The benefits of removing brand bidding restrictions
Removing brand restrictions can unlock a significant opportunity to maximise your campaign performance.
Key Takeways
Drive for Incrementality
Removing brand restrictions unlocks incremental sales without additional cost.
Complementary, never competitive
Google’s auction model prevents cannibalisation.
Scale for growth
Brand bidding provides faster data, stronger insights, and greater visibility in a competitive space.
For the win
More clicks, more conversions, and more control over how your brand shows up in Shopping.
When working with a CSS partner, removing brand restrictions can unlock powerful new opportunities to increase visibility, gather data faster and outpace competitors — without adding extra cost or risk.
At Redbrain, we see consistent uplifts for retailers who allow brand bidding in their Shopping campaigns. It’s one of the simplest changes that can deliver measurable, incremental growth.
What is Brand Bidding?
Brand bidding allows your CSS partner to show your products in the Google Shopping carousel for brand searches.
For example:
If someone searches “BrandName running shoes”, both your in-house Shopping ads and Redbrain’s CSS listings can appear, creating additional visibility in the same carousel.
This doesn’t cannibalise your in-house activity. Google’s auction model ensures only one ad per domain appears at a time. Instead, brand bidding helps you appear in more auctions and reach more ready-to-buy shoppers at the exact point of intent.
Why It Matters
Allowing your CSS partner to bid on brand terms can supercharge campaign performance. Here’s how:
1. Boost Campaign Performance
By entering more auctions for brand searches, Redbrain can drive higher impression share and attract more high-intent clicks, resulting in more conversions and higher sales value.
Because we work on a CPA model, you only pay when we deliver actual sales, not for the extra impressions or clicks.
2. Gather Data Faster
Performance optimisation starts with data. Brand bidding accelerates data collection, allowing Redbrain to quickly identify which products, keywords and search terms drive the best results.
That insight helps refine bids and campaign structures to deliver better efficiency and higher ROI over time.
3. Stay Competitive in the Carousel
Your competitors are already bidding on your brand terms — appearing beside your listings and capturing potential customers searching for you.
Removing restrictions means Redbrain can protect your visibility and keep you front and centre, where it matters most.
4. Gain Value Beyond the Sale
Even when clicks don’t convert immediately, they build valuable audiences for remarketing. You gain more qualified traffic to your site and more first-party data to fuel future campaigns — at no additional cost.
How Redbrain Can Help You Make the Most of This Opportunity
At Redbrain, brand bidding is part of how we drive performance — intelligently and responsibly.
Performance-first model
We operate on a fixed cost-per-acquisition model. That means if you don't make a sale, you don't pay anything.
Complementary to internal activity
We optimise for incremental reach. When we overlap in auctions, your internal listings take priority, and we show a different product. The result: additional placements that expand your visibility, rather than cannibalise it.
Continuous Optimisation
We make real-time adjustments based on performance data, constantly refining to maximise results. It’s an approach we know works – delivering an average 9X ROAS across all retailers.
Full transparency
Every click and sale is tracked in your Partner Dashboard so you can see the direct impact of our performance.
Data Highlights
63%
Increase in impressions for a UK based sportswear retailer showing for brand terms
45%
Increase in sales value for a UK based fashion retailer showing for brand terms
29%
Increase in clicks for a UK based footwear retailer showing for brand terms
Conclusion
Removing brand bidding restrictions is one of the easiest ways to increase visibility, gather data faster, and capture more sales, all while staying in control of your budget.
With Redbrain, it’s simple: we help you win more where it matters.
Actionable recommendations
Review your current brand bidding policy
If restrictions are in place, discuss with your Redbrain Account Manager how removing them could unlock incremental performance.
Track the impact
Use Redbrain’s Partner Dashboard to monitor uplift in clicks, orders, and GMV once brand bidding is enabled.
Protect your visibility
Protect against competitors showing for your brand terms and ensure your products dominate the carousel when shoppers are searching for you.
Build on the data
Use insights from brand bidding activity to refine your wider paid search strategy, improving efficiency and ROI across channels.
About the Author
Shaazia is Head of Marketing at Redbrain, focused on sharing insights, updates and industry relevant news with our partners.
