Yes, if you already run a dedicated branded Search or Shopping campaign, exclude brand traffic from Performance Max now. The fastest fix takes under ten minutes: build a brand list in Google Ads, apply it to the PMax campaign, and check the shopping toggle so you don’t accidentally cut off Shopping ads on branded searches.
Here’s the short version before the walkthrough:
- Create a brand list under Google Ads’ shared library (Brand lists), listing your company name and its common misspellings.
- Apply that list to the PMax campaign under Settings > Other settings > Brand exclusions, then save.
- Decide whether to check “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands” based on whether you have a branded Shopping campaign ready to absorb that traffic.
Pro Tip: Pair the exclusion with a phrase-match negative keyword in the PMax keywords tab as a backup. Brand lists catch most branded queries, but a manual negative catches whatever slips through the matching. North Country Consulting has seen this combination consistently protect campaign data quality across client accounts, and practitioners at outlets like PPC Mastery report that once brand exclusions go live, it’s common to see a short-term CPA increase in PMax as the algorithm stops relying on warm, already-converting branded searchers.
Key Takeaways
Excluding brand traffic from PMax works best when paired with a dedicated branded campaign, a brand list, and a short measurement window to confirm the result.
| Point | Details |
|---|---|
| Build a brand list first | Add your brand name, misspellings, and subsidiary names under Brand lists in Google Ads’ shared library. |
| Apply at the campaign level | Go to Settings > Other settings > Brand exclusions inside the PMax campaign and select the list. |
| Mind the Shopping toggle | Check “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands” if you lack a branded Shopping campaign ready to absorb that traffic. |
| Expect a short-term CPA rise | ROAS often dips temporarily as PMax stops relying on easy, already-converting branded clicks. |
| Get a senior audit if unsure | North Country Consulting’s free strategy audit maps your branded traffic split and builds a 30-day test plan. |
Where to read more on brand exclusions and PMax
- Apply brand exclusions to Performance Max or Search campaigns, the official setup walkthrough straight from Google Ads Help.
- How to make Performance Max focus on net new customers, practitioner data on the metric shifts to expect.
Table of Contents
- How Excluding Brand Traffic From PMax Actually Works
- How Do You Set Up A Brand List In Performance Max?
- What PMax Inventory Do Brand Exclusions Actually Cover?
- When Should You Exclude Brand From PMax, And What Happens To Your Numbers?
- How Do You Verify Your Brand Exclusions Are Actually Working?
- What Should You Do If Brand Exclusions Aren’t Enough?
- How Do You Test The Real Impact Of Excluding Brand From PMax?
- Get A Senior-Led Audit Of Your Brand Traffic Split
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sources
How Excluding Brand Traffic From PMax Actually Works
A brand exclusion, technically called a brand list in Google Ads, is a set of brand names you tell Performance Max to stay away from. Google doesn’t just match your typed brand name. Its brand list matching catches common misspellings and related subsidiary brands automatically, so you’re not manually chasing every variant someone might type into search.
That’s the real difference from negative keywords, and it’s worth sitting with for a second.
- Coverage: Negative keywords match the exact terms and match types you enter. Brand lists infer variants on their own.
- Maintenance: A brand list is a “set it and mostly forget it” object you can reuse across campaigns. Negative keyword lists need constant babysitting as new misspellings show up.
- Limits: PMax caps you at 100 account-level negative keywords, which fills up fast if you’re trying to block every branded permutation manually. Brand lists don’t count against that ceiling.
- Inventory: Negative keywords in PMax only apply through that limited list. Brand exclusions apply broadly across the inventory types PMax touches.
A five-term brand list, your company name, your two most common misspellings, your parent brand, and one legacy product name, typically does the work of dozens of manual negative keyword entries, because Google’s entity matching fills in the gaps you’d otherwise have to catch by hand.
Even so, treat exclusions as your first line of defense, not your only one. Keep checking search term reports for anything the list misses.
How Do You Set Up A Brand List In Performance Max?
The setup itself is mechanical. Here’s the exact sequence:
- In Google Ads, go to Tools and Settings > Shared Library > Brand lists.
