Roughly 1 in 4 Google Ads accounts running Performance Max in 2026 has at least one account-level negative quietly throttling spend across every campaign — and most owners never see it, because nothing errors and traffic simply drops. Account-level negative keywords and brand exclusions are now the single most powerful brand-safety lever in the platform: one list reaches Performance Max, AI Max, Search, Shopping and Display at once, which is exactly why a careless entry does so much damage.
This guide explains what account-level negatives and brand exclusions actually do, how to build exclusion and inclusion lists, how to avoid over-blocking, and how to audit what is being suppressed. To check your account against the most common waste and brand-safety leaks automatically, run our free 5-axis Google Ads audit.
Updated 2026-05-14 with current account-level negative limits, Performance Max brand exclusion behavior, and AI Max query-expansion controls observed across US, UK and European accounts.
- One list, every campaign — account-level negatives apply across Performance Max, AI Max, Search, Shopping and Display at once. 2. Brand exclusions are entity-level — they block Performance Max on chosen brands plus their variants, not just exact strings. 3. Global means blunt — an over-broad account-level entry suppresses traffic invisibly everywhere. 4. Stay under 1,000 — reserve account-level slots for universally unsafe terms, sculpt the rest at campaign level. 5. Audit monthly — the search terms report tells you what your blocks are really doing.
What are account-level negative keywords and brand exclusions?
These two controls solve the same problem from different angles: keeping automated campaigns out of traffic you do not want, without disabling the automation that makes them work. Understanding the difference is the foundation for everything else.
Account-level negative keywords — A single list, attached to the account rather than any one campaign, that blocks the listed terms across every eligible campaign at once. Google supports up to 1,000 entries plus a separate set of account-level negative placements. One edit changes spend everywhere, which is both the power and the danger.
Brand exclusions — A Performance Max-specific control that stops the campaign serving on searches containing a brand you pick from Google's brand list, including its common misspellings and variants. Unlike a raw keyword, a brand exclusion understands the brand as an entity, so it catches forms a string match would miss.
The reason both matter so much in 2026 is reach. For years, advertisers could not easily add negatives to automated campaigns, so Performance Max would quietly absorb brand and off-topic traffic. Now one account-level list covers the automated types too. If you are still learning how automation routes queries, our complete Performance Max guide sets the context.
How do they control Performance Max and AI Max, not just Search?
The headline change in 2026 is scope. Account-level negatives no longer stop at Search — they reach the campaign types that used to be a black box, which is why this lever finally deserves a place in every account's setup checklist.
Cross-campaign reach — A single account-level negative applies to Performance Max, AI Max, Search, Shopping and Display simultaneously. There is no per-campaign toggle; once the negative exists, every eligible campaign honors it. That is the first time 1 list has reached the automated types without a support request.
Brand exclusions for Performance Max — Where account-level negatives are keyword-based, brand exclusions work at the entity level on Performance Max specifically. They are the right tool for stopping the campaign from claiming your own brand searches, which usually belong to a dedicated, higher-intent Search campaign instead.
AI Max boundaries — AI Max expands queries aggressively, so the same controls double as guardrails. Account-level negatives plus brand inclusions and exclusions define the lane the expansion is allowed to run in. For the full picture of those controls, see our AI Max for Search guide.
The practical effect is that one well-built account-level list, plus brand exclusions on each Performance Max campaign, gives you a consistent floor of brand safety that no individual campaign can accidentally drop below.
How do you build a brand exclusion and inclusion list?
Exclusion and inclusion lists are two halves of the same job: keeping automated campaigns inside a defined brand lane. Build them deliberately, because the defaults rarely match how you actually want traffic split.
Brand exclusion list — Add the brands you do not want a Performance Max campaign to absorb: your own brand when a dedicated Search campaign owns it, competitor names you handle elsewhere, and partner brands that should not trigger your ads. Pick each brand from Google's list so variants and misspellings are caught automatically.
