Brand Activator Explained

• How it works
• Savings
• Date Picker
• Activity Log
• Suggested Terms
• Sandbox: Test your terms
• In-App Alerts
• Settings
• Pause Brand Activator

How it works

Brand Activator monitors and adjusts specific Lone Ranger keywords within your Google Ads campaigns according to market conditions. A Lone Ranger refers to an advertiser who exclusively displays text ads and occupies the top organic result. Google Shopping ads (PLA) are not considered. Examples:  

Lone Ranger

1. Only Text Ad (top 1 or bottom 1) and Organic 1.
2. No advertisers and always Organic 1.

Not a Lone Ranger

1. You're not advertising but someone else is.
2. You're not always Organic 1.
3. Any other option.

Once an hour, the system automatically evaluates these keywords to determine their Lone Ranger status. If necessary, appropriate actions such as pausing or restarting them are taken by adding or removing them from a negative keyword list using Google scripts in your Google Ads account .

Search volume threshold

Savings

The top chart provides a high level overview of the following:

• All time saving - How much you have saved since Brand Activator was activated in your account.
• Savings - Your savings during the selected period. The currency for savings is determined by you before we activate the feature.
• Ad Spend - The overall spend on your Brand Activator terms (including Close Variants). This is calculated daily. 
• Top competitor - Who was your top competitor during the selected period.
• Most time in negative list - Which term spent the most time in negative list during the selected period.
• Least time in negative list - Which term spent the least time in negative list during the selected period.

The Savings trend chart shows your total savings for the selected period and selected currency. Clicking on a data point opens a chart label which shows daily, weekly or monthly savings for that specific period. 

Currency

You can select the currency in which you want to view your savings, regardless of the currency used in your Google Ads account. For example, a user based in the UK might see savings displayed in Euros on the Savings page, while Search Term Details are shown in GBP. To change your savings currency, please email support@adthena.com.

How are savings calculated?

Basic calculation

• We use data from the past 28 days to calculate today’s savings. If a low-bid campaign is being used, data from the past 90 days is applied instead.
• Hourly spend is estimated from daily spend using Google Ad groups.
• Each day, we review hourly spend and estimate hourly savings.
• The Exact Match term and Close Variant estimated savings utilize the same methodology.
• Savings across multiple keyword match types are calculated by analyzing search term-level spend, then aggregating the spend for the same search term across the three match types (Exact, Phrase, and Broad).

Daypart Spend Weighting

We use the typical spend for each part of the day to estimate how much would have been spent whenever Brand Activator pauses the campaign. For every period where Brand Activator suppresses activity, we apply the average spend from recent active days as the estimated saving for that period. Adding these period-level estimates gives us the total saving for the day.

Low-bid campaign adjustment (if enabled)

The low-bid savings formula is designed to produce savings figures that are accurate, conservative, and reflective of real auction dynamics. It provides a dependable view of performance while preserving transparency. Savings are calculated by comparing the cost differences between the main and low-bid campaigns, applying this to the relevant click volume, and then adjusting the result with a calibration factor.

Savings calibration

To accurately calculate savings, we need spend data for each hour of the day on at least one day within the past 28 days. If we don't have enough hours of spending to reliably calculate savings, we may temporarily resume spending during the missing hour/s on one day to establish a new spending baseline.

Number of ad and organic clicks

To use the Number of ad and organic clicks chart at the bottom, you must link Search Console and Google Ads Accounts.

Once enabled it provides insights into the impact on organic clicks by displaying both the number of ad clicks and organic clicks. This is useful if you want to analyze the revenue, conversions, and clicks you received without running paid ads. Additionally, you can also see the potential lost revenue, conversions, and clicks that could have been generated if you had advertised.

Note this does not track the impact of whitelisted domains on paid and organic click traffic.

How is the data calculated?

The data comes directly from your Google Search Console Paid & Organic report.

• Organic clicks* = Sum of organic clicks for Brand Activator terms and their close variants across all Google accounts linked to Adthena.
• Paid clicks = Clicks for Brand Activator terms and their close variants across all Google accounts linked to Adthena.

