Preventing Campaign Overlap

Preventing Campaign Overlap

Preventing overlap between Symbiosys and retailer-managed Google campaigns

Products running in Symbiosys campaigns may also be eligible to serve in retailer-managed Google campaigns; however, when the same SKU is active in multiple campaigns, they can overlap and compete against each other. To prevent this, Symbiosys identifies products that are currently active in Symbiosys campaigns and makes them available for exclusion from retailer-managed campaigns in Google Ads.

How Symbiosys identifies active products

Symbiosys creates and maintains a supplemental feed in your Google Merchant Center (GMC) that populates a selected custom_label field with the value symbiosys_active.

In the simplest setup, Symbiosys uses an unused custom_label field, such as custom_label_0 or custom_label_4, where the full value is exactly:

custom_label = symbiosys_active

If all custom_label fields are already in use, Symbiosys can instead add symbiosys_active to an existing custom label value using an agreed delimiter, such as:

custom_label_3 = seasonal|symbiosys_active

In this case, the retailer should configure the Google Ads product group to match where the custom label contains symbiosys_active, rather than where it equals symbiosys_active.

Reference: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6275295

This value is applied only to SKUs that are currently active in Symbiosys campaigns. The label is updated hourly while campaigns are active, so product eligibility reflects live campaign activity. When a Symbiosys campaign ends, the symbiosys_active value is removed and the SKU becomes eligible again for retailer-managed campaigns.

How the exclusion works in Google Ads

The retailer creates a product group using the selected custom label value, then applies that product group as a filter to exclude overlapping products from their own campaigns.

If Symbiosys is using a dedicated custom label, the product group can be configured using an exact match:

custom_label equals symbiosys_active

If Symbiosys is adding symbiosys_active to an existing custom label that already contains other values, the product group should be configured using a contains match:

custom_label contains symbiosys_active

After this setup is complete, any SKU activated in a Symbiosys campaign is automatically filtered out of retailer-managed campaigns for the duration of the Symbiosys campaign.

Reference: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6275317

Retailer setup steps

1. Confirm the Symbiosys supplemental feed is active - Symbiosys will create and maintain a supplemental feed in your Google Merchant Center that populates a selected custom_label field with the value symbiosys_active for relevant SKUs.

2. Confirm which custom label setup will be used:

   • If an unused custom_label field is available, configure the Google Ads product group where custom_label equals symbiosys_active.

   • If Symbiosys is adding symbiosys_active to an existing custom label value, configure the Google Ads product group where custom_label contains symbiosys_active.

3. Exclude the product group from retailer-managed campaigns - Apply an exclusion for the symbiosys_active product group across all retailer-managed campaigns.

Important: The product group only needs to be created once; however, the exclusion filter must be applied to every retailer-managed campaign where Symbiosys overlap should be prevented.

Optional: retailer-first prioritization

Alternatively, retailers can also use the same custom_label field to indicate products that are already active in retailer-managed campaigns: retailer_active.

Symbiosys can then exclude those products from Symbiosys campaigns in the same manner, supporting a first-in-wins prioritization model where whichever campaign first flags a SKU takes priority and the other campaign excludes it.

If retailer_active is the only value in a dedicated custom label, Symbiosys can match on custom_label equals retailer_active. If retailer_active is added to an existing custom label with multiple values, Symbiosys can match on custom_label contains retailer_active.

To ensure this works correctly, the retailer_active value must be kept up to date based on retailer campaign flight dates.