Performance Max Negative Keywords and Channel Report: 2026 Guide

Can you add negative keywords to Performance Max?

Yes. Performance Max campaigns now support campaign-level negative keywords and negative keyword lists directly in the Google Ads interface. According to Google's 2025 product highlights, you can apply up to 10,000 negative keywords to a single Performance Max campaign.

If you have read that you need to contact a Google rep and fill in a form to get negatives added to PMax, that advice is out of date. The self-serve option has replaced it. Account-level negative keywords also still work: they apply to Search and Shopping inventory across every campaign in the account, PMax included. Google's brand suitability guide caps the account-level list at 1,000 keywords, so it is best reserved for terms you never want to pay for anywhere.

How do you add negative keywords to a Performance Max campaign?

You add them from the Keywords page, the same place you manage Search negatives, and simply pick your PMax campaign as the target. The steps below follow Google's help documentation as of September 2026:

1. Open Keywords In the Campaigns menu, go to Keywords.
2. Negative keywords Under Negative keywords, click the plus icon.
3. Choose the campaign Select your Performance Max campaign.
4. Add terms or a list Enter keywords one per line, using the usual match type symbols (quotes for phrase, brackets for exact), or select an existing negative keyword list. Tick "Save to new or existing list" if you want to reuse the terms elsewhere.
5. Save and review Click Save, then check the search terms report after a week or two to confirm the terms stopped matching.

Which level you use depends on how widely the exclusion should apply:

If you are starting from zero, an e-commerce negative keyword list gives you a tested base: "free", "used", "how to", "repair", "jobs" and "wholesale" are low-purchase-intent modifiers that show up in almost every store's search terms.

When should you not add a negative keyword?

Don't negate a term just because it has clicks and no sales yet. PMax learns from conversion signals, and blocking dozens of low-spend queries at once narrows the room it has to find buyers. A simple rule: negate a term only if it is (1) clearly irrelevant to what you sell, or (2) has spent meaningful money without a single conversion.

Derive "meaningful money" from your own numbers. Say your average order value is $90 and your target ROAS is 400%. Your acceptable cost per conversion is $90 / 4 = $22.50. A term that has spent twice that, $45, with zero conversions is a strong negative candidate. A term that has spent $6 has not told you anything yet.

Where is the Performance Max search terms report?

Go to Campaigns, open the Search terms report, and choose "Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max" from the drop-down. It shows the actual queries that triggered your PMax ads, the landing pages they led to, and the usual performance metrics.

Google says data in this report goes back to March 2023, so you can compare seasons year over year. The most useful detail is the Ad format segment, which separates Shopping ads from text ads for the same query. That tells you whether a query like "your brand + product" is spending on product cards or on text ads, which matters when you decide between a negative keyword and a brand exclusion. Note that store visits and store sales conversions are not shown here, so businesses with physical stores should expect lower numbers than in the campaign view.

How do you see where Performance Max is spending your budget?

Use the channel performance report: Campaigns > Insights and reports > Channel performance. It is Google's official breakdown of PMax cost and results by channel, and the first place to go when someone asks "where is my PMax budget going?"

The report covers seven channels: Google Search, the Google Display Network, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners. It is built from four parts:

• Performance summary: campaign-level ROAS or CPA against your target, plus interactions, conversions, conversion value and cost.
• Channels-to-goals chart: a visual showing how much each channel contributes to your goal, with filters for channel, format and conversion type.
• Time series chart: how each channel's performance changed over the date range you pick.
• Channel distribution table: impressions, clicks, cost, conversions and conversion value per channel, plus a status column. Click Download on the table toolbar to export it.

Two segments are worth switching on: Ads using product data shows how much of the spend went to feed-based ads, and Ads using video isolates video. The status column flags problems such as "Not eligible", "Eligible (Limited)" or "Missing required assets"; hover over it or open "View channel diagnostics" to see the fix. Data is only available for date ranges after June 6, 2025, so you cannot use this report to compare against earlier periods.

