I often address Google Ads AI capabilities . AI can better target new and existing audiences and, when paired with first-party data and conversion tracking, can unlock opportunities. Yet what we tell AI to exclude is as important as what to target.

Advertisers have long used negative keywords and placement exclusions to instruct Google not to show ads for certain queries. For example, adding “cheap” as a negative keyword prevents ads from showing when it’s in the query.

But that’s not enough in today’s intent-driven search. You can add every synonym of “cheap” as a negative keyword, but it won’t detect a searcher with that goal, written or not. Someone looking for a cheap computer case may search only for “laptop cases.”

Advertisers must now instruct AI who to avoid.

Text Guidelines and Asset Optimization

The clearest way to do that is through text guidelines and asset optimizations. Both are available in Performance Max and AI Max Search campaigns.…