Neg Conflict Finder

MCC Negative Keyword Conflict Finder

Identifies every place a negative keyword is blocking a positive keyword you bid on, across all accounts under an MCC, at every level Google supports — ad group, campaign, account-level shared lists, and MCC-level shared lists.

When to Use

• User asks to find or audit negative keyword conflicts
• User suspects old negatives are silently blocking active keywords
• User wants a portfolio-wide negative keyword health check
• User wants to know which positives are being blocked and where the negative lives

What It Does

Runs as a Google Ads Script inside an MCC. For each labeled account it:

1. Pulls all positive keywords (ad group level, enabled only)
2. Pulls all negative keywords from every level Google supports:

• Ad group negatives
• Campaign negatives
• Account-level shared lists
• MCC-level shared lists (applied via customer.managerCustomer)
• Account-level negative keywords (when the API supports the field path; degrades gracefully when not)

1. Runs match-type-aware blocking detection (broad blocks broad/phrase/exact, phrase blocks phrase/exact via subsequence match, exact blocks exact only)
2. Writes one row per conflict to a Google Sheet, with the conflicting negative, where it lives, and which positive(s) it blocks

Output Sheet columns:

| Column | Description | |--------|-------------| | Account Name | Google Ads account name | | Conflicting Negative Keyword | The negative that's blocking | | Level & Location | Where the negative lives (e.g., "Shared List: GS Negatives", "Campaign: Brand - Search") | | Blocked Positive Keywords | The positive keyword(s) being blocked |

Setup

1. Open the Google Ads Scripts editor at the MCC level (Tools → Bulk actions → Scripts in the legacy UI, or Tools → Scripts under the modern MCC UI)
2. Create a new script and paste the contents of scripts/mcc-neg-keyword-conflict.js
3. Edit the configuration block at the top:

• ACCOUNT_LABEL — set to a label you've applied to the accounts you want to process. Required. The script only iterates labeled accounts.
• SHEET_URL — optional. Leave blank to have the script create a fresh sheet on each run, or paste an existing Sheet URL to overwrite it.
• REQUIRE_RECENT_SPEND — optional spend filter (default true). Skips accounts with no spend in the last 7 days. Set to false to process every labeled account.

1. Authorize the script when Google prompts (first run only)
2. Run — manually first, then schedule daily/weekly under Frequency

Run the Script

There are no CLI commands — this is a Google Ads Script. After pasting and configuring:

1. Click Preview to check authorization and config without writing rows
2. Click Run to execute fully
3. Open the linked Sheet to review conflicts
4. Set a Frequency (Daily, Weekly, etc.) for ongoing monitoring

How to Resolve Conflicts

The script identifies — it doesn't remove. Resolution is manual review (intentionally — automated removal of negatives is high-risk). For each row:

1. Read the negative + the positive(s) it blocks. If the negative is doing real work (blocking off-brand traffic), keep it and let the positive die.
2. If the positive is intentional, remove the negative. Find it at the level shown in Level & Location:

• Ad group level → Ad Group → Negative Keywords tab
• Campaign level → Campaign → Negative Keywords tab
• Shared list → Tools → Shared Library → Negative keyword lists → [list name]
• MCC shared list → MCC level → Tools → Shared Library

1. If neither — kill the conflicting negative. Often these are old negatives from a campaign that doesn't exist anymore.

Limitations

• Search campaigns only. Performance Max, Display, and Video campaigns don't use traditional negatives the same way.
• Enabled keywords only. Paused positives won't show as blocked.
• Account-level negatives may be skipped if Google's customer_negative_criterion API rejects the keyword field path. Other levels still detect normally — the script logs a warning and continues.
• Read-only. The script writes to a Sheet but never modifies any account. Review and remove negatives in the UI yourself.

What NOT to Do

• Do NOT remove a negative just because it shows up as a conflict. Some conflicts are intentional (a brand campaign with [brand_name] as positive and brand_name reviews as negative is a deliberate split, not a bug).
• Do NOT auto-remove negatives based on this output without reviewing each one.
• Do NOT run on every account in the MCC at once. Use the label filter — narrow to a portfolio or service tier first.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: fourteenwm
• Source: fourteenwm/ppc-ai-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.