How do I exclude my brand from Performance Max?

A brand campaign exists to answer searches for your name with the ad and the page you chose for them. When Performance Max takes those searches instead, two things go wrong. The search lands on whatever Performance Max assembled, not the ad you wrote for it. And Performance Max’s results fill with people who were already looking for you, so it looks better at finding new customers than it is. Google describes brand exclusions as a way to “gain a clearer view of your campaign’s true prospecting potential.”

Which campaign answers a search follows an order Google publishes:

• An exact-match keyword in a Search campaign that is identical to the search comes first, ahead of Performance Max.
• Next, phrase and broad keywords and Performance Max search themes that are identical to the search, which share priority.
• Then the most relevant ad group or asset group, and among equals, the higher Ad Rank.
• A Search campaign that runs short of budget can lose searches it would otherwise win. Google says Performance Max “may occasionally serve on exact match terms” then.

The same goes for two Search campaigns. Your keywords don’t bid against each other: Google says keywords in one account “don’t compete with each other in the auction.” What goes wrong is which campaign answers, and that the results are split across two campaigns you judge separately.

Performance Max. Its search terms have their own view of the search terms report.

1. 01In Google Ads, open Search terms within the Campaigns menu, under Insights and reports.
2. 02From the drop-down, choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max.
3. 03Look for your brand name and its misspellings, and note the cost and conversions against each.

The view goes back to March 2023, and it can split each term by ad format, Shopping ads or text ads. That matters if you want to keep your Shopping ads on brand searches.

Two Search campaigns. A search bought by both shows up in the ordinary search terms report twice, once under each campaign.

1. 01Open Search terms within Insights and reports in the Campaigns menu, with all campaigns selected.
2. 02Set the date range to the last 30 days, and download the report.
3. 03In the spreadsheet, count the campaigns against each search term. A term with cost in two campaigns is split between them.

Google leaves out terms with too little search activity, for privacy, so neither report shows every search you paid for.

Performance Max: use a brand exclusion. It’s a list of brands, picked from Google’s brand library, that the campaign won’t serve on in Search and Shopping. Unlike a negative keyword, it also blocks clear misspellings and your brand written in other scripts. First build the list:

1. 01Open the Tools icon, then Shared library, then Brand lists.
2. 02Choose Create a brand list, or the plus button if you already have one. Name it, add your brand, and save. If your brand isn’t in Google’s library, Google Ads lets you request it.

Then apply it to the campaign:

1. 01Open Campaigns, then the Settings tab, and choose the Performance Max campaign.
2. 02Under Additional settings, choose Brand exclusions and pick your list.
3. 03If you sell under your own brand, decide on Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands. With it ticked, your Shopping ads still show on brand searches and the text ads stay out.
4. 04Save.

Negative keywords work as well: add them to the Performance Max campaign from Keywords in the Campaigns menu, in the Negative keywords section. They apply to Search and Shopping inventory only, and they don’t match close variants, so list the misspellings yourself. Don’t put your brand in the account-level negatives: those apply to all your campaigns on Search and Shopping, your brand campaign included.

Two Search campaigns: decide which campaign should answer the search, usually the one whose ad and page were written for it. Add the search to the other campaign as an exact-match negative keyword, in brackets: Campaigns, then Audiences, keywords, and content, then Search keywords, the Negative search keywords tab, and the plus button.

If the campaign that should keep the search is limited by its budget, raise the budget first. Otherwise the search goes unanswered rather than moving.

Every week Goldbeater reads the last 30 days of your Search campaigns’ search terms and raises each search that two or more of your campaigns paid for. It keeps the search in the campaign that converts it best, and drafts an exact-match negative for the others. The estimate is the spend that would move to the campaign keeping it, not money saved.

It proposes a negative only where the keeping campaign serves everywhere the other one does. A negative applies wherever a campaign runs, so negating a regional campaign in favor of one that doesn’t serve that region would lose the search there.

What it doesn’t raise yet. This check weighs your Search campaigns against each other. Goldbeater reads Performance Max’s search terms too, and flags the ones that spend without converting, but a brand search that Performance Max takes from a Search campaign isn’t a finding of its own yet. That half of this guide is yours to check by hand.

Do two of my campaigns push up each other’s cost per click? Not by bidding against each other. Google picks one ad per search from your account, in the order above. The cost is in where the search lands, and in two campaigns’ results each holding half the story.

Should I exclude my brand from Performance Max at all? If a brand campaign answers your brand searches, usually yes: the searches reach the ads you wrote for them, and Performance Max’s results show the new demand it found. If you don’t run a brand campaign, Performance Max may be what answers those searches, and excluding your brand leaves them to nobody.

Will a brand exclusion stop my Shopping ads on brand searches? Only if you want it to. Tick Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands to keep them.