Google Shopping query sculpting: split branded and generic searches
In short: Put the same products in two Shopping campaigns: a high-priority one with low bids and your brand names as negative keywords, and a low-priority one with high bids. Generic searches stay cheap, branded searches fall through to the campaign that bids up for them.
Shopping campaigns don't let you bid on keywords. A search for your brand name and a broad search for the product category can trigger the same product at the same bid, even though the branded search is far more likely to convert. Query sculpting fixes that by sending different kinds of searches to different campaigns.
This works with Standard Shopping campaigns, because it relies on the campaign priority setting, which Performance Max doesn't have.
The basic structure: branded vs generic
Create two Shopping campaigns that contain the same products:
| Generic campaign | Branded campaign | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches it should get | Searches without your brand name | Searches that contain your brand name |
| Campaign priority | High | Low |
| Bids | Low | High |
| Negative keywords | Your brand names, in phrase match | None |
Why it works
When several Shopping campaigns contain the same product, Google serves the ad from the campaign with the highest priority first.
- Every search hits the high-priority generic campaign first.
- Your brand names are negatives in that campaign, so branded searches can't show there.
- They fall through to the low-priority branded campaign, which bids higher because those searches convert better.
The result: you pay less for broad, exploratory searches and stay competitive on the searches most likely to buy.
Three-tier structures for specific catalogs
The same mechanism works with a third tier, sculpted by a different signal:
- Teams vs branded vs generic. Useful for sports apparel, where searches for a team behave differently from searches for the brand.
- Branded phrase vs branded exact vs generic. Useful when a few exact branded searches are popular enough to deserve their own bids.
- Model vs branded vs generic. Useful for auto parts, electronics and sports equipment, where people often search by model number.
- High intent vs branded vs generic. Useful when you've found words that prove intent, such as "custom" or "bespoke".
In each case, the highest-priority campaign catches the broadest searches and uses negatives to pass the more valuable ones down to campaigns that bid more for them.
What to check after launch
Review the search terms in each campaign after a week or two. Branded searches showing up in the generic campaign mean a brand spelling is missing from the negatives. A branded campaign with almost no traffic usually means its bids are below the generic campaign's.