How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
See the searches your Performance Max ads showed for
Updated October 11, 2026
15 minutes
To see search terms in Performance Max, open Campaigns, Insights and reports, Search terms, then choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max from the drop-down. Rank rows by conversions, not clicks. The report starts in March 2023 and hides rare searches, and a negative keyword blocks Performance Max on Search and Shopping only.
Before you start
- Access to the Google Ads account. Read-only access can open the report; adding a negative keyword is a campaign edit, which needs Standard or Admin access.
- A Performance Max campaign with a few weeks of traffic. The report lists searches that a significant number of people made, so a short date range shows few rows.
Open the Performance Max view of the report
Performance Max search terms sit in the same Search terms report as Search campaigns, behind a drop-down that is easy to miss.
- In Google Ads, click Campaigns in the left menu, then Insights and reports, then Search terms.
- From the drop-down at the top of the report, choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max.
- Set the date range to the last 30 days or longer. Google says data for this report starts in March 2023; nothing earlier is shown.
- Read the landing page and ad format beside each search. Google says the Ad format segment tells Shopping ads apart from Text ads.
Wrong landing pages are a Final URL expansion problem, covered in the how-to on stopping Performance Max sending ads to the wrong pages.
Read it for what it leaves out
Rank the searches by conversions, then fill the gaps with search terms insights, because the report hides low-volume searches and some conversion types.
- Sort the table by Conversions. Google says to put conversion data ahead of clicks and impressions for Performance Max, since some conversions occur without a direct click or impression.
- Note that store visits and store sales conversions are not available in this report.
- Click Insights in the Campaigns menu and scroll to the search terms insights card. Its categories take every search into account, including those the report leaves out for privacy, and group low-spend ones as "other search terms".
- Open a category with the arrow beside it to see its subcategories and the actual searches. A category label is a summary, so it can name a term you already excluded even when the searches inside it are different ones.
Block a search where it actually showed
A negative keyword stops a Performance Max ad on Search and Shopping only; for Display and Video, Google points to excluded content keywords in a different menu.
- For one campaign: click the Campaigns icon, then Keywords, select the Negative keywords tab and click the plus button. Select the Performance Max campaign, add one keyword per line with match type symbols, and click Save.
- For Search and Shopping traffic across the whole account: open Account settings in the Admin menu, expand Negative keywords, click the plus icon, paste one word or phrase per line and click Save. The limit is 1,000.
- For Display and Video: open Content suitability in the Tools menu, then under Advanced settings open Excluded content keywords, click the plus icon, add the terms and click Save. Google says it cannot guarantee every related piece of content is excluded.
- For each negative keyword, add the singular, the plural and any synonym. Google says negatives do not match those forms on their own, though they do cover capital letters and misspellings.
To keep Performance Max off searches for your own business name, a brand exclusion fits better than a list of negatives; the how-to on stopping Performance Max spending on your brand name has the steps.
Check it worked
After a week, set the date range to start the day after you saved, since a negative does not remove past rows. The searches you blocked should be gone from the Text ads and Shopping ads rows.
A missing row is not proof on its own, since the report hides rare searches. For a search that had enough volume to be listed before, open the search terms insights card for the same dates and expand its category; the search should no longer appear among its terms. A rare search is not named in either place, so neither can confirm it.
Why the report and insights show different numbers
Google says the two process conversions differently, so slight differences from conversion lag are expected. The report also leaves out searches without enough activity, while insights fold them into subcategories or "other" without showing the searches themselves.
How this differs from the Search campaign report
The Search campaign version of the report, covered in the related how-to, can show which of your keywords caught each search. The Performance Max view shows the landing page and ad format beside each search instead, and Google's Performance Max pages add negatives from the Negative keywords tab or the account settings, as above.