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Brand exclusions

Brand exclusions are lists of brands that stop a Performance Max campaign, or a Search campaign with AI Max turned on, from showing ads on searches for them.

How it works

You build a brand list from Google’s list of brands, your own or anyone else’s, and can request a missing one. You then attach the list to one or more campaigns as an exclusion; a Search campaign accepts it only with AI Max turned on. The exclusion also covers most misspellings of those brands and searches for them in another language.

In Performance Max the exclusion applies to ads on Search and Shopping. A retailer with a product feed can instead limit it to Search text ads and keep Shopping ads on those searches.

A store may exclude its own brand from Performance Max because someone who types the store’s name is already on the way to it. Without the exclusion, revenue from such branded search counts towards the campaign’s ROAS even if the sale would have happened anyway, which is a question of incrementality. The trade-offs are set out in brand exclusions in Google Ads.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop puts its own name on a brand list and adds the list to its Performance Max campaign as an exclusion. A search for the shop’s name, or a misspelt version of it, no longer shows the campaign’s ads.

Not to be confused with

  • Negative keywords — words you list yourself, matched to searches by their match type. A brand exclusion works on the brand as Google recognises it.
  • Listing group — a filter that can remove a brand’s products from a campaign by the feed’s brand field. A brand exclusion keeps the products and blocks the searches that mention the brand.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “With my brand excluded from Performance Max, branded searches move to my Search campaign.” Right: the exclusion only takes Performance Max off those searches. Your ad shows on them only if another of your campaigns targets them.

Sources