- Click to create a new list and name it something you’ll recognize later (e.g., “Company Brand Terms”).
- Add your brand name, common misspellings, and any subsidiary or legacy product names.
- Save the list.
- Open the PMax campaign you want to protect and go to Settings > Other settings > Brand exclusions.
- Select the brand list you just built.
- Decide on the shopping toggle, then click Save.
That toggle, labeled “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands,” deserves its own moment of attention. If you check it, Shopping ads can still appear for branded searches even though Search and YouTube search inventory won’t. Leave it unchecked if you want a clean, total block. Check it if you’re worried about losing Shopping real estate to competitors bidding on your brand while your own Shopping ads sit dark, a real risk for ecommerce accounts with tight margins.
If you manage more than a handful of PMax campaigns, don’t repeat these steps one by one. Google Ads lets you apply exclusions in bulk from the account-level Exclusions table, which is where brand lists live once you’ve built them, so applying the same list across ten campaigns takes about as long as applying it to one.
(Screenshot placeholder: capture the Brand exclusions panel under PMax campaign settings, showing the brand list selector and the shopping toggle.)
Pro Tip: Add a single phrase-match negative keyword matching your brand name in the PMax campaign’s own keyword exclusions tab. It’s redundant most of the time, but it’s the cheap insurance that catches anything the brand list’s matching logic misses.
What PMax Inventory Do Brand Exclusions Actually Cover?
This is where campaign managers get burned by assuming blanket coverage. Brand exclusions in PMax reach Search, Shopping, and YouTube search inventory, full stop.
- Display placements aren’t covered by the brand list mechanism.
- YouTube in-stream (non-search) inventory can still reach people who’ve already engaged with your brand.
- Gmail placements may still surface to warm audiences who’ve interacted with you before.
That gap matters more than it sounds. If your goal is truly zero brand-influenced impressions, brand exclusions get you most of the way, not all of it.
One more wrinkle: Google folded brand exclusion controls into its broader brand settings and the newer AI Max panel for Search campaigns during its 2024–2025 rollout. The underlying PMax behavior didn’t change, but where you find the setting inside the interface has shifted, so don’t be surprised if a saved screenshot from an old training deck no longer matches what you see today.
When Should You Exclude Brand From PMax, And What Happens To Your Numbers?
Exclude brand traffic when three things are true: you’re already running a dedicated branded Search or Shopping campaign, branded terms make up a meaningful share of your PMax conversions, and your goal is measuring true new-customer performance rather than just total conversion volume.
- Spend threshold: if PMax is a meaningful chunk of your budget, brand cannibalization at scale is worth fixing.
- Overlap check: pull a search terms sample (where visible) or a Shopping breakdown to see how much branded volume PMax is already claiming.
- Goal alignment: acquisition-focused accounts benefit more from exclusions than pure efficiency plays.
Expect a short-term hit. Search Engine Land’s analysis on steering PMax toward net-new customers found that removing brand traffic typically causes CPA to rise and ROAS to dip temporarily, because the campaign loses easy, already-converting clicks and has to work harder to find new ones.
That dip isn’t a failure signal. It’s what accurate measurement looks like once you strip out the traffic that was inflating your numbers for free.
If you sell online, don’t let this scare you off. Keep a dedicated branded Shopping or Search campaign running in parallel so those queries still get captured, just accounted for correctly instead of blended into PMax’s black box.
How Do You Verify Your Brand Exclusions Are Actually Working?
Don’t apply the exclusion and walk away. Confirm it did what you expected.
- Compare branded query share in your Shopping and Search terms reports before and after the change.
- Watch the branded campaign’s volume for a corresponding uptick, that’s a good sign traffic redirected rather than vanished.
- Check assisted conversions and new-customer metrics if your account tracks them separately.
- Review the account-level Exclusions table periodically to confirm the brand list is still attached where you expect.
Ongoing monitoring of search performance matters here too, since a brand exclusion that looked clean on day one can drift as new misspellings or subsidiary names appear.
