PMax Keywords: What You Can Still Control in Search

Performance Max takes no targeting keywords: Google decides which searches to show your ads on, based on your feed, landing pages and assets. You still control the edges: search themes suggest extra queries, and negative keywords and brand exclusions block unwanted ones. A Search campaign alongside lets you buy chosen queries with your own keywords, and the search terms report shows what Performance Max actually bought. Treat themes as hints and exclusions as hard limits, and decide on negatives by spend rather than gut feel.

This guide covers only the search side of Performance Max: queries, negative keywords and your brand. For the campaign type as a whole, see our Performance Max guide for online stores. It explains how to structure the campaign so Google learns from the right sales.

Does Performance Max use keywords?

Not for targeting. The only keywords the campaign accepts are negative keywords, or negatives for short. Google’s API documentation for Performance Max (Create the campaign criteria) says keyword and brand criteria work only as negatives. You cannot tell the campaign “show my ads for this query”.

Instead, Google predicts which queries will perform, based on what you give it: your assets, your feed and your landing pages. Even search themes, the one way to add queries, work on top of that prediction. Google describes themes as “additive to the queries and placements Performance Max predicts will perform well” (Kick off 2025 with new Performance Max features).

So the real difference from a Search campaign is the direction of control. In Search you list the queries you want and trim from there. In Performance Max the campaign starts wide, and you can only nudge it or fence parts of it off.

Keywords steer only a small slice of a typical store’s budget

In GetProfit data on 146 online stores (June 2025 – June 2026), Performance Max runs in 141 of them and takes a median 95.7% of the ad budget in those stores. Search campaigns run in 81 stores and take a median 5.3% of the budget where they run. We count shares inside each store, so the five currencies in the sample never mix. This is an observation across stores, not an experiment.

For the typical store in this sample, keyword lists steer a small part of the budget. The rest goes through a campaign where the levers in this guide are the main search controls left. That is why they deserve the same care that keyword lists used to get.

What can you actually control?

The levers fall into four kinds. Search themes add queries. Negative keywords and brand exclusions block queries, and URL exclusions block landing pages. A Search campaign buys chosen queries with your own keywords, and the search terms report shows what Performance Max bought.

Search themes: a hint, not a keyword

A search theme tells Google about a query your shoppers use. It only adds reach: the campaign keeps serving on queries you never listed. Google’s API guide on signals describes themes as information for Google AI about what your customers search for and which topics lead to conversions (Asset Group Signals).

Google’s January 2025 update added a way to check whether a theme works. In search term insights you can see whether a query came from Performance Max’s keywordless targeting or from your themes. An indicator next to each theme shows how useful it is (Kick off 2025 with new Performance Max features).

Where should themes come from? In our view, category names add little, because your feed already tells Google what you sell. A better source is the queries that already bring you orders. Another is real demand that your product titles describe poorly, such as a use case or a problem the product solves. Our guide to search themes in Performance Max covers how to pick them and how many to add.

Negative keywords: two levels that work in Performance Max

Campaign level. In January 2025 Google announced that campaign-level negatives, previously in beta, were rolling out to all advertisers (Kick off 2025 with new Performance Max features). A Performance Max campaign can hold up to 10,000 negative keywords (Create the campaign criteria). Use this level for terms that are wrong for one campaign but fine for another.

Account level. Google added account-level negative keywords in February 2023, so you can block queries you never want your ads on (New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max). An account can have at most one account-level negative keyword list (Shared sets). Use it for terms no campaign should ever buy: job searches, “free download”, “second-hand” if you only sell new goods.

Our guide to negative keywords in Performance Max shows which level suits which kind of term and how to check which negatives already block traffic.

Two related cases have their own guides:

• Marketplace names. Some shoppers search for a product together with a marketplace name. The guide to marketplace names as negative keywords helps you decide whether to keep paying for those clicks.
• Standard Shopping alongside. If you still run Standard Shopping next to Performance Max, campaign priorities and negatives can route generic and specific queries to campaigns with different bids. That technique is query sculpting in Shopping campaigns.

