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Glossary

Negative Keyword

A keyword you explicitly tell Apple Search Ads NOT to match. Negative keywords block your ad from appearing on specific search queries, even if Broad match or Search Match would otherwise produce the match.

Also known as: Negative match, ASA negatives

What is a Negative Keyword?

A Negative Keyword tells Apple Search Ads to never show your ad on a specific search query. It overrides Broad match expansion and Search Match algorithmic matching.

Negative keywords are the single most powerful waste-prevention tool in Apple Search Ads. Most poorly-performing accounts share a common pattern: a long Discovery list with no negative keyword layer underneath.

Two scopes

Campaign-level negatives

Apply to all ad groups within the campaign. Use for universal waste:

  • Irrelevant categories that algorithmically appear (e.g., recipe for a fitness app)
  • Competitor names you do not want to conquest
  • Brand terms that should only be captured by the Brand campaign

Ad-group-level negatives

Apply only to that specific ad group. The classic use case is brand isolation:

  • In your Discovery ad group, add your own brand name as a negative — this forces brand traffic to flow to the dedicated Brand ad group (lower CPT, higher CR).
  • In your Brand ad group, add competitor brand names as negatives — prevents cross-pollution if your brand has overlap with a competitor name.

How to build a negative keyword library

A practical weekly workflow:

  1. Open Search Term Report, last 7 days, filter taps ≥ 20 AND installs = 0.
  2. Add the obvious waste as ad-group-level negatives (irrelevant queries).
  3. Add brand isolation negatives to non-Brand ad groups: your own brand name + variants.
  4. Add Search Match leaks — search terms that came from Search Match and are clearly off-target.
  5. Audit quarterly: remove negatives that have not appeared in the Search Term Report in 90+ days (they may no longer be needed and add noise).

Match-type within negatives

Negative keywords themselves can be Exact or Broad:

  • Negative Exact: Blocks only the exact term. Useful when you want to block one variant but allow related terms.
  • Negative Broad: Blocks the term and close variants (plurals, synonyms). Useful for category-wide blocking.

Example: on a meditation app, Negative Broad on dating blocks dating, dating apps, dating sites, etc. Negative Exact on just dating apps only blocks that exact phrase.

Common failure modes

  • No campaign-level negative list. Every Discovery campaign rediscovers the same waste terms repeatedly.
  • Forgetting brand isolation. Brand traffic leaks into Discovery, raising Discovery CPT and undercounting Brand performance.
  • Over-blocking. Adding too-broad negatives that block intended traffic. Always cross-check the Search Term Report for revenue impact before adding a Broad negative.
  • Negative bloat. Maintaining 2,000+ negatives that nobody reviews. Quarterly cleanup matters.

How ASAPilot helps

ASAPilot’s audit specifically scans for negative-keyword opportunities:

  • Search terms with taps ≥ 30 AND installs = 0 across last 30 days (waste candidates)
  • Brand-leakage detection (own-brand terms appearing in Discovery ad groups)
  • Stale negatives that have not been triggered in 90+ days (cleanup candidates)
  • Search Match terms that should be promoted (positive) or blocked (negative)

See the negative keyword strategy guide for the full workflow, or pricing for ASAPilot plan tiers.