Starting May 27, 2025, brand inclusions will begin upgrading into AI Max for Search campaigns. Learn more About AI Max for Search Campaigns (beta).
- If you’re new to brand inclusions, turn on AI Max at the campaign level to access the brand settings panel.
- If you’re already using brand inclusions, you’ll find a banner in your Google Ads campaign settings prompting you to upgrade to AI Max. You can choose to:
- Do nothing: The existing brand setting will continue working as usual outside of AI Max, and you will be able to remove them or add new brands to existing lists. To add a new brand list, you will need to turn on AI Max for the campaign.
- Upgrade to AI Max: Your brand inclusions will transfer into AI Max panel and continue to function as they were. You can add or remove brand lists for the campaign.
Brand inclusions limit traffic to serve only on search queries related to specified brands.
This article explains how to apply brand inclusions to Search campaigns or ad groups. There are additional resources if you need to manage brands, apply brand exclusions, apply brand inclusions, and more. Learn more About brand settings for Search and Performance Max.
Instructions
Create a new Search campaign with brand inclusions
- Go to the Create button
and click Campaign.
- Create a new Search campaign.
- When you reach the “Campaign settings” page in the creation flow, scroll down and click More settings.
- Note: An update starting May 27, 2025 will move brand settings to the AI Max settings panel in this step.
- Click the Brands drop-down panel.
- Select the brand list you wish to use or click + New brand list and enter the brands you wish to restrict to this campaign.
- Click Next and complete the remaining campaign creation steps.
and click Campaign.Add brand inclusions to an existing Search campaign
Note: Brand inclusions will prevent ads from showing on queries that do not contain a brand name. An existing campaign may notice a reduction in performance if it currently serves on queries that do not contain a brand name.
- Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu
.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Click on the campaign you want to apply the brand list to.
- On the "Settings" page, scroll down to click Additional settings.
- Note: An update starting May 27, 2025 will move brand settings to the AI Max settings panel in this step.
- Click the Brand inclusions drop-down panel.
- On the “Brand inclusions” search bar, select the brand list to apply to the campaign or click + New brand list and enter the brands you wish to restrict to this campaign.
- If you haven’t yet applied the broad match keywords setting, you'll be able to do so when saving your brand inclusions.
- Click Save.
Add brand inclusions at the ad group level when creating a new Search campaign
- Go to the Create button
- Create a new Search campaign.
- When you reach the “Keywords and ads” page in the creation flow, click More settings.
- Click the Brand inclusions dropdown panel.
- Select the brand list you wish to use or click + New brand list and enter the brands you wish to restrict to this ad group.
- Click Next and complete the remaining campaign creation steps.
Note: The ad group-level brand inclusions will override campaign-level brand inclusions. If there are brand inclusions already added at the campaign level, brand inclusions added at the ad group-level will override for only that ad group. Campaign-level brand inclusions will apply to any other ad group that doesn't have ad group level brand inclusions.