*Organic Clicks vs URL Clicks

Adthena uses the Organic Clicks metric from the Google Ads Paid & Organic report for the Number of ad and organic clicks report. If you compare this with URL Clicks in Google Search Console, you may see differences.

• URL Clicks count clicks on individual URLs and can double-count users who click multiple sitelinks.
• Organic Clicks represent total visits from unpaid search results, which is why Adthena uses this metric.

Considerations

• No location filtering: Paid and Organic Clicks data is aggregated across all Adthena locations and all linked Google Ads accounts.
• Data refresh limits: If an account is not linked via MCC, data will only refresh for the last 4 days.
• Reporting delays: Google may take 5+ days to update the Paid & Organic report. During this time, click data may be missing or appear significantly lower for those days.

Summary

The bottom table gives an overview of:

• Keywords - Your Brand Activator keywords.
• Savings - Total savings during the selected period. Includes Brand Activator terms and Close Variants.
• In NL - What percentage of time the keyword was in the negative list during the selected period.
• Top competitor - The leading competitor for the selected period.
• Competitors - Total number of competitors during the selected period. Click the hyperlink to view the full list and see how long we saw the competitor advertising.

A summary report and daily breakdown of your brand activator savings can be exported into a CSV file using the download icon.

Date Picker

The date picker, found in the top-right corner of most sections in the app, lets you adjust the time range for the chart or table data within the feature.

Date Selection Options

• Days: View daily data from the last 30 days. You can select specific days or a range of days.
• Weeks: Selecting a date older than 30 days will show weekly data, aggregated from Sunday to Saturday. You’ll always see data up to the most recent completed Saturday, regardless of your chosen end date. You can select individual weeks or multiple weeks from the past 13 months.
• Months: Selecting a date older than 13 months displays monthly data. Choose specific months, or group them into quarters or full years.
• Last 12 Months: Shows data from the past 52 weeks, giving you a rolling year view.

Note a Google limitation means there is a 72 hours delay data from Google, so the latest available savings data is always from 4 days ago. For this reason, we disabled the last 4 days' date picker.

Note: The logs are not populated instantly; there is an approximate 2-hour delay between when the script runs and when the logs appear in the app.

Activity Log historical data

We retain full historical data for 60 days to calculate metrics like Negative List, Top Competitor, and Competitors. Outside this window, these values will show as N/A. Data is archived for up to 12 months and can be retrieved on request via our support team.

Suggested Terms

Suggested Terms highlights Lone Ranger terms that have the potential to generate significant savings when added to your strategy. Here you’ll see each term’s current spend, Lone Ranger rate and potential weekly savings.

How to take action:

• Add Terms Directly: Instantly add suggested terms to Brand Activator for immediate optimization.
• Ignore Terms: Remove unwanted suggestions to refresh your list.
• If you’re unable to take action, a pop-up will prompt you to contact support for further assistance.

How Suggested Terms are selected:

• Hourly search terms only.
• Search volume over 2,000.
• Lone Ranger rate above 5%.
• Potential savings over $100 per week.
• Geo-targeting aligned with your account settings.

How savings are calculated:

• Potential savings are based on the term’s hourly spend, weighted by the Lone Ranger rate during those hours.
• You’ll see up to 10 suggestions at a time.
• To view new suggestions, you must ignore existing terms.

Ongoing optimization:

• We automatically run frequency tests on terms for at least 7 days and up to 28 days to ensure only the most accurate suggestions appear.
• After 28 days, terms remain in the list until they are added or ignored.
• For terms that aren’t added, we retest them every 12 months to keep your suggestions fresh and aligned with your strategy.

Important:

Your Google Ads account must be linked to your Adthena account to access Suggested Terms.

Sandbox: Test your terms

The Sandbox lets you preview Brand Activator performance by running frequency tests that show how often your brand appears alone in search results (the Lone Ranger rate) over the past 7 days. You can test 1 term per test and run up to 100 tests at the same time.

1. Be sure to whitelist domains you don’t want treated as competitors during Lone Ranger analysis. You can manage this in the Settings menu.
2. Select + Add Search Terms
3. Enter or paste your search terms, one word or phrase per line. Duplicate terms will be removed automatically.

