The manual way comes first, in Google Ads itself. Then the same problem as Goldbeater finds it, every day, without anyone asking.
Why it costs you
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.
How to find it by hand
Performance Max. Its search terms have their own view of the search terms report.
- In Google Ads, open Search terms within the Campaigns menu, under Insights and reports.
- From the drop-down, choose Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max.
- Look 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. The Performance Max guide works through that report and the campaign’s others, and the Display campaign guide covers its placement report, which lists where its ads showed.
Two Search campaigns. A search bought by both shows up in the ordinary search terms report twice, once under each campaign.
- Open Search terms within Insights and reports in the Campaigns menu, with all campaigns selected.
- Set the date range to the last 30 days, and download the report.
- In 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.
How to fix it
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, Shopping and YouTube search. Unlike a negative keyword, it also blocks clear misspellings and your brand written in other scripts. First build the list:
- Open the Tools icon, then Shared library, then Brand lists.
- Choose 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:
- Open Campaigns, then the Settings tab, and choose the Performance Max campaign.
- Under Additional settings, choose Brand exclusions and pick your list.
- If 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.
- Save.
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 add the plural and each other way your brand is written yourself; Google’s help says negatives do account for misspellings. Don’t put your brand in the account-level negatives: those apply to all your campaigns on Search and Shopping, your brand campaign included. The negative keywords guide covers them for Performance Max, step by step.
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.
What Goldbeater shows you
Every day 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.
$144Spend that would move, last 30 days
"cedar and pine sofas" is bought by 2 campaigns of your own
Brand — Exact
Brand — Exact converted it more, under a 0.4% chance of so large a lead by luck, allowing for the 1 pair of campaigns tested across the account, and the other campaign spent $144 on it in the last 30 days.
- Cost in the other campaigns
- $144
- Cost in all of them
- $412
- Conv.
- 24
Each campaign, the last 30 days
| Figure | Brand — Exact (winner) | Sofas — Phrase (loser) |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | $268 | $144 |
| Conversions | 24 | 0 |
| Cost per conversion | $11.17 | — |
| Clicks | 184 | 49 |
| Conversions per click, beyond chance | 13% | 0% |
Brand — Exact
Sofas — Phrase
Two of your enabled campaigns can show on the same searches. Google picks one each time by its own rules, not by which one you meant, so a search can land in the campaign with the worse page or target, and its results are split across both. Goldbeater raises a search one of them converted, and recommends keeping it in one only where that one converts it better by more than chance, and never by negating your brand in a brand campaign. The figure is the spend that would move, not money saved.
Add "cedar and pine sofas" to Sofas — Phrase as an exact-match negative, so Brand — Exact, which converts it best, is the one that shows. The spend moves there rather than disappearing.
- Add an exact-match negative keyword[cedar and pine sofas]CampaignSofas — Phrase
It reaches your account when you approve it in the change set and press Apply. An applied change can be undone.
This is “Two campaigns splitting the same searches” on a sample account. See what it finds in your own account and what the fix is worth, and ask your AI analyst about any finding.
Get a free first lookAnd in Performance Max. Goldbeater reads the searches Performance Max paid for as well, and raises the ones that spend without converting, with the negative that stops them. Where a Performance Max campaign paid for a search one of your Search campaigns bids on as a keyword, it drafts the search as an exact-match keyword in that Search campaign, which comes first in Google’s order above, and never a negative on the Search campaign. The estimate is Performance Max’s spend on the search, which would move rather than be saved.
$214Spend that would move, last 30 days
Performance Max bought "cedar and pine rugs", which Rugs — Broad bids on
Performance Max — All products
Performance Max — All products spent $214 on it in the last 30 days, though Rugs — Broad bids on cedar and pine rugs in Rugs.
Each campaign, the last 30 days
| Figure | Rugs — Broad (winner) | Performance Max — All products (loser) |
|---|---|---|
| Spend | $96 | $214 |
| Conversions | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per conversion | $48 | $214 |
| Clicks | 21 | 38 |
| Conversions per click | 9.5% | 2.6% |
Rugs — Broad
Rugs
Performance Max — All products
A search one of your Search campaigns bids on as a keyword, bought by Performance Max instead. It gets the ad and page Performance Max assembled rather than the ones you wrote for it, and its results are counted in Performance Max rather than the campaign built for it. Google puts an exact keyword identical to a search ahead of Performance Max, so that's the change Goldbeater drafts. The figure is the spend that would move, not money saved.
Add "cedar and pine rugs" to Rugs — Broad as an exact-match keyword. Google puts an exact keyword identical to a search ahead of Performance Max, so Rugs — Broad answers it with its text ad whenever it can serve; a Shopping ad can still show beside it, and if the campaign is limited by its budget, Performance Max can still take some. It's the change below.
- Add an exact-match keyword[cedar and pine rugs]Ad groupRugs — Broad › Rugs
It reaches your account when you approve it in the change set and press Apply. An applied change can be undone.
This is “Performance Max taking searches your Search campaign bids on” on a sample account. See what it finds in your own account and what the fix is worth, and ask your AI analyst about any finding.
Get a free first lookWhere the Search campaign already has that exact keyword, Performance Max took the search when the keyword couldn’t serve, and the finding says to look at the Search campaign’s budget first. A brand exclusion, set up as above, is what keeps your own brand searches with the campaign you wrote for them.
Questions
- 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. The branded keywords guide covers what a brand campaign is for.
- 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.