Apply Negative List

Why a master shared negative list is useful, and what this improvement does.

Hayley avatar
Written by Hayley
Updated over a week ago

How does this improvement work? 

Opteo will scan all campaigns within your account, checking whether your master shared negative list is applied to each campaign. If we find a campaign not using your master shared negative list, we’ll flag it with this improvement. 

To apply alternative or additional negative lists to the campaign, click Adjust. You can choose from all negative lists in your account. 

Completing this improvement will apply the specified negative lists to the stated campaign. Ads in the campaign won’t show for search terms, including words from the negative keyword list(s).

Why Apply Negative List? 

Negative keywords are crucial in maximising the ROI of a campaign, making sure you don't waste money on irrelevant searchers. Adding a negative keyword to your account will prevent your ads from showing when that word is searched.

Negatives can be organised in lists. You can add up to 5,000 negatives per list and 20 lists per account. You can apply lists to multiple campaigns, but remember every edit you make to the list will be felt across all campaigns sharing it. 

Using a “master shared negative list” is good Google Ads management practice. This list should include “universal” words you would never want to trigger any of your ads. A primary shared list will save you time, as you won’t need to build a separate list for every new campaign. For example, many businesses find “free” to be a vital negative keyword for all campaigns!

We find applying negative lists is often overlooked — in the excitement of creating a new campaign with new ads and keywords, it’s easy to forget about the searchers you don’t need to see or click on your ads. 


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