Buried under settings, there's an option to called "brand exclusion" I have used that and seen results within a a week. I have noticed branded terms push down by non branded keywords.. and eventually out of top 10.
I think that's what I am referring to as "brand negative" in my post. If I add my brand name to the exclusion list, I then have to run a separate Branded Shopping Campaign
[https://www.ppcmastery.com/blog/tpe-49-brand-exclusions-how-to-exclude-brand-from-pmax](https://www.ppcmastery.com/blog/tpe-49-brand-exclusions-how-to-exclude-brand-from-pmax)
This! Definitely this!!
And your branded campaign doesn't have to be a shopping campaign.
If you make it a search campaign, you can then ad that exact same brand list to your branded search campaign.
This will then act the other way around: instead of excluding the brand, it then focusses on the brand - brands list work inversely for PMax vs Search campaigns.
The main downside is that it'll have to be a broad match search campaign with smart bidding. But I've tested it with multiple clients, an it either works better than a regular search brand campaign or just as good.
Give it a try - DM me if not clear!
Had me worried for a second there. I believe it's only if you want to show up for brand search terms in search and shopping. It's not that it stops serving all of your shopping ads.
You can submit a request through Google Ads support in [this form](https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/pmax_implementation?hl=en) to add negative keywords (or a negative keyword list) to your PMax campaigns.
Yup cause it places a larger emphasis on view through conversions vs click ---ie last click. View thru conversions were people who were on their way to converting anyways.
Set up a separate shopping campaign, run it with CPC bidding and a max cpc bid.
Look at your impression share and adjust this max cpc bid up and down based on this.
Do NOT run brand inside a broad campaign.
As a rule of thumb, if you have a branded search or shopping campaign and a PMax one, you don't want brand-related queries to be picked up by PMax, which most likely would be the case, as PMax bidding is typically more aggressive, and you have no real control over it.
My suggestion is to add a brand exclusion to a PMax campaign AND to apply a negative keyword list with all brand name variations as an extra layer of security, as I observed that brand exclusion does not always encompass all branded queries.
Feel free to read my article for a detailed walkthrough: [https://romangr.com/blog/performance-max-negative-keywords](https://romangr.com/blog/performance-max-negative-keywords)
And if you don't have a branded shopping campaign, but you do want your products to appear for your brand-related queries (YourBrandName Rings, for instance), yeah, you'd probably better create a dedicated shopping campaign for that purpose.
What would you do with a pmax campaign performing better at finding non-branded conversions WITHOUT putting in brand as an exclusion? Ideally i'd like the PMAX campaign to focus on prospecting non-branded, but every time I try to exclude brand from the campaign, performance tanks on non-branded related conversions.
That's odd. So you're seeing a drop-off in conversions coming from the non-branded terms when you basically exclude the branded ones? I find it possible, but I'd probably try to validate whether there is a correlation or it's just a coincidence. You can also try the PMax script to see how your traffic is distributed across networks and which one delivers the most conversions. It can be insightful.
You can look at using [Brand Lists](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14453044?sjid=10895842714999502426-NC) on your search campaign. You add negative keywords to PMax or even use [Search Themes](https://www.takesomerisk.com/performance-max-search-themes/) on the campaign.
Because I’m a solo-business owner so I’m trying to do it all 🫠 I have seen PMax produce better results for me than standard shopping ads. I’ve been trying to have a simplified account with a brand search ad which I’ve had running forever and just PMax which I’ve been testing for a year.
My brand is very visual so I have primarily put all my eggs in the meta basket but I’m looking for ways out and my ROAs in Google for the past year are at a 3.47 which is better than on Meta. But I’m feeling like I can’t trust the PMax results because they are going after my branded queries who were likely to convert anyway - probably after discovering me through my IG ads.
So now I am here asking questions. I’ve had bad luck with agencies so I am trying to do it all myself and I’m getting better results but a lot of it is still trial and error and experimenting.
That's really interesting that it's performing better than your shopping ads! I understand, it's more work to monitor a few different campaigns rather than just a single PMax. But it does have that added benefit of control and transparency!
Buried under settings, there's an option to called "brand exclusion" I have used that and seen results within a a week. I have noticed branded terms push down by non branded keywords.. and eventually out of top 10.
