Negative keyword lists that scale across markets and languages

In a multi-market account, negative keywords sprawl quickly. Each campaign collects its own negatives from past reviews, the same theme is blocked in English but not in German, and nobody can say which negative is switching off which keyword.

The fix is a small set of shared negative keyword lists, each scoped to a campaign family, each written in phrase match and in every language you advertise in. New negatives from the weekly search term review go into one list once. A regular audit checks every list against your active keywords.

Scope lists by campaign family

A structure of five shared phrase-match lists covers most multi-market B2B SaaS accounts. Each list blocks one theme and attaches only to the campaigns where that theme is waste.

Jobs and learning stays off brand campaigns deliberately. Someone searching your brand plus "tutorial" is often a trial user mid-evaluation or an existing customer. The competitor brands list stays off brand and competitor campaigns for a reason covered below. Piracy and full-version terms matter most for products with a desktop download; pure browser-based SaaS can keep that list short.

Why bare "free" is dangerous

"Free" looks like the obvious negative. In B2B SaaS it blocks "free trial", which is one of the highest-intent modifiers in the account. A phrase-match "free" negative also blocks "free trial [your category]", "[competitor] free trial alternative" and every local version.

The same applies in other languages: gratuit blocks "essai gratuit", kostenlos blocks "kostenlos testen", and gratis blocks "gratis proberen" and "prueba gratis". So the free-seeker list blocks combinations instead: "free download", "téléchargement gratuit", "gratis downloaden".

If the product has a free plan, check "free version" too. It can be a buyer looking at your entry tier.

Negatives are absolute and literal

Two properties make negatives different from keywords.

First, a negative is absolute. If a query matches a negative attached to a campaign, the ad does not show from that campaign, even when an exact-match keyword in the same campaign matches the query perfectly. That is why competitor names never go into lists attached to competitor campaigns, where they would switch off the competitor keywords, or brand campaigns, where they would block "[your brand] vs [competitor]" searches.

Second, negatives do not match close variants. Google's help gives the example of a negative "flowers" that blocks "red flowers" and still lets the ad show for "red flower". Google says casing and misspellings are handled automatically. Synonyms and singular and plural forms have to be added yourself. So "job" and "jobs", "vacature" and "vacatures", "Stelle" and "Stellen" each need an entry.

Match types for negatives work as follows:

• Negative broad: blocks the query if it contains all the words, in any order.
• Negative phrase: blocks the query if it contains the words in that order, with any words before or after.
• Negative exact: blocks only that exact query.

Phrase match suits shared lists, with one catch: word order. "free download" does not block "download free", so add both. German and Dutch compounds add another: a negative "version" does not block "Vollversion", and "kostenlos download" does not block "kostenloser Download". Compounds and inflected forms need their own entries.

Keep competitor names in the generic list only

Generic campaigns match competitor queries easily, especially on broad or phrase match. Left alone, they buy those clicks at generic bids with generic copy. Attaching the competitor brands list to generic campaigns sends that traffic to the competitor campaign, which has the right intent layers, copy and landing pages. The competitor campaigns guide covers that side.

Free-seeker and jobs terms across languages

A starting set for five languages. Have a native speaker check each market, since local phrasing and word order vary.

Multi-language markets need every language on the same campaigns: Belgium needs French and Dutch, Switzerland needs German and French, and Italian if you target Ticino. English terms belong on every market's campaigns, because many European B2B buyers search in English.

Feed the lists from the weekly review, once

The weekly search term review produces new negatives. Each one goes to exactly one place:

1. A theme that is waste across a campaign family goes into the shared list, in every language at once.
2. A term that belongs in another campaign goes in as a campaign-level negative.
3. A term that belongs in another ad group goes in as an ad group negative.

Keep a short changelog per list: term, date, reason. Six months later, it answers why a query stopped showing.

Lists also need to be built proactively. In many B2B SaaS accounts, a large share of search spend has no visible query in the search terms report, because individual queries fall below Google's visibility threshold. You cannot mine negatives from queries you cannot see, so theme-based lists in every language cover part of that hidden spend.

Platform limits

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising cap the number of shared negative lists per account and the number of negatives per list. Google has raised its limits more than once, so check the current figures in each platform's help pages before you plan a structure.

Google also has a separate account-level negative keyword setting with its own cap. These negatives apply to Search and Shopping inventory across Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. Five lists leave room for market-specific lists later, but the list cap fills faster than expected if each market gets its own copy of every theme.

Performance Max

Google lets you add negative keywords and apply negative keyword lists to Performance Max campaigns; they apply to Search and Shopping inventory only. Google recommends brand exclusions for brand control and warns that negatives restrict how far the campaign can find traffic. Microsoft Advertising added negative keyword lists for Performance Max in March 2026, also limited to Search and Shopping inventory.

For a B2B SaaS account running Performance Max next to Search, attach at least the piracy, free-seeker and jobs lists, and account-level negatives for themes that are waste everywhere.

Audit: never block your own keywords

A conflicting negative switches off a keyword without an error message. We run this check after every list change and monthly:

1. Export all active keywords with campaign and ad group.
2. Export every negative with its level and match type: account level, each shared list with its campaign associations, campaign level and ad group level.
3. For each keyword, collect the negatives that apply to its campaign and ad group.
4. Test the keyword text against each negative using the match rules above.
5. For each conflict, narrow the negative, change its match type or detach the list from that campaign.
6. Check Google's "Remove conflicting negative keywords" recommendation as a second net.

Steps 2 to 4 are repetitive and easy to script, so we automate them and our strategists review the conflicts. More on that split in what to automate in PPC and our paid search service.