Google Ads needs a “no competitor brand queries” button

★★★ signal-strong r/ppc · ↑ 62 · 💬 57 · 2025-06-27 · kw: campaign automation · open on reddit ↗

Tool

Google Ads

Issue

Google Ads' keyword matching algorithm serves ads for competitor brand queries (e.g., 'Bill's Modern Kitchens Toledo') when targeting generic queries (e.g., 'best kitchen remodeling contractors in Toledo'), inflating CPCs and tanking ROAS; advertiser must maintain a 4-digit negative keyword list and custom automations to suppress competitor brand traffic to acceptable performance levels.

Cost

unstated (implied significant ROAS degradation, but no quantified dollar loss provided)

Recommendation

Exact match branded campaigns with low bids + aggressive negative keyword lists (disputed as adequate workaround); ChatGPT-assisted competitor negative lists; add specific competitor names/first names to exclusion lists; Google rep suggests investing more in competitor names (rejected by community as wasteful)

Date context

as of 2025-06-27; issue characterized as worsening over last 1-2 years

extracted with

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

The LLM that drives keyword/query matching is currently way too aggressive with serving ads for my keyword “chiropractor near me” for the name of every chiropractor in a 5 state area plus the name of each one of their practices. User intent for “best kitchen remodeling contractors in Toledo” is much different than the user intent for “Bill’s Modern Kitchens Toledo”. Google is disrespecting both users and advertisers just to cash an extra couple of percent increase in Google ads revenue this quarter by spiking CPCs for brand queries. If they have to keep doing it because shareholders need more money, fine, but smart advertisers should at least get an opt out so they can buy legit non brand traffic only. Pretty ridiculous that I have to run a campaign with a 4 digit long negative keyword list and whole stack of automations just to get competitor brand traffic down to a level that doesn’t completely tank my ROAS. /rant

Top comments (8)

[score=11] QuantumWolf99

This is exactly why I’ve been moving client accounts away from broad match for local services… the algorithm treats “chiropractor near me” and specific business names as equivalent when they’re completely different buying intents. The frustrating part is that Google’s revenue incentive directly conflicts with advertiser performance here. They make more money showing your ads on competitor brand searches because the CPCs are higher… even though the conversion rates are terrible. I’ve found success using exact match branded campaigns with very low bids combined with aggressive negative keyword lists on broad match campaigns. It’s the only way to control this without completely sacrificing reach. The worst part is that smaller local businesses get hit hardest because they can’t afford to bid competitively on every competitor’s name… meanwhile larger companies with bigger budgets can essentially tax all the local search traffic in their market. Google’s solution will probably be some half-measure like “brand exclusion lists” that require manual setup and don’t work retroactively…Google making advertisers do extra work to fix problems they created.

[score=16] BackgroundLeopard465

Yes, 1,000x this. I work in FinTech, and anything along the lines of “online payment providers” just has Google matching to people searching for the names of payment apps. I am in APAC, so there are hundreds of local payment methods (e.g. Alipay, Grabpay, Promptpay, PayNow, PayLah, etc). It is an absolute nightmare, and makes anything other than exact match largely useless. Just burning cash.

[score=12] tsukihi3

You know all too well they'll just keep going because they can. What's discouraging Google from continuing anyway? People still pay, and we pay more than ever. Bing? They're like that kid who copies Google's homework every single time, but still manages to miss the deadline. We can only look forward to regulations, but it's clearly not happening any time soon.

[score=9] TTFV

I recommend identifying all of the Chiropractors in the area and adding them to a competitor brand list, then exclude that from your campaigns. This will kill it faster than a shotgun approach with regular negative keywords. Normally if/once you get a good volume of conversions the irrelevant/non-converting queries take care of themselves as Google figures out what you're selling.

[score=3] OceansAngryGrasp

I also have a bunch a osteo/chiro clients, and they all say they get at least one phone call going like this a month "Hi am I at X clinic" "Oh... no this is Y clinic" "Oh weird I clicked on the call button for another clinic, must have not looked correctly, goodbye" It's just a bummer, over the last 1-2 years I've compiled a large list of first names that I put in all those campaigns so that I at least block a significant amount of traffic for certain professionnals, but it doesnt stop all of it

[score=5] greenbowergoon

How would Google juice your cost per click though! I’ve worked in competitor negatives using chat gpt and the variations that pop up now are laughable. Every day, Google finds a new way to fuck you.

[score=2] manningface123

I brought this same issue to a google rep and they basically told me this was a feature, not a problem and that I should invest more in competitor names. They will say that they are more relevant than non-brand searches and are nearly as good as a brand search so you should actually spend more on them.

[score=2] Wilson-KingOfPrussia

The only way Google can grow their ads revenue (and hence all of alphabet's revenue) nowadays is by finding ways to waste more of your money. I wish they would create this button but I have 0 confidence in them anymore. Just another growth hungry corporation. At this point Google is like a band that had a hit 20 years ago but now only gets booked at county fairs.