Performance Max
The campaign type brand exclusions defend against. Without exclusions, Performance Max competes for the operator's own brand.
Read the entry →Stan Consulting · Marketing Atlas · Reference · Google Ads
Brand Exclusions.
The Performance Max controls that prevent the campaign from serving ads against the operator's own brand searches. The PMax-versus-branded-search defence.
Section 02 · Quick definition
Definition.
Brand exclusions are a Google Ads control that prevents Performance Max and Search campaigns from serving against searches that include a specified brand. The operator selects one or more brands from a Google-maintained brand registry and applies the exclusion at account level or campaign level. Once applied, the campaign no longer competes for queries containing those brand terms, freeing branded searches to be handled by the campaigns the operator chose to handle them. The control became a universal Performance Max feature in 2024.
Section 03 · Why it matters
Why it matters.
Brand exclusions matter because Performance Max, left to its own devices, will compete for the operator's own brand searches whenever it is allowed to. Branded queries are the highest-converting queries in any account. The Performance Max algorithm finds them and bids on them because doing so maximises the reported conversion rate of the campaign. The result is a Performance Max ROAS that looks excellent and a Search-brand campaign that suddenly underperforms. The two campaigns have not produced incremental volume; they have stolen credit from each other.
For an account running both Search-brand and Performance Max without brand exclusions, the diagnosable damage compounds three ways: branded conversions get attributed to Performance Max, Search-brand budgets get cut on the false signal, and the operator loses the ability to evaluate Performance Max's prospecting contribution because it is buried inside branded performance. The campaign type was structurally engineered to do this until brand exclusions were released.
The practical stake is that brand exclusions are a precondition for evaluating Performance Max honestly. Without them, no operator can answer the question: how much new volume did Performance Max bring that we did not already have?
Section 04 · How it works
How brand exclusions are applied.
Brand exclusions are managed in the Google Ads account at the Brands page (Tools & Settings) and applied either across the account or to specific Performance Max and Search campaigns. The brand list is populated from a Google-maintained registry of recognised brand entities; operators select brands from the registry rather than typing free-text strings. Each entity covers the brand name, common misspellings, and brand-plus-product variants Google has clustered under that entity.
-
Brand registry selection
The operator searches Google's brand registry for the brand they want to exclude. If the brand exists, it gets selected with its full set of recognised variants. If the brand does not exist, the operator submits it for inclusion in the registry, which Google reviews.
-
Account-level versus campaign-level scope
An account-level brand exclusion list applies to every campaign that opts in. A campaign-level brand exclusion list applies only to the selected campaign. Most accounts run an account-level list of the operator's own brand and any brands the operator does not want to bid on at all.
-
Brand exclusions versus negative keywords
Negative keywords block specific keyword strings from triggering ads in Search and Shopping. Brand exclusions block recognised brand entities from triggering ads in Performance Max and Search. The two are complementary; neither replaces the other in a properly defended account.
-
Effect on bidding and reporting
Once applied, the campaign no longer enters auctions where the query contains the excluded brand. Branded searches flow to whichever campaign was set up to handle them. Performance Max's reported ROAS drops as branded conversions move out, and Search-brand performance rises to its true level.
Brand exclusions are not a fire-and-forget setting. The brand registry continues to evolve, new product lines need to be added, and competitor brands the operator chooses to exclude need separate review. The list deserves a quarterly audit.
Section 05 · Common misunderstandings
What people get wrong.
-
“Brand exclusions and negative keywords are the same thing.”
Brand exclusions act on Google's recognised brand entities; negative keywords act on specific text strings. The two operate at different layers and are needed together. Negative keywords cannot defend Performance Max; brand exclusions cannot defend Search at the keyword level.
-
“Performance Max is incremental, so excluding brand will hurt overall results.”
Branded conversions inside Performance Max were almost always going to convert anyway through Search-brand or organic. Excluding brand from Performance Max moves those conversions to where they belong. Net account performance does not drop; the attribution gets honest.
-
“If we add brand to the audience signal, that handles it.”
Audience signals describe likely converters; they do not restrict where the campaign serves. Adding the operator's brand to the signal makes the contamination worse, not better. The defence has to happen at the brand-exclusion layer.
-
“Brand exclusions only matter for big brands with branded search volume.”
Even modest branded search volume is the highest-converting traffic in the account. Performance Max will find it and prefer it. Brand exclusions matter the moment branded search volume exists at all.
-
“The brand registry covers all the brand variants automatically.”
The registry is comprehensive but not exhaustive. New product lines, sub-brands, and stylised brand spellings often need to be submitted to Google. The brand list deserves a recurring review, not a one-time setup.
Section 06 · Diagnostic questions
Questions a Stan Consulting diagnostic asks.
Is the operator's own brand registered in Google's brand registry, and are all product-line and sub-brand variants captured?
Are brand exclusions applied at account level or campaign level, and which Performance Max campaigns are opted in?
What does the Performance Max search-terms insight surface show for branded queries before and after brand exclusions were applied?
How is Search-brand performance trending since brand exclusions were applied to Performance Max?
Are there competitor brands the operator has chosen to exclude from Performance Max for strategic reasons, and is that list current?
When was the brand exclusion list last audited against the operator's active product catalogue?
Is the negative-keyword list in standard Search aligned with the brand exclusion list, or are the two defences out of sync?
Section 07 · Related Atlas entries
Adjacent reading.
Section 08 · Five Cents
Every Shopify Plus account I diagnose that runs Performance Max alongside branded Search has the same setting wrong: brand exclusions are not configured, the operator does not know they exist, and the Performance Max ROAS is propped up by branded conversions that would have happened anyway. Configure brand exclusions before you tune anything else in the account. Before changing bid strategies, before rewriting headlines, before adding asset groups, before touching the audience signal. The reason is sequencing: every Performance Max metric you read while the campaign is still bidding on your own brand is contaminated. Tuning a contaminated metric produces contaminated decisions. Brand exclusions are the one setting that has to come first; everything else is downstream of getting the data right.
Stan · Marketing AtlasSection 09 · Sources
Sources.
- Google Ads Help · Brand exclusions for Performance Max and Search Official documentation on the brand-exclusion control, the brand registry, and account- versus campaign-level scope.
- Google Ads Help · About negative keywords Reference for the Search-side complement to brand exclusions.
- Search Engine Land · Performance Max coverage Industry reporting on brand-exclusion releases, cannibalisation diagnostics, and the Search-PMax overlap.
- Search Engine Journal · Google Ads coverage Practitioner reporting on brand-exclusion configuration, brand-registry workflows, and audit cadence.
- Search Engine Roundtable · Google Ads category News coverage of Google Ads feature releases, including the universal rollout of brand exclusions.