluding irrelevant impressions and clicks for your brand, allowing campaigns to focus solely on the keywords that matter to your potential customers. Every click matters, and given that advertisers can only create a maximum of 20 negative keyword lists per account, you have to make sure to make them count. One difference between the negative keyword list types is that these new account level lists have a limit of 1,000 negative keywords, compared to the campaign level negative keyword lists of 5000 negative keywords.

When you set an account-level negative keyword, it applies to all your eligible search and shopping campaign types, which includes Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Smart Shopping, Smart, and Local campaigns. Performance Max Shopping only allows account-level negative keyword lists currently, which can make it tricky when wanting to experiment with different campaign targeting.

You are still able to add individual keywords at an ad group level directly via the search terms report and you are still be able to use the various match types within these new account level lists.

By creating one list to rule them all, you can save time and ensure that your ads are only shown to the right people, improving the accuracy and effectiveness of your campaigns. And if you haven't done so already, consider creating an account-level negative keyword list for your Google Ads account to take advantage of this exciting feature.