Brand Activator with PMax: Retail vs Non-Retail Setup

Brand Activator controls Search Ads on your brand terms, toggling them on and off based on competitor presence. How you apply it to PMax depends on whether you run Shopping Ads.

Non-Retail customers (no Shopping Ads)

Apply the Brand Activator negative keyword list directly to the PMax campaign. Nothing else is needed. Brand Activator controls Search, and there's no Shopping to protect.

Retail customers (running Shopping Ads)

The negative keyword list blocks the whole campaign, Shopping included, so you can't apply it to a single PMax campaign without losing Shopping. Split brand traffic across two campaigns, each owning one ad type.

Campaign 1: Standard Search campaign (owns Search) Apply the Brand Activator negative keyword list here. This is the campaign Brand Activator controls, toggling Search Ads on and off based on competitor presence.

Campaign 2: PMax campaign for Shopping (owns Shopping) Two settings work together:

• Brand exclusion applied. By default this covers Search and Shopping, so alone it would block both.
• "Don't apply brand exclusions to Shopping" checkbox ticked. This exempts Shopping from the exclusion.

Search is suppressed inside PMax, while Shopping stays live on brand queries for carousel presence. Search on brand terms is controlled by Brand Activator over in Campaign 1.