Do PMax search themes override my negative keywords?

Question

We have a decent negative list at account level and I have just added search themes to a
PMax campaign for the first time. Now I'm nervous, because the whole pitch for search
themes is that they find queries you didn't think of - which sounds a lot like ignoring
the list I spent two years building.

Does anyone actually know whether a search theme can pull in a query that is already
sitting in my account-level negatives? The help page says themes are an input, but it
doesn't spell out precedence anywhere I can find.

Has anyone tested this properly rather than assuming?

Priya Deshmukh · Accepted Answer

Negatives win. Search themes are an input to the same matching system, not a bypass
of it, so the exclusions still apply on the way out.

The way I explain it to clients:
1) Search themes tell Google where to look.
2) Your negatives tell Google where it may not go.
3) The second is applied after the first, so a theme cannot resurrect an excluded
query.

The caveat worth knowing is scope, not precedence. Account-level negative lists reach
into PMax. The campaign-level control you are used to in search is much thinner here,
so if your habit is to fix a bad query with a campaign negative, plan on the account
list doing that work instead.

Hope that helps.

Tomasz Wojcik · Answer

We tested this in March on two client accounts. Added a theme that matched an excluded
competitor term, waited two weeks, term never appeared in the report. Negatives held.

But watch brand exclusions separately. Not the same list, people assume it is.

Marcus Hale · Answer

That's reassuring, thanks both. Checked my own list this morning and the excluded
terms are still clean after three weeks of themes running.

The brand exclusions being a separate list is the bit I would have missed entirely.

Do PMax search themes override my negative keywords?

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