Mastering negative keyword lists in Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) is a fundamental skill for any PPC professional. It's the art of telling the platform when NOT to show your ads, saving you money, improving your ad relevance, and boosting your campaign's performance.

This tutorial will guide you through understanding, creating, and managing negative keyword lists in Microsoft Advertising.

Why Negative Keywords Lists are Crucial in Microsoft Advertising
Imagine you sell high-end, custom-made wooden furniture. Without negative keywords, your ads might show for searches like:

"cheap wooden furniture"

"wooden furniture DIY guide"

"free wooden furniture plans"

"used wooden furniture for sale"

Every click on these irrelevant searches costs you money and dilutes your campaign's performance metrics (like conversion rate). Negative keywords prevent this waste.

Benefits of using Negative Keyword Lists:

Reduce Wasted Ad Spend: Stop paying for clicks from users who aren't interested in your product or service.

Improve Ad Relevance: Your ads show only to genuinely interested searchers, leading to higher Click-Through Rates (CTR).

Increase Conversion Rates: By attracting more qualified leads, your conversion rate naturally improves.

Enhance Quality Score (if applicable): While not as prominent as in Google Ads, relevance impacts performance.

Better Data Accuracy: Cleaner data in your reports allows for more accurate optimization decisions.

Understanding Negative Keyword Match Types in Microsoft Advertising
Just like regular keywords, negative keywords have match types that control how strictly they prevent your ads from showing. Microsoft Advertising supports two negative match types:

Negative Phrase Match (-"keyword phrase"):

Your ad will not show if the user's search query contains the exact phrase, in the same order, even if there are other words before or after it.

Example: If your negative keyword is -"wooden furniture"

Will NOT show for: "buy wooden furniture online", "custom wooden furniture prices", "best wooden furniture shop"

WILL show for: "furniture wooden", "wood furniture", "wooden desk" (because the phrase is not exact or in order)

Best for: Excluding specific phrases that indicate a lack of intent or irrelevant context.

Negative Exact Match (-[keyword]):

Your ad will not show if the user's search query contains only that exact keyword or phrase, with no additional words.

Example: If your negative keyword is -[free]

Will NOT show for: "free"

WILL show for: "free shipping", "free returns" (because there are additional words)

Example: If your negative keyword is -[wooden furniture]

Will NOT show for: "wooden furniture"

WILL show for: "buy wooden furniture", "wooden furniture prices" (because there are additional words)

Best for: Highly precise exclusions where you want to block a very specific, undesirable search query.

Important Notes:

Unlike regular keywords, negative keywords do not have Broad Match or Broad Match Modifier.

Punctuation marks (except hyphens) are generally ignored for negative keywords.

Misspellings won't be automatically excluded. You often need to add common misspellings as separate negative keywords.

How to Find Negative Keyword Ideas
This is an ongoing process for campaign optimization.

Search Terms Report (Most Important!):

This is your goldmine. Go to Keywords > Search Terms in your Microsoft Advertising account.

Review the actual search queries that triggered your ads. Look for:

Queries with low CTR.

Queries with high impressions but no conversions.

Queries clearly irrelevant to your products/services (e.g., "free," "jobs," "wiki," "review," "DIY," competitor names if you don't want to target them).

Queries that indicate research intent rather than buying intent (e.g., "what is," "how to").

Select the irrelevant terms and click "Add as negative keyword." You'll then choose the level (Campaign or Ad Group) and match type.

Brainstorming:

Think about what your product/service isn't.

Common universal negatives: "free," "cheap," "used," "reviews," "jobs," "download," "torrent," "wiki," "eBay," "Amazon," "Craigslist."

Industry-specific negatives: If you sell new cars, "used cars" would be a negative. If you sell B2B software, "personal" or "home use" could be negatives.

Competitor Research:

Decide if you want your ads to show for competitor brand names. If not, add their names as negative keywords.

Keyword Planner & Other Tools:

While primarily for finding positive keywords, keyword research tools can also reveal tangential terms that should be excluded.

Step-by-Step: Creating and Managing Negative Keyword Lists
Microsoft Advertising allows you to add negative keywords at the account, campaign, or ad group level. For efficiency, shared negative keyword lists are your best friend.