When does a search term deserve a negative?

GetProfit uses a two-step rule from the portal’s threshold catalogue. A search term with no conversions becomes a candidate for an exact-match negative once it has spent more than 2× your cost per conversion (CPA). Past 3×, it becomes a candidate for a phrase-match negative.

The second step needs more evidence for a reason. An exact-match negative blocks one query. A phrase-match negative blocks every query that contains the phrase, so a wrong one cuts off far more traffic.

Example store, not client data.

A tableware store spends 40,000 a month and gets 300 orders from 8,000 clicks. Every order counts as a conversion, so its CPA is 133. Its cost per click (CPC) is 5 and its conversion rate is 3.75%. Here is what the two thresholds mean for one search term:

The last column treats each click as an independent chance to buy at the store’s average rate. Real queries differ, so read it as an order of magnitude.

The estimate is rough, but the pattern is clear. At 2× CPA, roughly one in eight terms that convert like the rest of the store will look like waste. At 3×, the false-alarm rate drops to about one in twenty.

The rule also lets some weak terms through. A term that converts at half the store’s rate still shows zero orders about 36% of the time at the first step and 22% at the second.

A threshold picks candidates, not verdicts. In our study of 1.4 million products, 35.4% of products in “loser” status converted in later months, with a median of 2 months. That study measured products, not queries, but the lesson carries over: a term with zero conversions so far can still convert later. Before a candidate becomes a negative, check three things:

1. Relevance. Does the query describe something you sell? An irrelevant query can become a negative at the first step. A relevant one deserves a second look.
2. Timing. Did the spend fall into a sale, a stock-out or a season when nobody buys that product?
3. Purchase cycle. People often search several times before buying an expensive product, so a query may sit early on the path to an order that gets credited elsewhere.

Our step-by-step guide on how to find negative keywords for Shopping and Performance Max shows how to tell a term that wastes money from one that hasn’t converted yet.

Brand exclusions: should Performance Max pay for shoppers who already know you?

If Performance Max serves on your own brand name, part of its reported revenue may come from people who would have found you anyway. Brand exclusions keep the campaign off those searches.

When Google announced brand exclusions for Performance Max in February 2023 (New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max), it said they would keep the campaign off branded searches on Search and Shopping inventory. They would also block most misspellings of a brand and branded searches in a foreign language. The same announcement said you could exclude your own brand, pick other brands from a list and request a brand missing from it.

Google’s January 2025 update gave retailers a middle option: exclude the brand from Search text ads only and keep branded traffic for Shopping ads (Kick off 2025 with new Performance Max features).

Excluding your brand moves those searches somewhere else, so decide first where they should land:

Search campaigns have the same brand lists, but Google files brand inclusions and exclusions under the controls of AI Max for Search (Get started with AI Max for Search campaigns).

Our guide to brand exclusions in Performance Max covers whether to exclude your own brand and what happens to branded searches when you do.

Sometimes partners or resellers buy ads on your brand name. Then the fix sits in the contract and in the negative keyword list you give them: see stopping affiliates from bidding on your brand.

Search campaigns next to Performance Max: who gets the query?

A Search campaign is the one place left where you name a query and set a bid for it. When a Search keyword and Performance Max could both serve the same query, Google’s prioritisation rules decide which campaign enters the auction. Our comparison of Performance Max vs Search campaigns covers what those rules say and when running both is worth it.

AI Max blurs the line between the two. Google’s API guide describes it as using broad match and keywordless technology to reach beyond your existing keywords (Get started with AI Max for Search campaigns). A Search campaign with AI Max on can therefore reach queries that Performance Max used to serve. The guide to AI Max in a store’s Search campaigns explains what that changes for a store. It also shows how to check whether AI Max adds sales or only moves them.

Where can you see which searches Performance Max showed ads on?

Google started rolling out a search terms report for Performance Max in April 2025 (Channel performance and more reporting coming to Performance Max). It added to the search term insights that were already there. Google names two uses for it: new text assets for your best terms, and campaign-level negatives and brand exclusions for terms that aren’t a good fit. Our article on the Performance Max search terms report covers how much the report still leaves out.