Pro Tip: Run a two-week pre-exclusion baseline, then a two-week post-exclusion window, and compare them side by side instead of eyeballing a single dashboard date range. A short parallel-run comparison tells you far more than a gut check.
What Should You Do If Brand Exclusions Aren’t Enough?
Sometimes a brand list alone won’t get you the control you need. A few alternatives, often used together:
- Manual negative keywords: more precise but capped and harder to maintain at scale.
- Dedicated branded campaigns: capture the traffic you excluded so it isn’t lost entirely.
- Audience exclusions: remove site visitors or past purchasers from PMax targeting to push it toward net-new prospects.
- Customer Match exclusions: exclude your existing customer list directly, useful when brand searches aren’t the only warm-traffic leak.
If you need real control without sacrificing visibility:
- Apply the brand list first, it’s the broadest lever.
- Layer in a phrase-match negative as backup.
- Add audience or Customer Match exclusions if warm traffic is still leaking through non-branded terms.
Be careful not to overcorrect. Strip out too many warm signals at once and you can stall PMax’s ability to find lookalike converters, slowing acquisition velocity right when you need it most.
How Do You Test The Real Impact Of Excluding Brand From PMax?
Run this as an actual experiment, not a set-and-forget change.
- Write the hypothesis: “Excluding brand traffic will lower branded-conversion share in PMax without a net drop in total conversions, because the branded campaign will absorb it.”
- Capture a two-week baseline before applying anything.
- Apply the brand list to a test campaign or a subset of campaigns.
- Run it for a window long enough to smooth out day-to-day noise, generally three to four weeks.
- Compare CPA, ROAS, and new-customer share against the baseline.
Success looks like: branded-conversion share inside PMax drops, the dedicated branded campaign picks up a comparable volume, and total account conversions hold steady or improve on a new-customer basis even if PMax’s own ROAS dips.
- Watch for first-click versus last-click attribution sensitivity, brand exclusion effects can look different depending on the model.
- Flag any Customer Match matching gaps, since the four-step framework for net-new targeting only works as well as your list quality allows.
Agency perspective: why we typically flip this switch
Across the accounts North Country Consulting manages, most spending a significant monthly budget, brand exclusions are rarely optional once a client has invested in a dedicated branded campaign. Senior oversight means we catch the cannibalization before it distorts a client’s entire measurement picture, not after a quarter of misread ROAS.
Get A Senior-Led Audit Of Your Brand Traffic Split
North Country Consulting runs this exact exclusion and experiment process for clients spending $25,000 or more a month on Google Ads, and the fastest way to see where your account stands is a free strategy audit.
Unlike a generic agency checklist, the audit maps your actual branded-versus-nonbranded traffic split inside PMax, hands you a ready-to-use brand list, and lays out a 30-day experiment plan built by senior staff, not a junior account manager learning on your budget. North Country Consulting has managed over $40 million in ad spend with an average 8.7x return on ad spend across client accounts, largely by fixing structural issues like brand cannibalization before optimizing anything else. If your PMax numbers have looked too good to be true, or you’ve never actually measured how much of that “performance” is just your own branded searchers, book the audit and get the real number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does excluding brand traffic from PMax hurt overall conversion volume?
Not if you keep a dedicated branded Search or Shopping campaign running alongside it. Total conversions usually hold steady since the branded campaign picks up what PMax no longer captures.
Can I exclude brand traffic from PMax without affecting Shopping ads?
Yes. Check the “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands” toggle when you apply the brand list, and Shopping ads can still surface even though Search and YouTube search inventory won’t.
How long before I see the impact of a brand exclusion in PMax?
Give it at least two to three weeks. A shorter window tends to reflect normal day-to-day variance rather than the real shift in campaign behavior.
Do brand exclusions replace negative keywords entirely?
No. Treat the brand list as your primary control and keep a phrase-match negative keyword as backup for anything the list’s automatic matching misses.
Sources
- Apply brand exclusions to Performance Max or Search campaigns – Google Ads Help
- About brand exclusions – Google Ads Help
- How to make Performance Max focus on net new customers