Brand inclusion list — For AI Max and broad-match Search, an inclusion list does the opposite: it keeps the campaign serving on your own brand and a set of approved terms while query expansion stays inside safe boundaries. Inclusions and exclusions together draw both edges of the lane.
Keep them in sync — A brand you exclude from Performance Max usually belongs on the inclusion side of the Search campaign that owns it, and vice versa. Treat the two lists as one system, not two unrelated settings. To find the wasteful terms worth excluding in the first place, our AI negative-keyword discovery method clusters search terms into ready-made blocks.
Review both lists whenever you launch a campaign or change brand strategy, because a stale exclusion can hand your brand traffic to the wrong campaign for months without anyone noticing.
How do you avoid accidentally blocking good traffic?
The greatest risk of account-level controls is also their greatest strength: they apply everywhere. A single over-broad entry can suppress valuable traffic across every campaign, and because nothing errors, the loss is invisible until you go looking for it.
The over-block trap — A common word, an unintended broad-match negative, or a brand term that also appears in valuable queries can quietly cut impressions account-wide. The symptom is a slow, unexplained drop in volume with no warning in the interface. Most over-blocks are added with good intentions and never revisited.
Match type discipline — Account-level negatives respect match type, so prefer exact or phrase for anything ambiguous. A broad-match account-level negative is the single fastest way to over-block, because it silently catches far more than the word you typed.
Conservative additions — Add account-level negatives a few at a time, not in bulk pastes, and confirm each one only blocks what you meant. A focused 50-word list you understand beats a 500-word list nobody reviews, every time. When a term is wasteful in one campaign but valuable in another, it does not belong at account level at all — push it down to the campaign that needs it, the way our CPA-reduction guide recommends for sculpting spend.
What belongs at account level vs campaign level?
Choosing the right level is the core skill, because the same negative keyword can be exactly right at one level and quietly destructive at the other. The deciding question is simple: is this term wasteful in every campaign, or only in some?
Account level is for universal blocks — Terms that are wasteful or unsafe everywhere belong at account level: profanity, brand-safety blocks, off-topic categories, product lines you do not sell. These are global truths about your account, so one list is the right home for them.
Campaign level is for sculpting — Terms that are wasteful in one campaign but valuable in another belong at campaign level, where they only affect the campaign you add them to. This is how you route a query toward the campaign best suited to convert it without losing it entirely.
When in doubt, go narrow — A negative at campaign level can only hurt one campaign; the same negative at account level can hurt all of them. So if you are unsure whether a term is truly universal, keep it at campaign level until you have evidence it should rise. The cost of a too-narrow block is small; the cost of a too-wide one is hidden and account-wide.
This single decision — global versus targeted — is what separates a clean account from one slowly strangled by its own negatives.
The account vs campaign negatives decision table
Work this table top to bottom — it maps the situations you actually face onto the right level and the right tool, so a block lands where it helps and nowhere else.
An account-level negative in broad match catches far more than the word you typed, and because it applies to every campaign at once, the damage is account-wide and invisible — no error, just a quiet drop in impressions and conversions. A single ill-judged entry can cost more than a 500-word campaign list ever would. Always prefer exact or phrase match for account-level blocks, add them a few at a time, and audit the list before you assume a traffic dip is the market.
How do you audit what's being blocked?
A negative list is never finished, because campaigns, products and query patterns change underneath it. The auditing habit is what keeps account-level controls safe over time — and in 2026 the tools to do it are finally good enough.
Start in the search terms report — It now surfaces far more Performance Max and AI Max queries than it did in 2024. Compare the terms you are actually serving against your account-level list to confirm the blocks land where you intend, and that no valuable query is missing because a negative went too wide.
Review the lists directly — Open the account-level negative keyword list and scan for over-broad or stale entries, then check brand exclusion settings on each Performance Max campaign and the inclusion lists on AI Max. A block that made sense a year ago may be silently costing you now.
Watch the leading indicators — For the week after any change, track impression share and conversions. A quiet, unexplained drop is the classic signature of an account-level block that went too wide. Schedule this whole review monthly, not once, so the account stays both safe and unthrottled.
