Brand exclusions

Left alone, Performance Max wins brand searches cheaply and books those sales as its own. Its results look excellent while the brand Search campaign quietly shrinks.

A brand exclusion keeps brand searches with the campaign built for them, so Performance Max is judged on the demand it actually finds.

1. Open Tools, then Shared library, then Brand lists, and create a list with your brand.
2. Open the Performance Max campaign, then Settings, then Brand exclusions.
3. Add your brand list as an exclusion.
4. Check the campaign's search terms report afterwards for brand searches.

A cosmetics shop excludes its own brand from Performance Max. Brand searches move back to the brand Search campaign at a few cents per click, and Performance Max's return drops to its true level, which is still worth running.

• Confusing brand exclusions with brand guidelines, which only control logos and names in ads.
• Excluding the brand from Performance Max without running a brand Search campaign.
• Putting brand names in an account-level negative list instead, which blocks the brand campaign too.

The audit checks Oppy runs on this, each with its own page.

• Performance Max with nothing stopping it buying your brand
• Performance Max buying queries the Search campaigns already bid on

• Performance Max: A campaign type that runs on Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one budget, with Google deciding where each ad shows.
• Brand campaign: A campaign that bids on your own business name.
• Account-level negative keywords: A list of negative keywords applied to the whole account at once, for searches that are wrong for the business everywhere, such as jobs or free.