Brand lists vs negative keywords
A negative keyword matches a string. A brand list matches a brand.
That distinction cost a trades client a lot of money. Search terms in the account were full of a national repair franchise's name and its variants: the name with a town, the name run together as one word, the name inside longer phrases. The owner had added the obvious version as a negative keyword. The variants kept coming through, because a negative keyword controls terms according to negative-match rules, and synonyms, combined forms and related phrasings still need adding by hand.
Brand controls work differently. Google says brand exclusions can prevent ads from serving for branded queries that include misspellings, variants, related searches, and some foreign-script forms. That makes them more comprehensive for a recognised brand than one negative keyword, but coverage still depends on Google's brand list and the supported campaign setting.
Why this matters for Performance Max
Without exclusions, PMax can serve against brand demand and take credit for it, both your own brand and competitors'. On that account's PMax campaign, two thirds of the visible search terms were competitor brand names. It looked efficient because those clicks were cheap and some of them converted. Most were people trying to reach the other company.
Brand exclusions are Google's purpose-built PMax control for preventing selected brand traffic. If you exclude your own brand, decide separately whether a Search campaign should cover that demand. Exclusion does not prove a competitor will win it, but it removes PMax from that opportunity.
The account-level gap
In our 2026 audits to date, brand controls and account-level negative keywords have often been missing. That is an observation from our audit sample, not a market-wide prevalence estimate.
We maintain reusable negative themes for job seekers, competitors and complaints traffic, but apply them only at the scope Google supports. Account-level negatives apply across relevant Search and Shopping inventory in supported campaign types, not literally every placement in every campaign. Brand lists and PMax brand exclusions remain separate controls.
One wrinkle since May 2025: brand settings for Search campaigns live in the AI Max panel, so adding a new brand list to a Search campaign needs AI Max on. PMax brand exclusions are unaffected. If you have turned AI Max off, as many did, you need to know that before you go looking for the setting.