Google Tells PMax Advertisers to Fund Brand Search

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Google Tells PMax Advertisers to Fund Brand Search
Google Tells PMax Advertisers to Fund Brand Search
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Google’s Performance Max help page now says PMax may filter out brand searches in favor of dedicated brand Search campaigns.

For an Ecommerce Paradise reader running a high-ticket store, that matters because the shopper who types your store name after three weeks of research is often your best buyer. A PMax campaign that was quietly collecting those orders may start reporting less, and a brand campaign you never built may suddenly decide whether they convert at all.

The same news cycle brought a second change: Google moved AI Overviews for many brand queries into the desktop right-hand column. I covered the slowdown behind both moves in my Oct. 29 post on Google’s 12% search growth. Below is what is confirmed, what is not, and what I would check in your account this week.

Brand and rival search results just got harder to read. Semrush gives you keyword and competitor research, so you can check what shows up for your store name and your competitors’ before you move any budget. Research your keywords with Semrush →

Google Says Performance Max May Filter Out Brand Searches

The line sits on Google’s help page called “How Performance Max interacts with other campaigns in your account.” According to Google’s help page, “Performance Max campaigns may also filter out navigational or brand-specific search queries” so that dedicated Search campaigns can handle them.

PPC News Feed reported the change on Nov. 2, crediting Hana Kobzová with spotting it. Its summary of the page: advertisers should make sure their brand Search campaigns have enough budget and good ads to capture the filtered traffic, and adding Search Themes to a PMax campaign may help line up the strategy.

The same page spells out the priority order. A Search campaign with a matching keyword “will be preferred over Performance Max.” When no keyword matches exactly, “the campaign with the higher Ad Rank will serve.”

Two gaps matter. The page does not say when the brand-filtering line was added, and PPC News Feed does not describe what the page said before, so it is unclear whether PMax behavior changed or Google only documented what it was already doing. The page also does not mention brand exclusions, and it does not say what happens to a brand query when no Search campaign exists to take it.

I found no Google announcement of the wording change. Treat this as a documentation update, not a confirmed behavior change.

The second change is a layout shift. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported on Nov. 2 that Google moved AI Overviews for many brand searches into the right-hand column on desktop, where knowledge panels used to sit. His examples were Apple, Zillow, Coke and Google. The brand’s official site returns to the top of the main results in those examples.

Schwartz said Google had not responded to his request for comment. A Google spokesperson did tell the press, per a PPC Land roundup, that AI Overviews “create new opportunities for brands.”

None of Schwartz’s examples showed ads, so how the relocated panel interacts with paid brand results is unknown. Ads in AI Mode already run through your existing campaigns, which I explained in my breakdown of how AI Mode ads use your current setup, so the plumbing between Search, PMax and AI surfaces is getting more tangled, not less.

AI Overviews Reached 63 of 100 Brand Names, Up From 5 in July

The right-column move follows a fast rise in how often brand queries trigger an AI Overview at all. Per Ahrefs data cited by PPC Land, AI Overviews appeared on 63 of 100 brand-name queries by Sept. 30, up from 5 of 98 usable results on July 1. Of those 63, 48 sat in position one.

Across branded keywords in US desktop results, the share showing an AI Overview was 82.91% on Sept. 29. The monthly average climbed from 61.3% in July to 73.3% in September, according to the same Ahrefs figures. I have not reviewed the Ahrefs data directly, so these numbers come through PPC Land.

This tracks with earlier reporting on EP. The Semrush data I covered put AI Overviews on 85% of ecommerce keywords, in my Oct. 23 post on Semrush’s AI Overview data. The brand-name figures above show the same pattern reaching searches for individual stores and companies.

Buyers are already reacting. Digiday interviewed 18 media buyers, and its Nov. 2 report on Google search losing its free pass with buyers put numbers on the mood. Lindsay Marty, founder of Above the Bar Marketing, said about 10% to 20% of Google budget is being questioned. Bryce Hamlin, VP of data intelligence at Power Digital, estimated 10% to 30% is being reallocated. Farhad Divecha, group CEO of Accuracast, said about 10% of client budgets are questioned now, possibly rising to 20% to 30% around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The backdrop is slower growth. Google search ad revenue rose 12% in Q3, Alphabet’s slowest pace of the year, per Digiday. Michelle Merklin, VP of search at Tinuiti, said branded keyword CPCs rose 5% in the quarter, roughly in line with non-branded terms. She also said Tinuiti’s US clients raised Facebook ad spend 16% in Q3.

Why Brand Search Matters More Than Your ROAS Screen Shows

Everything above this heading is reported. Everything below is my read.

The first-order effect is on measurement, not on sales. If PMax stops claiming brand queries and you have no brand Search campaign, one of three things happens: Google routes those shoppers to organic, a competitor bids on your name, or the click disappears into the AI panel. In all three cases your PMax ROAS number moves, and in two of them you lose orders.

Here is hypothetical math, not a reported result. Say a store spends $10,000 a month on PMax and the campaign reports $40,000 in conversion value, a 4.0 ROAS. Say 25% of that value, $10,000, came from people searching the store’s name. If Google filters those queries out and nothing replaces them, PMax now reports $30,000 on the same $10,000, a 3.0 ROAS. The store did not get worse at advertising. The cheap, high-intent orders just stopped being credited to that campaign.

Now add a brand Search campaign. If it captures the same $10,000 at a $1,000 budget, blended performance is unchanged and the new campaign reports 10x. If it captures half, you lost $5,000 a month and nothing in the account flagged it. That second case is the one that hurts.

