A buyer adds a carefully chosen set of search themes and expects Performance Max to serve only those searches. Another buyer responds to an irrelevant query by excluding a broad word that also appears in valuable searches. Both mistakes come from treating different controls as if they were the same kind of keyword list.
Start by describing the behavior you want to change. Is the system missing useful business context, matching an irrelevant query, serving branded demand, or choosing an unsuitable page? The answer points toward the appropriate control.
Treat search themes as guidance
Google's search themes documentation describes themes as broader context for keywordless targeting. They can communicate relevant customer needs that the system may not infer from existing assets or feeds. They are not a closed set of allowable searches.
For an illustrative business selling commercial acoustic panels, a theme about office sound treatment might add context that a product code does not communicate. Adding every spelling variation of the same phrase would contribute less distinct information.
Write a short rationale beside each proposed theme. Identify the product, customer need, and supporting destination. If the team cannot explain why a theme belongs, it may be a weak addition even when it sounds related to the industry.
Treat negatives as restrictions
Google's Performance Max negative keyword guidance describes negatives as a restrictive control for irrelevant or unsuitable queries and distinguishes them from brand exclusions. A negative is therefore a decision to prevent matching traffic, not merely a suggestion about preferred customers.
Before adding one, inspect the actual query and its commercial context. A term can look irrelevant in isolation while being part of a valid product search. Separate an obviously unavailable service from a query that simply has not converted yet.
Low observed performance may justify investigation, but it does not always establish irrelevance. Check conversion maturity, traffic volume, and the destination before turning a noisy observation into a durable exclusion.
Match the problem to the control
| Observed problem | First review | Relevant control to evaluate |
|---|---|---|
| Missing product context | Themes, assets, feed, and page content | Search themes or clearer source assets |
| Clearly irrelevant query | Exact query and intended offering | Negative keyword with suitable scope |
| Own-brand coverage conflict | Brand definition and campaign role | Brand exclusions |
| Wrong landing page | Destination eligibility and actual URL | URL exclusions or expansion settings |
| Poor lead quality | Qualification evidence and bidding goal | Measurement and goal configuration |
The final row matters. Blocking more queries may not solve a campaign that is optimized toward an easy but commercially weak conversion action. Diagnose the goal before assuming targeting is the only issue.
Build a proposal with positive and negative examples
For each restriction, include a query you intend to block and a nearby query you intend to preserve. This makes the tradeoff visible to a reviewer.
Suppose a furniture company sells finished desks but not replacement parts. It might investigate queries about spare drawer runners. A broad restriction involving “desk” would obviously remove much more than the unwanted intent. Even narrower wording needs to be checked against the platform's current matching behavior and the actual products sold.
Save the exact proposed text, match type where applicable, account or campaign scope, and reason. Avoid approving a vague instruction such as “clean up irrelevant traffic,” which leaves the meaningful choices hidden from the person responsible for the account.
Inspect inherited controls
A campaign can be affected by settings maintained elsewhere in the account. Review applicable lists and ownership before adding a new restriction. A local change may appear ineffective because another control already determines the outcome, or it may duplicate a rule nobody remembers creating.
Record which team owns each list and who can revise it. The conflicting-instructions guide provides a method for resolving disagreement between account policy and campaign-specific requests.
Do not delete an inherited exclusion simply because its rationale is missing. Recover the reason where possible, then make a separate decision about whether it still applies.
Keep brand and destination decisions distinct
Use the brand-traffic audit when the concern is whether Performance Max is capturing existing branded demand. Brand classification, campaign roles, and business outcomes deserve their own analysis.
Use the final URL expansion audit when users reach an inappropriate page. A search-theme change is not proof that the page has become ineligible. Likewise, excluding a URL does not necessarily answer a query-coverage question.
This separation keeps the repair close to the failure. It also reduces the risk that a broad targeting change hides a website problem that remains unresolved.
Verify settings and review subsequent evidence
After applying an approved change, read back the saved list and scope. Confirm the correct campaign or account. Then review later query and destination evidence with the reporting limitations noted.
The absence of a term from a small reporting sample does not prove it can never serve. The presence of a related term does not automatically prove the rule failed; inspect the exact matching setup and current provider documentation.
Record the date, hypothesis, observed effect, and next decision. Retain useful guidance, revise restrictions that block valid intent, and remove obsolete event-specific context through a documented review. A well-maintained control set should explain the business, not accumulate every reaction the account has ever had.
Document an exclusion proposal
The negative-keyword review worksheet records the observed intent, proposed text, match type, scope and useful-query conflict check. It is a review brief, not a platform import file. Apply the current rules for the specific campaign type before making a change; the worksheet does not make Search and Performance Max behavior identical.