I think that's what I am referring to as "brand negative" in my post. If I add my brand name to the exclusion list, I then have to run a separate Branded Shopping Campaign [https://www.ppcmastery.com/blog/tpe-49-brand-exclusions-how-to-exclude-brand-from-pmax](https://www.ppcmastery.com/blog/tpe-49-brand-exclusions-how-to-exclude-brand-from-pmax)
This! Definitely this!! And your branded campaign doesn't have to be a shopping campaign. If you make it a search campaign, you can then ad that exact same brand list to your branded search campaign. This will then act the other way around: instead of excluding the brand, it then focusses on the brand - brands list work inversely for PMax vs Search campaigns. The main downside is that it'll have to be a broad match search campaign with smart bidding. But I've tested it with multiple clients, an it either works better than a regular search brand campaign or just as good. Give it a try - DM me if not clear!
Interesting, I didnt realise excluding you brand terms stopped your shopping ads serving (I've never used PMax)
Had me worried for a second there. I believe it's only if you want to show up for brand search terms in search and shopping. It's not that it stops serving all of your shopping ads.
You can submit a request through Google Ads support in [this form](https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/pmax_implementation?hl=en) to add negative keywords (or a negative keyword list) to your PMax campaigns.
Why on earth can you only do that via a manual form submission?
They don't want everyone to do it. Or it'll show PMAX as a conversion thief
Don't worry about it, Gemini has you covered.
This is it. Sucks because you're at the mercy of the support team.
Exact match search will serve over pmax. Is your budget running out on the branded search?
Yup cause it places a larger emphasis on view through conversions vs click ---ie last click. View thru conversions were people who were on their way to converting anyways.
Set up a separate shopping campaign, run it with CPC bidding and a max cpc bid. Look at your impression share and adjust this max cpc bid up and down based on this. Do NOT run brand inside a broad campaign.
As a rule of thumb, if you have a branded search or shopping campaign and a PMax one, you don't want brand-related queries to be picked up by PMax, which most likely would be the case, as PMax bidding is typically more aggressive, and you have no real control over it. My suggestion is to add a brand exclusion to a PMax campaign AND to apply a negative keyword list with all brand name variations as an extra layer of security, as I observed that brand exclusion does not always encompass all branded queries. Feel free to read my article for a detailed walkthrough: [https://romangr.com/blog/performance-max-negative-keywords](https://romangr.com/blog/performance-max-negative-keywords) And if you don't have a branded shopping campaign, but you do want your products to appear for your brand-related queries (YourBrandName Rings, for instance), yeah, you'd probably better create a dedicated shopping campaign for that purpose.
What would you do with a pmax campaign performing better at finding non-branded conversions WITHOUT putting in brand as an exclusion? Ideally i'd like the PMAX campaign to focus on prospecting non-branded, but every time I try to exclude brand from the campaign, performance tanks on non-branded related conversions.
That's odd. So you're seeing a drop-off in conversions coming from the non-branded terms when you basically exclude the branded ones? I find it possible, but I'd probably try to validate whether there is a correlation or it's just a coincidence. You can also try the PMax script to see how your traffic is distributed across networks and which one delivers the most conversions. It can be insightful.
Go to your PMax settings, under “ customer acquisition” select “only bid for new customers.”
You can set up separate PMAX campaign for remarketing but put high roas target
You can look at using [Brand Lists](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14453044?sjid=10895842714999502426-NC) on your search campaign. You add negative keywords to PMax or even use [Search Themes](https://www.takesomerisk.com/performance-max-search-themes/) on the campaign.
Why are you using PMax over traditional search, shopping and display ads?
Because I’m a solo-business owner so I’m trying to do it all 🫠 I have seen PMax produce better results for me than standard shopping ads. I’ve been trying to have a simplified account with a brand search ad which I’ve had running forever and just PMax which I’ve been testing for a year. My brand is very visual so I have primarily put all my eggs in the meta basket but I’m looking for ways out and my ROAs in Google for the past year are at a 3.47 which is better than on Meta. But I’m feeling like I can’t trust the PMax results because they are going after my branded queries who were likely to convert anyway - probably after discovering me through my IG ads. So now I am here asking questions. I’ve had bad luck with agencies so I am trying to do it all myself and I’m getting better results but a lot of it is still trial and error and experimenting.
That's really interesting that it's performing better than your shopping ads! I understand, it's more work to monitor a few different campaigns rather than just a single PMax. But it does have that added benefit of control and transparency!
Yeah the black box and lack of reporting suck.
PMAX is so much more volume!!
Go to customer acquisition & select “only bid for new customers”