Performance Max
How do I stop Performance Max cannibalising my brand traffic?
Why this matters
Performance Max claims credit for brand searches it never needed to win. Someone types your brand name, PMax serves an ad, they click, they convert. PMax reports it as new revenue. In reality, that user was coming anyway: paid or unpaid, and you have just paid for traffic you would have got for free.
The first fix is the brand exclusion list. Google rolled out account-level brand exclusions in 2023 and PMax-level exclusions shortly after. Add your brand terms, common misspellings and partner brand terms. PMax will stop bidding on those queries.
The second fix is a dedicated brand Search campaign. With PMax walled off, brand Search needs to be airtight: high impression share, sensible bid caps, exact match on the core terms. This is cheap inventory you want to own at low CPC, not at PMax CPCs.
The third is measurement. Run a two-week brand-off experiment: pause PMax bidding on brand queries entirely and measure what happens to total revenue (paid and organic combined). Most brands find PMax was claiming 60–90% of brand-search revenue as incremental when only 10–25% actually was.
Once brand is walled off, PMax has to earn non-brand revenue on its own, and the honest performance picture appears for the first time.
How JudeLuxe approaches this
JudeLuxe sets up brand exclusion and the incrementality test in the first two weeks of any PMax rebuild. The brand-off measurement is usually the single largest profit lift available before any other change.
The PMax service page documents the full structure; the diary entries on PMax cannibalisation walk through specific accounts.
Related reading: Performance Max management.
Related questions
Want a written answer for your account?
The Profit Audit gives you a five-to-seven day written report on where your Google Ads is leaking margin and what tighter management would realistically recover. No pitch, no preparation needed.
Book a free Profit Audit