Option A: Adding Negative Keywords to a Shared List (Recommended for Scale)
Shared Negative Keyword Lists allow you to apply the same list of negative keywords to multiple campaigns, saving time and ensuring consistency.

Navigate to Shared Library:

In your Microsoft Advertising account, click on Tools (wrench icon in the top navigation bar).

Under "Shared Library," select Negative keyword lists.

Create a New Negative Keyword List:

Click the blue "+ Create negative keyword list" button.

Give your list a descriptive Name (e.g., "Universal Negatives," "Irrelevant Searches - Service Industry," "Competitor Exclusions").

Add Negative Keywords to the List:

In the text box, type one negative keyword or phrase per line.

Choose the appropriate Match Type for each (Phrase or Exact).

Example:

-free
-"how to"
-diy
-[cheap solutions]
-jobs
Click Save.

Apply the List to Campaigns:

After saving the list, you'll see it listed in your "Negative keyword lists."

Click the "Apply to campaigns" button next to the list's name.

Select the campaigns you want to apply this list to. You can select multiple campaigns.

Click Save.

Pro-Tip: You can create up to 20 negative keyword lists per account in Microsoft Advertising. Each list can contain up to 5,000 negative keywords.

Option B: Adding Negative Keywords Directly to a Campaign or Ad Group
This is useful for highly specific negative keywords that only apply to a single campaign or ad group, or for quick additions from the Search Terms Report.

Navigate to Keywords:

In your Microsoft Advertising account, go to the Campaigns section.

Select the specific Campaign or Ad Group you want to add negatives to from the left-hand navigation.

Click on Keywords in the left-hand menu.

Select the Negative keywords tab.

Add Negative Keywords:

Click the blue "+ Add negative keywords" button.

You'll have two options:

"Add to [Campaign/Ad Group]": Enter keywords directly and choose their match type.

"Use negative keyword list": This allows you to apply an existing shared list to this campaign (but not create a new one here).

Enter your negative keywords, one per line.

Select the match type for each.

Click Save.

Hierarchy Reminder:

Account-level negatives: Apply to all Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns in the account (up to 1,000 negatives).

Campaign-level negatives: Apply to all ad groups within that specific campaign (and any shared lists associated with it).

Ad Group-level negatives: Only apply to that specific ad group.

If there's a conflict (e.g., a negative keyword at a higher level that also exists as a positive keyword at a lower level), the negative keyword will always take precedence, preventing your ad from showing.

Best Practices for Mastering Negative Keyword Lists
Regularly Review Search Terms Reports: Make this a weekly or bi-weekly habit, especially for new campaigns. This is the #1 source for new negative keyword ideas.

Start Broad, Then Refine: When launching new campaigns, consider starting with a general "universal negative list" to immediately filter out common irrelevant terms. As data comes in, you can add more specific negatives at the campaign or ad group level.

Use Match Types Strategically:

Use negative phrase match for common irrelevant phrases.

Use negative exact match for very precise terms you absolutely want to avoid, or to prevent conflicts with other targeted keywords.

Monitor Keyword Conflicts: Microsoft Advertising has a feature to show if your negative keywords are blocking any of your active keywords. Review and resolve these to ensure you're not inadvertently harming your own campaigns.

Don't Over-Negative: While powerful, don't go overboard and negatively keywords that could indicate relevant (albeit broad) intent. You might cut off potential valuable traffic. It's a balance.

Create Thematic Lists: Don't just dump all negatives into one giant list. Categorize them:

"Universal Irrelevant Terms"

"Competitor Brands"

"Informational Queries"

"Free/Cheap Terms"

"Specific Product Exclusions"
This makes management much easier.

Import from Google Ads: If you're running campaigns on both platforms, you can often export your negative keyword lists from Google Ads and import them into Microsoft Advertising, saving a lot of time.

Leverage Microsoft Advertising Editor: For managing large accounts or making bulk changes to negative keyword lists, the Microsoft Advertising Editor desktop application can be a huge time-saver.

By consistently applying these strategies, you'll gain significant control over your ad spend, improve campaign performance, and ensure your ads are seen by the right audience at the right time in Microsoft Advertising.