"Is our branded ACoS good?" is a question you cannot answer until something has decided which queries count as branded. In TrackIQ, **you** decide — and the same setting quietly governs several screens at once.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-brand-terms-explainer-cef1feda.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? Eighty-two seconds on the three buckets, and the one word that ruins the split.*

## **Where it lives**

On the **SQP dashboard**, the **Brand & competitor terms** control opens the editor.

![How a query gets classified](/kb-assets/shot-b28-bt-rule-54a229.png)

> *A query is **Branded** if it contains one of your terms, **Competitor** if it contains a rival's, otherwise **Generic** (matched as whole words).*

Three buckets, one rule, applied to every query the dashboard loads.

## **The three buckets**

| Bucket | Means | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| **Branded** | contains one of your brand terms | people looking for *you* |
| **Competitor** | contains a rival's brand term | people looking for *them* |
| **Generic** | neither | people looking for the *thing* |

They behave completely differently, which is the entire reason for splitting them:

**Branded queries convert well and prove nothing.** A high branded conversion rate is not a compliment to your listing; the shopper had already decided. Branded ACoS is normally excellent, and averaging it in with everything else flatters your account.

**Generic queries are where growth lives.** Somebody typing the category is choosing between you and everyone else, and that is the fight worth measuring.

**Competitor queries are the expensive ones.** You are interrupting somebody who wants a different brand. Sometimes worth it, always dear.

## **Setting your own terms**

![Your brand terms, one per line](/kb-assets/shot-b28-bt-yours-415656.png)

One term per line, in each of two boxes — yours and your rivals'. And the instruction in the panel is the one thing to get right:

> *Use full brand phrases shoppers type — **not** single generic words like *honey* or *drops*, which mark whole categories as branded.*

This is the mistake that ruins the whole split. If your brand is *Northwind Goods* and you add **goods** as a term, every query containing that word becomes branded — and your generic bucket, the one that measures whether you can win new customers, empties into it.

**Add full phrases.** The brand as people type it, plus the misspellings you actually see.

**Add sub-brands and line names**, if shoppers search them by name.

**Do not add category words**, however strongly you associate them with yourself.

For competitors, add the rival brand names that turn up in your search terms. You will find them in [**Search Terms and Aggregated Search Terms**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/search-terms-and-aggregated-search-terms).

## **Check the split before you save**

![The live classification count](/kb-assets/shot-b28-bt-count-fd2d05.png)

The panel classifies your loaded queries as you type:

> *With these terms, your 301 loaded queries classify as **15 Branded** (5%) · **11 Competitor** · **275 Generic**.*

Use it as a sanity check, because the failure modes are visible immediately:

| Split looks like | Probably means |
|---|---|
| Branded share far above expectation | a generic word is in your term list |
| Branded near zero on a known brand | the phrase does not match how people type it |
| Competitor zero | you have not added any rivals yet |

A branded share in the low single digits is normal for a category-led business. A well-known brand will sit far higher. What matters is that the number matches what you would have guessed.

## **The two consequences people miss**

**It changes your Amazon Ads reporting too.** The panel says so:

> *Brand terms are shared with the **Amazon Ads brand vs non-brand split**.*

One list, two places. Edit it here and your advertising screens reclassify as well. That is convenient and it means a careless edit has a wider blast radius than the screen suggests.

**It changes which queries get recommended actions.** Competitor-brand queries are deliberately excluded from the Fix listing, Fix conversion and Add-keyword recommendations, for a sound reason the panel states plainly:

> *A better page can't win a shopper who wants their brand.*

So classifying a query as competitor does not just label it — it removes it from the action queue. A rival's name missing from your competitor list means TrackIQ will keep recommending you improve a page that was never going to win that search. See [**Recommended Actions: The Queries That Need a Decision**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/sqp-recommended-actions).

## **How to use the split**

**Read metrics per bucket, never blended.** Set separate ACoS expectations for branded, generic and competitor. One target across all three is meaningless.

**Track generic share over time.** Growing generic volume is growing reach. Growing *branded* volume is your existing customers coming back — good, but not the same thing.

**Judge campaigns by which bucket they serve.** A campaign living on branded terms should be cheap and efficient. One fighting for generic terms should not be held to the same standard.

**Revisit after a launch or rebrand.** New line names become new brand terms, and until they are in the list they count as generic.

## **What not to conclude**

**This is your classification, not Amazon's.** Two accounts can label the same query differently. It is not a standard.

**Whole-word matching is literal.** A misspelling shoppers actually type will not match unless you add it.

**A high branded share is not automatically good.** It can mean strong brand demand, or it can mean you have stopped competing for the category.

## **Related**

- [**Recommended Actions: The Queries That Need a Decision**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/sqp-recommended-actions) — what the competitor exclusion changes.
- [**Search Terms and Aggregated Search Terms**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/search-terms-and-aggregated-search-terms) — where to find rival names to add.
- [**Brand Keywords: Proving Upper-Funnel Spend Works**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/brand-keywords) — the AMC view built on the same list.
- [**Understanding Search Query Performance**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/understanding-search-query-performance) — the dashboard this control sits on.