My threshold: if branded queries drive more than about 15% of a PMax campaign’s conversion value, treat this as urgent this week. Under 5%, it is a cleanup task for after the holidays. Between the two, build the brand campaign now because it is cheap insurance.

High-ticket stores feel this harder than low-ticket ones. A $3,000 purchase has a long research phase. The shopper clicks a Shopping ad, leaves, compares three competitors, calls a friend, and comes back by typing your store name. That return visit is brand search, and it is where the sale often closes. My guide on why high-ticket Google Ads need a complete conversion system covers why the click that gets credit is rarely the click that did the selling.

The AI panel adds a trust problem. PPC Land noted that in the Zillow example, the AI summary and the fact rows gave different founding years, 2006 and 2004. If the panel next to your store name gets your warranty terms, location or product range wrong, you cannot edit it directly. The fix is making your own site the clearest source on those facts.

Competitors are the other risk. Brand queries are cheap partly because few rivals bid on a small store’s name. If your PMax campaign stops covering the name and your brand Search campaign does not exist, an empty slot sits in the auction. Rivals in your category, or affiliates and resellers, can fill it for pennies. That is a scenario, not something any source reported, but it is the reason I would not wait for data before building the campaign.

The Search Themes advice deserves a caution. Google suggests adding them to PMax to help capture brand traffic, per PPC News Feed. A theme is a signal, not a guarantee, and it hands more matching control to Google. For brand, I prefer the explicit control of a Search campaign with exact keywords, where you choose the query, the ad and the landing page.

There is a fair counterpoint. Schwartz himself wrote, “I think this works much better than having it in the main results,” and in his examples the official site returns to the top. Google says AI Overviews create opportunities for brands. Victor Batista, global search lead at Jellyfish, told Digiday his clients are not cutting overall Google spend in a targeted way. And no public data shows whether the side panel changes clicks to brand sites, since Search Console does not report AI click data, per PPC Land.

So I would not panic-cut Google. I would split brand from non-brand so you can see what is happening. Tracking tools help here, and I compared options in my review of 8 rank trackers.

If managing this feels like a second job, it is one. Running the ad account is the work my scaling service takes off store owners. And if you are still deciding what to sell before any of this matters, my turnkey done-for-you build sets up the store, so the ad account starts clean instead of inheriting someone else’s mess.

Not sure whether your PMax numbers just shifted? Compare notes with other store owners and me before you move budget. The 7-day free trial is followed by a paid membership. Join the Skool community →

Five Brand Search Checks to Run Before Black Friday

Black Friday falls on Nov. 27, so you have roughly three weeks. Do these in order.

  1. Measure your brand share. Open your Performance Max search term insights and add up the conversion value from queries containing your store name. Compare the last 30 days to the 30 before. That single percentage tells you which bucket you are in from the math above.
  2. Build or fund a brand Search campaign. Use your store name, domain and common misspellings, and give it a daily budget that covers all the brand click volume you saw in step one. Put your phone number in the ad. If phone sales matter to you, a business line from Quo keeps calls and texts in one place.
  3. Separate the reporting. Label campaigns brand and non-brand and set ROAS targets for each, since brand will always look better. Add a distinct UTM campaign name to every brand ad URL so your Shopify reports can separate those orders. If you are not on the platform yet, start with Shopify.
  4. Screenshot your brand results weekly. Search your store name on desktop, save the main results and the right-hand panel, and note any wrong facts. For rank history on your category terms, Mangools handles rank tracking. Then fix any wrong fact on your own About, warranty and contact pages first.
  5. Capture the researcher before they leave. A shopper who needs three weeks to decide on a $3,000 purchase should be on an email list by day two. Set up a welcome flow and a browse-abandonment flow in Klaviyo, so you are not paying for every return visit.

If you want a second set of eyes on your setup, that is what 1-on-1 coaching is for. I would pair this with a fresh look at my Merchant Center optimization checklist, since a clean product feed helps every campaign type you run.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Performance Max still show ads on my brand name?
Google’s page says PMax may filter out brand-specific searches, not that it always will. It also says a Search campaign with a matching keyword is preferred over PMax, so a brand Search campaign is the safest way to keep control.

Should I turn off Performance Max?
No. The reported change is about brand queries, not the rest of your PMax traffic. Split brand from non-brand first, then judge PMax on the non-brand numbers. My post on turning Google Shopping clicks into sales on high-ticket products shows what to judge it against.

Are AI Overviews taking my branded clicks?
Nobody knows yet. PPC Land noted that no public data shows whether the right-column placement changes clicks, and Search Console does not report AI click data. Track your own brand clicks and orders weekly.

How much should I spend on a brand Search campaign?
There is no universal number. Size it to the brand click volume you measured in step one. Tinuiti reported branded CPCs up 5% in Q3, per Digiday, so brand clicks are usually still among the cheapest orders you will buy.

Does this affect stores that only run Shopping campaigns?
The reported change is on the Performance Max page, so Standard Shopping setups are not the subject. The AI Overview layout shift hits every store that gets brand searches, whatever campaign type you run. My dropshipping marketing strategy playbook covers how the pieces fit together.

I do not run Google Ads yet. Where do I start?
Start with the niche, not the ad account. My guide to what high-ticket dropshipping is explains the model. The free high-ticket niches list gives you something to research.

Want my team to build your high-ticket store for you, so the ad account starts clean? See the turnkey done-for-you service →

That is the read for today. Measure your brand share before you touch a budget, and screenshot your brand results on desktop today so you have a baseline to compare against next week. If the numbers look odd, change one thing at a time so you can tell which change did what. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.

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