The Test Results section displays the status of each test, with activity logs updated hourly, showing Lone Ranger status, competitor data, and reasons for specific outcomes.

In-App Alerts

Brand Activator displays alerts for common configuration issues through a banner at the top of the Brand Activator page. The system automatically scans for and reports four common issues directly within the app:

1. Permission Issues with Google Ads Script: The owner of the scripts running in Google Ads no longer has the necessary permissions. This often occurs if the person who initially set it up has left the company.
2. Negative Keyword List Limit Reached: The Google Ads account has hit the limit of 20 negative keyword lists.
3. Unlinked Search Terms: Brand Activator search terms are not included in any campaign connected to the Negative Keyword List.
4. Campaigns Competing with Brand Activator Terms: Campaigns not linked to Brand Activator are bidding on Brand Activator terms. This can result in click loss for Brand Activator campaigns and prevents you from achieving expected cost savings.

Settings

Search Terms

Important! Before adding or removing terms, please review How do I switch out Brand Activator search terms?

From 'Settings' you can view your existing Brand Activator search terms and make changes. For most customers, our Customer Experience team has already added your search terms to kickstart the indexing process promptly. If you need to make some changes, either add individual terms or bulk upload using a CSV file. For the latter, upload search terms in a single column CSV file (in UTF-8 format). Please only include one search term per row and do not include any headers. For example, you can upload:

• search engine marketing
• ppc
• paid search

but not:

• paid search, search ads, ppc
• [sem]
• +sem
• 'search engine marketing'
• "paid search"

As well as brand terms, the following terms are also supported:

• Generic terms.
• Broad match and phrase match.
• Misspellings.

Close variants

Brand Activator uses close variants of every keyword. We show close variants for the 30 last days only. If there are many close variants, we show 100 with the most traffic. You can pause and resume Close Variants at any time. Read more on close variants on Google Ads Help. 

Need more terms?

To expand your limit, please reach out to your Customer team to acquire additional search terms. Note the list is capped at 50 search terms.

Whitelisted domains

Whitelisted domains will not be considered when identifying a Lone Ranger. For example, you may whitelist other domains you own, or your affiliate's domains. If we see both your domain and a whitelisted domain being the only adverts above your or whitelisted domain organic listing, then we will turn off your domain adverts automatically. Because we only pause your domain adverts, not your whitelisted domain(s), Brand Activator may increase traffic to your whitelisted domain(s).

SERP activity

• a.com = customer
• b.com = whitelisted

Example 1

1.  a.com [paid] - Lone Ranger
2. b.com [paid]
3. a.com [organic] 

Example 2

1. a.com [paid] - Lone Ranger
2. b.com [paid]
3. b.com [organic]

Low-bid campaigns

You have the option to enhance Brand Activator by running a low-bid campaign alongside it, helping you maintain your paid brand presence while reducing costs. 

This low-bid campaign mirrors your Brand Activator terms but uses significantly lower bids than your main brand campaign. Because it isn’t linked to Brand Activator’s negative keyword list, it continues to serve ads even if your primary campaign is paused—allowing you to stay visible at a lower cost. 

If you choose to implement a low-bid campaign, adding it to Brand Activator reporting ensures accurate savings calculations and helps us monitor your setup effectively.

Learn more about low-bid campaigns and how to set them up here.

Email Alerts

An email notification will be sent to all subscribed addresses any time a script fails to run. These alerts cover the two most critical failure points:

• Script ownership has changed (e.g. the person who set it up has left the company).
• The Google Ads account has reached the 20/20 limit on Negative Keyword Lists.

You can add one or multiple email recipients to ensure the right people are always kept in the loop.

(Note - If the Brand Activator Google Ads script errors or stops, the BA terms remain as they are in the NKL from the moment the script stops.)

Pause Brand Activator

You can pause and resume Brand Activator at any time. When paused, all Brand Activator terms are removed from the Negative Keyword List. To manage this setting, go to Brand Activator Settings and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Warning: Pausing Brand Activator takes effect immediately, while resuming may take a few hours. A banner will be displayed during this period.