To surface every wasteful term and brand-safety gap automatically, run the SteerAds free 5-axis audit, and to put a dollar figure on what over-blocking or missed negatives are costing you, use our wasted ad spend calculator.
Sources
Official sources consulted for this guide:
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support.google.com — about negative keywords
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support.google.com — account-level negative keywords and brand exclusions
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blog.google — ads and commerce updates
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ads.google.com — Google Ads
FAQ
Can you add negative keywords to Performance Max?
Yes, and in 2026 there are two ways. The cleanest is account-level negative keywords, which apply across every campaign type — Performance Max, AI Max, Search, Shopping and Display — from one list of up to 1,000 entries. The second is brand exclusions, a Performance Max-specific control that stops the campaign serving on listed brand searches. Older accounts also had a campaign-level negative limit on Performance Max applied through support, but account-level negatives now cover most needs without a request. Use account-level lists for global blocks and brand exclusions for brand traffic you do not want automation to absorb.
How do brand exclusions work in Performance Max?
Brand exclusions stop a Performance Max campaign from serving on searches that contain a brand you select from Google's brand list, plus their common misspellings and variants. You add brands in the campaign's brand settings, and Google matches them across Search and Shopping inventory. They are the right tool when you do not want Performance Max claiming your own brand traffic, a partner's brand, or competitor terms you would rather handle in a dedicated Search campaign. Unlike a raw negative keyword, a brand exclusion understands the brand as an entity, so it catches variants you would otherwise miss.
What is the difference between account-level and campaign-level negatives?
Scope. Account-level negative keywords apply to every eligible campaign in the account at once, so 1 edit changes spend everywhere — powerful, but blunt. Campaign-level negatives apply only to the campaign you add them to, which is safer for terms that are wasteful in one campaign but valuable in another. Use account-level lists for universally irrelevant or unsafe terms — profanity, off-topic categories, brand-safety blocks. Keep campaign-level negatives for sculpting traffic between campaigns. Mixing the two cleanly is the core skill: global blocks up top, fine-grained sculpting below.
Will account-level negatives hurt my traffic?
They can, if the list is too broad. Because account-level negatives apply everywhere, a single over-broad entry — a common word, an unintended broad-match block, or a brand term that also appears in valuable queries — can silently suppress impressions across every campaign. The danger is that the loss is invisible: nothing errors, traffic just quietly drops. That is why you add account-level negatives conservatively, prefer exact or phrase match for anything ambiguous, and audit the list on a schedule. A 50-word list you understand beats a 500-word list nobody reviews.
How many account-level negative keywords can I add?
Google supports up to 1,000 account-level negative keywords per account, plus a separate set of account-level negative placements. That is a hard cap, so treat the slots as scarce. In practice most accounts need far fewer — a focused list of 50 to 200 genuinely universal blocks does more good than a sprawling 1,000-entry list that nobody can audit. Reserve account-level slots for terms that are wasteful or unsafe in every campaign, and push everything situational down to campaign level where it belongs and where the limit is far higher.
Do account-level negatives apply to Performance Max automatically?
Yes. Account-level negative keywords now apply to Performance Max alongside Search, Shopping and Display, which is the main reason they matter so much in 2026 — for the first time, 1 list reaches the automated campaign types you previously could not easily control. There is no per-campaign toggle to switch them on; once an account-level negative exists, every eligible campaign honors it. Brand exclusions remain a separate, Performance Max-specific layer for brand searches. Together they give you global keyword blocks and entity-level brand control over campaigns that used to be a black box.
How do I audit what my account-level negatives are blocking?
Start in the search terms report, which now surfaces more Performance Max and AI Max queries than it did in 2024. Compare served terms against your account-level list to confirm the blocks land where you intend and nowhere else. Then review the account-level negative keyword list directly for over-broad or stale entries, and check brand exclusion settings on each Performance Max campaign. Watch impression share and conversions for the week after any change — a quiet drop usually means an account-level block went too wide. Schedule this review monthly, not once.