Issue Adding Positive Keyword Targeting in Search Campaign

[Amit Tomar]

Hello Team,

I’m trying to add keyword targeting for a Search campaign via the API.

• Negative keywords can be successfully added using CampaignCriteria.

• However, when I try to add a positive keyword (campaign_criterion.negative = False), I receive the following error:

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errors {
  error_code {
    criterion_error: FIELD_INCOMPATIBLE_WITH_NEGATIVE_TARGETING
  }
  message: "The field is not allowed to be set when the negative field is set to true, for example, we don't allow bids in negative ad group or campaign criteria."
  location {
    field_path_elements {
      field_name: "operations"
      index: 0
    }
    field_path_elements {
      field_name: "create"
    }
    field_path_elements {
      field_name: "keyword"
    }
  }
}

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Could you please clarify the correct method or resource to use for adding positive keyword targeting to a Search campaign?

Thanks

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out to the Google Ads API support team.

Please note that you can only exclude keywords at the campaign level, so you must specify negative = true on a keyword's CampaignCriterion. It is not possible to add a positive keyword via API at campaign level.

Hope this helps. If you have any more queries, please feel free to get back to us.

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

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[2025-08-14 21:32:24Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01sz9hW:ref" (ADR-00329995)