A worked example (hypothetical numbers)

The figures below are invented to show how to read the report, not taken from a real account. Picture a PMax campaign that spent $10,000 in 30 days with a target ROAS of 400%:

The instinct is to switch Display off. In a standard PMax campaign there is no per-channel off switch, and Google does not let you set channel budgets; you can only influence delivery through assets, audience signals and conversion tracking. The better question is whether the low-ROAS channels are feeding conversions that get credited to Search later, or burning money because of weak assets and poor placements. The status column and the quality of your video assets usually answer that. If the "Ads using product data" share is small, the problem is more likely your feed than your channel mix.

Should you use negative keywords or brand exclusions for brand searches?

For your own brand name, use brand exclusions rather than negative keywords. Brand exclusions work from brand lists rather than individual queries, and in PMax they apply to Search, Shopping and YouTube search inventory.

To add them to an existing campaign, go to Campaigns, open the Settings tab, select the campaign, scroll to the additional settings and choose Brand exclusions. Pick an existing brand list or create a new one, then save.

For online stores, one checkbox matters a lot: "Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands". With it ticked, text ads stay out of branded queries but your product cards can still appear. That is the cleanest setup if you run branded text ads in a separate Search campaign and want PMax to keep showing products.

How do you stop PMax ads on YouTube and Display placements you don't want?

With account-level controls, because PMax has no campaign-level placement exclusions. Everything you set here applies to all eligible campaigns in the account, PMax included.

• Placement exclusion lists: Tools > Shared library > Exclusion lists > Placement exclusion lists. Add sites, apps, YouTube channels or videos. These affect Display, Search partners and video inventory.
• Inventory type: in Content suitability, choose Maximum, Moderate or Limited inventory for YouTube, the Display Network and video partners. Limited excludes as much sensitive content as possible.
• Excluded content keywords and sensitive content: under Content suitability > Advanced settings, exclude themes or sensitive categories that don't fit your brand.

These settings reduce low-quality reach, but they will not turn off a channel entirely. Use them for brand safety and obvious waste, not to force PMax into a Search-only campaign. If that is what you really want, a Standard Shopping or Search campaign is the right tool.

Monthly Performance Max spend audit checklist

Run this once a month with at least 30 days of data. Decisions made on a few days of data tend to treat normal learning swings as real problems.

• Export the channel performance report and record each channel's share of cost against last month.
• Check the status column for channels flagged "Eligible (Limited)" or "Missing required assets".
• Look at the "Ads using product data" share; if it is low, review your product feed.
• Sort the PMax search terms report by cost and pull out high-spend terms with no conversions.
• Add clearly irrelevant terms to a shared negative keyword list rather than one campaign.
• Use the Ad format segment to see how branded queries split between Shopping and text ads.
• Confirm your brand exclusion setting and the Shopping ads checkbox match your goal.
• Review account-level placement exclusions and your inventory type setting.
• Make sure conversion actions are counted correctly, with no duplicate purchases.

Don't skip the last item. Both reports are only as trustworthy as the conversion data behind them. If the revenue Google Ads reports doesn't match the orders in your store, fix measurement before you touch negatives. Seeing both side by side makes that check quick; Marpany's ad performance view puts Google Ads results next to real store orders for exactly this reason.

What to do this week

1. Download the channel performance report for the last 30 days and note each channel's cost share.
2. Pull the 20 most expensive non-converting terms from the PMax search terms report and add the irrelevant ones to a shared negative list.
3. Decide on your brand exclusion setup and whether Shopping ads should still show on branded searches.
4. If the campaign has no real video assets, upload at least one horizontal and one vertical video, and tighten your feed with the Performance Max feed setup guide.
5. Repeat the same exports in four weeks and compare. Treat this as a monthly routine, not a one-off fix.

If you need query-level control that PMax can't give you, move those queries into a Search campaign. Our guide to AI Max for Search explains how Google's newer Search automation differs from PMax and when each one makes sense.