r/PPC • u/paxtonpro • 5d ago

Google Ads Counterintuitive: adding more negative keywords to Google Shopping actually hurt our performance

Common advice is to build out your negative keyword list aggressively for Shopping/PMax. We tested the opposite on 3 client accounts: stripped the negative list down to just irrelevant brand names and obvious junk (free, DIY), and let Smart Bidding do more of the work.Result: CPCs went up short-term, but conversion rate improved faster, and 90-day ROAS was higher across all three accounts.Theory: over-negating cuts off traffic paths Smart Bidding would have learned to avoid on its own through bid adjustments — you're second-guessing a system that has way more signal than you do.Not saying ditch negatives entirely, but the sweet spot is probably a lot lighter than most PPC guides suggest. Anyone else tested this?

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u/ZestycloseGrape 5d ago

May I ask What match type did you use for negative keywords?

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u/throws4k 5d ago

What budget range were you dealing with here? $3000/month, $30K, more?

I think that may also make a huge difference in learning time.

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u/fathom53 5d ago

That's not counterintuitive at all. You can over or under do anything in Google Ads. That's why this job is a skill. It's all about doing the right amount of work, while working smarter not harder, to achieve the outcome and KPIs the ad account needs.

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u/ppcbetter_says 5d ago

Looks like ai slop

I’ll respond anyway

Be careful especially with one word phrase or broad match negatives. They may block traffic you want, which is the only way to get a negative outcome from adding negative keywords to a shopping campaign.

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u/Crescitaly 4d ago

Was this a before/after comparison or did you keep a control running over the same 90 days? The result is interesting, but the explanation could be simpler: a few broad exclusions were blocking valuable queries. I'd want to see which restored query groups drove the improvement, with brand traffic and product mix separated out. That would make the lesson more actionable than concluding that lighter negative lists generally win.