A marketer on r/googleads shared a fix from a previous job that most SaaS accounts quietly need. Existing customers would reach the product by googling the brand name and clicking whatever came up first. Often that was the paid brand ad, which meant the company was paying real money every time a customer logged in.
Build an exclusion audience from log in clicks
The setup takes three tools you already have. Using Google Tag Manager, the team tagged the site's log in button as an event and sent it into Google Analytics. In Analytics they built an audience from everyone who fired that event, named something like Customers, Clicked Log In Button. The logic is simple: nobody clicks log in except a customer. Once the audience passed the minimum size, they applied it as a negative audience across every brand campaign in Google Ads.
From then on, people who had logged in stopped seeing paid brand ads. They still found the site instantly through the organic listing. The poster says the exclusion saved thousands of dollars a quarter, and he is upfront that it is imperfect. Cookies expire, people switch devices, and some customers slip through. It does not need to be perfect to pay for itself.
Why it works
Brand terms look cheap per click, but a mature product can have far more returning customers searching the brand name than new prospects. Those clicks convert nothing, because the person already converted. Cutting them out redirects budget toward searchers who might actually be new, and makes brand campaign metrics honest at the same time.
How to copy it
Tag the log in click in Tag Manager and forward it to GA4. Create an audience of users who fired the event, with the longest membership window available. Add it as an exclusion on brand campaigns only. If you have a customer email list, layer a Customer Match exclusion on top. Then check your brand CTR and spend a month later.
Credit: u/CrazyMarketer22 on Reddit