Brand handling & service areas

Brand handling tells Search Terms how to treat searches that include your brand, and the service area protects genuine local intent.

The three brand modes

• Protect (default) - keep brand traffic safe. Brand terms are never auto-blocked, and they're kept out of the learning model so they can't distort it. Best when your brand campaign is valuable and you don't want it touched.

• Negate: actively exclude brand traffic. Use only when brand is deliberately handled elsewhere and you want it kept out of this campaign - it can suppress valuable demand if used carelessly.

• Neutral: let the normal rules decide, with no special treatment.

Service area

List the locations a client serves. Search Terms uses this two ways: it flags clearly out-of-area searches as negative candidates, and it protects in-area searches from being auto-blocked, because a local search can look quiet on clicks while still being valuable.

How to set both:

1. In client settings, choose a Brand handling mode and add your brand terms.

2. Add your service area terms (towns, regions, "near me" locations).

3. Save (override per campaign if one needs different handling).

Example. With brand handling on Protect, a low-click search for your company name won't be auto-blocked by the "nobody clicks" rule. With your town listed as service area, "emergency electrician [your town]" is protected even on a slow week.

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