If you pull data through the Google Ads API, a script or a connector, the source matters. Google’s API guide (Campaign criterion performance) points to campaign_search_term_view for Performance Max. The older search_term_view works at ad group level and holds no Performance Max data. Adding a keyword segment to campaign_search_term_view also filters out all Performance Max rows.

We learned this from our own archive. We collected our search term data through search_term_view, so it holds no Performance Max queries. That is why this guide quotes no cross-store numbers on Performance Max search terms.

Search is only part of where the money goes. In the same April 2025 post, Google announced a channel performance page, with an open beta due a few weeks later. It shows Search, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Display, Search partners and Maps side by side. Our article on where Performance Max spends by channel explains how to read it.

Brand exclusions work on Search and Shopping inventory. For YouTube, Display and other placements, you use other levers: which placements and content types you can exclude.

What to do: a monthly search check for Performance Max

1. Pull the queries. Use the search terms report, or campaign_search_term_view if you work through the API. Pick a date range that covers your full purchase cycle and doesn’t start in the middle of a sale.
2. Mark candidates by spend. Terms with no conversions and spend above 2× your CPA are exact-match candidates. Above 3×, they are phrase-match candidates.
3. Check each candidate for relevance, timing and purchase cycle before you add it. Keep a list of the terms you rejected, so next month you can skip them.
4. Put each negative at the right level. Terms no campaign should buy go to the account-level list. Terms wrong for one campaign go to that campaign.
5. Decide on your brand. Exclude it from Performance Max only when you know where branded searches will land. If Shopping ads on your brand sell well, exclude it from Search text ads only.
6. Refresh search themes from queries that already bring orders. Check the usefulness indicator, and replace the ones that add nothing.
7. Compare before and after. Note the date of each change and judge it on the weeks that follow, not on the next day. The portal’s change log keeps budget, bid and other changes in one place, and shows who made each one, including Google’s own automation.

If an agency or a specialist runs your account, agree on the negatives and exclusions with them before anything goes in. This check is one part of a wider Google Ads audit for an online store.

Who changed what in your ads — and how it ended. For each change the portal works out what things were like before and after, and says it plainly: did it work or did it hurt. The portal changes nothing without your consent.

See what changed in your account →

Sources

• Create the campaign criteria (Google Ads API) — keyword and brand criteria in Performance Max are negative only; up to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign; webpage exclusions for final URL expansion. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Campaign criterion performance (Google Ads API) — campaign_search_term_view covers Performance Max; search_term_view does not; keyword segments filter out Performance Max data. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Performance Max reporting (Google Ads API) — campaign_search_term_view is the resource for search term performance. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Asset Group Signals (Google Ads API) — what search themes tell Google. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Shared sets (Google Ads API) — at most one account-level negative keyword list per account. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Get started with AI Max for Search campaigns (Google Ads API) — brand inclusions and exclusions as AI Max controls; reach beyond existing keywords. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Kick off 2025 with new Performance Max features (Google, 23 January 2025) — search themes are additive; query source and theme usefulness in search term insights; campaign-level negatives for all advertisers; brand exclusions for Search text ads only. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Channel performance and more reporting coming to Performance Max (Google, 30 April 2025) — search terms reporting rolling out; channel performance reporting announced as an open beta. Checked 2 October 2026.
• New ways to multiply your results with Performance Max (Google, 23 February 2023) — account-level negative keywords; brand exclusions announced as coming soon for Search and Shopping inventory, misspellings and foreign-language brand searches. Checked 2 October 2026.
• GetProfit data: 146 online stores, June 2025 – June 2026 — share of budget in Performance Max and Search campaigns.
• GetProfit study of 1,404,808 products over 13 months — 35.4% of “loser” products converted later, median 2 months.
• GetProfit portal threshold catalogue — the 2× and 3× CPA rule for negative keyword candidates.