Why You Should Split Your Branded and Non-Branded Campaigns in Google Ads
A common issue we encounter repeatedly when conducting Google Ads audits is that branded and non-branded searches are often combined into the same campaign. At first glance, it might not seem like a problem, but it causes a quiet chain reaction in your results.
Your performance looks stronger than it really is, you can end up paying for people who were already planning to call you, and your ability to scale becomes limited because you cannot see what is genuinely driving new enquiries.
Separating the two gives you a clear view of what is actually working. It shows you where growth is coming from, where you are simply protecting your name, and where you can confidently increase budgets without wasting spend.
So whether you are running ads in-house or working with a PPC agency, making sure your brand and non-brand activity is split is one of the quickest ways to get clearer insights and better control. This blog explains how to structure your campaigns effectively and why this simple change can significantly improve your results.
Table of Contents
How much to budget for branded campaigns
Handling brand in search campaigns
Handing brand in Performance Max Campaigns
What do we mean by a branded campaign?
A branded campaign is any campaign where you bid on your own business name, your product names or anything uniquely connected to your brand. A clear way to understand this is to look at a familiar tech company such as Dell.
If someone searches for “Dell”, that is a branded search. They already know which company they want. If they type “Dell XPS 15”, that is still branded because they are searching for a specific Dell product.
If they search for “best laptop for video editing”, that is non branded. They are in the market but undecided, so Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus and others all have a chance of winning that click.
Now imagine Dell decided not to bid on its own brand terms. A competitor could still appear above them. Even though advertisers cannot use another company’s trademarked name in their ad copy, they can still bid on those searches. So when someone types “Dell XPS 15”, a Lenovo ad could show in the top position with wording such as “High-performance laptops for creative pros”. It does not reference Dell at all, yet it can still divert clicks from Dell’s organic listing.
This also happens unintentionally. Broad match keywords such as “laptop for editing” or “business laptop” can cause a competitor to appear for a branded search even if they were not targeting Dell directly. Google sees the search intent as related and serves the ad.
And this is exactly the same challenge smaller businesses face. You do not need to be a global tech brand for this to matter. If you are a dentist and someone searches for your exact clinic name, a competitor could still appear above you simply because their broad match keyword happened to match the intent. Without a branded campaign, you risk losing someone who was already planning to book with you.
A branded campaign protects that intent, ensures you appear first at the lowest possible cost and keeps competitors from sitting above your most valuable searches.
See some examples of branded vs non-branded keywords
Why worry about it when people can find you organically
Many business owners assume that if someone searches for their name, they will find them organically anyway. The problem is that this only holds true when the search result page is quiet. Competitors can appear above you either deliberately or by accident.
Some competitors bid on brand terms on purpose. Others appear because they use broad match keywords such as “marketing consultant London” which might trigger when someone searches for your name. In those moments, you want to be certain you appear first and you want to pay as little as possible for it. When branded and non-branded traffic is lumped together, your costs and performance data become messy and much harder to manage.
Splitting your campaigns means you can protect your brand while still pushing for growth in your non-branded activity.
Quality Score - Why you Should Win the Auction
One of the strongest reasons to run your own branded campaign is quality score. Google wants to show the most relevant ad for every search, and nobody is more relevant for your own brand name than you. That gives you a higher expected click through rate, a better landing page experience and a stronger overall quality score.
A higher quality score means you pay less per click than anyone else trying to bid on your name. In many cases, you will pay a fraction of what a competitor would. They need to bid higher to appear at all, and even then they often pay more than you for the same position. If you do not run your own branded ads, you leave the door wide open for them to exploit this gap.
Running a dedicated branded campaign means you protect your position at the lowest possible cost and keep competitors from appearing above you when intent is at its strongest.
How much should you budget for your branded campaign
Branded campaigns rarely need large budgets. Most businesses only need to spend enough to cover the volume of people actively searching for them each month. This is usually far lower than their non-branded spend. For example, far more people will be searching for “accountant near me” than a specific name of an accountancy practice.
A simple way to estimate your branded budget is to check your average monthly branded search volume in Google Ads or Google Search Console. Multiply that by your approximate cost per click and set a budget that allows for fluctuations. Many small and medium businesses find that a small daily budget is enough to cover demand.
Keep an eye on impression share. If you are losing a significant amount due to budget, increase it slightly. If you are capturing almost every branded impression and only spending a small amount, you are set. The goal is coverage and protection, not volume. Branded campaigns secure intent that is already yours at the lowest possible cost.
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How to split campaigns in search
For search campaigns, the most straightforward approach is to build two completely separate campaigns.
One campaign should contain only your branded keywords. These are usually exact-match or phrase-match versions of your business name, product names, or anything closely tied to your brand. Because these searches already show strong intent, your spend will usually be lower and your conversion rate higher.
Your non-branded campaign or campaigns should include your broader service or product-related keywords. This is the part of the account that actively attracts new audiences and generates new demand.
The essential next step is to keep the two clean. This means adding your brand terms as negative keywords inside your non-branded campaign. That way your non-branded activity can never pick up branded traffic by mistake. Without these negatives, broad match keywords or close variants can easily drag branded searches into the wrong campaign, which undermines the whole purpose of splitting them.
It is also worth being careful with call extensions in branded campaigns. These users already know who you are and were very likely searching with the intention of contacting you anyway. A call extension simply turns that organic behaviour into a paid action, which means you risk paying for phone calls from current clients or from people who would have found your number without any help from Google Ads. Save call extensions for your non branded and acquisition focused campaigns where you want to make it as easy as possible for new customers to get in touch.
When your branded and non branded campaigns are separated properly and protected with the right negatives, your data becomes much clearer. You get a true picture of what is driving new customers rather than inflated results from searches that were already yours.
How to handle branded terms in Performance Max
Performance Max has always had a habit of absorbing branded traffic, which is why so many businesses see great results without knowing whether those results are coming from new customers or people who were already searching for them.
The good news is that Google now allows you to exclude your brand directly inside Performance Max. You can add your brand name, variations and related terms to the brand exclusions list so Performance Max does not show your ads for those searches.
This gives you far more clarity. Your Performance Max campaign can focus on prospecting, discovery and demand generation, while your branded search campaign continues to protect your name at the lowest possible cost. With the brand exclusions set up correctly, you get a much cleaner view of what Performance Max is genuinely achieving.
You can add a brand exclusion at the campaign or account level (to then apply to your Performance Max campaigns), however if your brand is not already in Google’s brand list, you will need to request this (it can take up to six weeks for this to be approved).
To request a brand exclusion, firstly check if your brand is listed - and if your brand is not listed, follow the steps in the video below.
How Shopping campaigns handle brand
Shopping is a little different because there are no traditional keywords. Google decides when to show your products, which means your brand name often triggers impressions and clicks whether you intend it or not.
To manage this, many businesses run separate Shopping campaigns and use campaign priorities along with negative keyword lists for brand terms. This allows you to funnel branded searches into a low-cost brand Shopping campaign, while protecting your main product campaigns from accidental branded traffic.
It is not perfect, but it remains one of the safest ways to achieve a clean split between the two types of intent.
Splitting branded and non-branded campaigns is one of the easiest structural improvements you can make to your Google Ads account and you don’t need to be a well-known brand to reap the benefits.
It gives you clarity, protects your position, improves budget control and stops your results from being inflated by users who were already searching for you.
If you want help reviewing your account structure or making these changes without disrupting your live campaigns, we can take a look and put together a clear plan for you.
