Today, I randomly checked up my client’s ads to identify specific information. And noticed an interesting new feature, where Google prepends brand values in your titles.
However, when you have already added your brand name in the title, Google will not prepend this again.
Why Is This Important?
It’s essential to know and understand that Google changes the title you have initially created, when Google adds the brand name, your original title will be longer, which causes issues with visually looking at your ads. This is because Google limits the visible part of the title to between 40 and 50 characters on Web Search. This then means the end part of your title is cut off.
In many cases, having the brand name at the beginning is essential. However, in some cases, the brand name might be so long that prepending the name will not increase the performance. To avoid Google prepending the brand name, you can add it at the end of the title, which forces Google not to prepend the value. In addition, you can identify if Google prepended the value if it shows the brand name with a hyphen at the beginning.
Having the brand name with the hyphen prepended does not mean it was added by Google, as some merchants, including myself, will sometimes prepend the brand name with a hyphen.
Is This Visible On The Shopping Tab?
No, as of writing, Google is not prepending the brand name on the shopping tab, only web search.
Google constantly tests new ad formats and assets, so this new feature might stay or might be removed depending on Google’s internal data.
excellent insights, thank you. especially the suggestion to add brand name at the end of the title to prevent Google from prepending, i hadn’t thought of that! this is very timely as i have just recently done an AB test on titles for brand prepended or not, and not won!
I also wonder if this test was faulty exactly because of the automatic prepending going on, but the non brand at beginning was so much higher for this brand… adding to end would correct this automation from Google. thanks
Pleasure. I don’t know how long Google has started adding the brand name, as I usually don’t look at ads visually unless there are some fundamental issues with my data. So yes, it is possible your testing is skewed due to this. Please also note, Google may be only testing this for a short amount of time. Google constantly tests new ad assets and formats.