Stop paying sign-ins: protect branded search efficiency with exclusion audiences

Your brand terms attract everyone — customers, job seekers, free users. Use exclusion audiences to keep branded search lean, focused, and reserved for real pipeline opportunities.
Protect your brand's
search efficiency
Make branded search clicks
revenue-generating only
Eliminate clicks from customers,
job seekers, and PLG users

Building Exclusion Audiences for Google Search

The Problem

bad branded leads
  • Current customers clicking “login”
  • Free users coming back
  • Job seekers browsing your careers page
  • Support requests that should go to CX

The Play: Step-by-Step

Step
1
Build a brand exclusion audience in Primer
Use your CRM or firmographic filters to define who shouldn’t be seeing your branded search ads:
  • Your current customer list
  • Job titles that rarely convert (e.g. interns, students)
  • Support-seeking roles or existing users
Then sync that audience to Google.
Exclusion Audiencebranded keyword campaign
Step
2
Apply it as an exclusion in Google Ads
In your branded keyword campaign, add the synced audience as an exclusion under audience targeting.
Step
3
Monitor results and adjust
Expect minimal impact to total volume — but higher efficiency.

Use Google’s observation mode if you want to baseline how much spend is going to the wrong audiences before excluding them.
Google’s observation mode

Why It Works

Branded search traffic includes a mix of high-value and no-value clicks
Exclusion helps you suppress the noise, without harming reach
You focus budget on net-new pipeline instead of support, recruiting, or existing users
Plus Primer helps you achieve much higher match rates without which your opp audiences will be too small

Results: Primer Signal vs. No Signal

Qualified Conversions
Exclusion (Primer)
19
No Audience
3
Unqualified Conversions
Exclusion (Primer)
4
No Audience
7
CVR
Exclusion (Primer)
1%
No Audience
0.11%
CPC
Exclusion (Primer)
$2.13
No Audience
$4.17
CPA
Exclusion (Primer)
$208
No Audience
$3,682
Try This Play
Available on all plans
Works with branded and non-branded search campaigns
No marketing ops or dev support required
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