But aside from any incrementality testing – in a budgeting scenario at the very top level – spending money on brand terms that (to some degree) will be picked up through organic can be seen as an inefficient use of spend.
It’s not uncommon to see companies with huge levels of brand search demand cut their brand spend. eBay did this over a decade ago, and more businesses have followed suit since.
Freeing up this budget will impact brands with considerable online demand. For smaller brands with less search demand, it’s really a case of weighing up the savings and seeing how far this could go if it were to be reinvested into non-brand new customer acquisition.
Impact On Organic
If a searcher is looking for your company name and you have organic listings serving on Google, the chances are they know who your company is and will visit your company website (among other reasons).
By activating brand ads, the amount of traffic, sales/leads, and overall organic engagement will be impacted when the ad serves above the organic listing.
It really depends on the brand, team, goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs) in question to weigh up the impact of running brand ads on organic, and a good place to start is incrementality testing.
Existing Customers
In most cases, new and existing customers should be targeted separately for brand search.
Take ASOS, for example. Its brand traffic will be a mix of new searchers, existing customers looking to shop, existing customers looking to log in and send returns, speak to customer service, and more.
By not accounting for this within your strategy, efficiencies could be missed, and the budget could be spent on driving users to take actions that are not aligned with KPIs.
Different Takes On Performance Reports
Brand performance will almost always be stronger than traffic driven for searchers who are not aware of your brand.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve seen many accounts that blend together brand and non-brand performance in reporting, including shopping and Performance Max campaigns, which also serve brand queries.
In some cases, this is the lens that stakeholders want to see. But if a brand drives a large percentage of revenue/leads for a small percentage of spend, the overarching view of performance may look more preferable than it is from a new customer acquisition point of view.
Relationships (Particularly Resellers)
Brands who sell through resellers/marketplaces can often have a competitive auction for brand terms.
Mutual agreements can be a way to put structure in place, agreeing to not bid directly on the company name with the freedom to bid on brand + terms (e.g., brand + product), for example.
However, these agreements can be difficult to manage as many parties can be involved (resellers with in-house teams, new agencies onboarded into resellers, etc.).
As a result, the auction can become competitive, which will, in turn, drive up click costs and lower efficiency.
What Else Do You Need To Consider With Brand Bidding?
Performance Max
PMax is a consolidated campaign type offered by Google and Microsoft. This fully automated campaign serves across multiple networks, one being Google search.
This campaign can (and will) serve branded queries. I’ve seen brands report strong PMax performance many times under the assumption that it’s non-brand when, in fact, a high percentage of sales/leads are driven through their own brand searches.
There are controls in place to remove brand from PMax (account-level negative keywords, campaign-level negative keywords added via Google Support, etc.). However, if you want control, I’d recommend creating a brand search campaign and removing brand from PMax.
Broad Match
This Google Ads keyword match type allows your ads to serve on searches related to the meaning of the keywords you’re bidding on.
With this, as your brand falls under this category, the chances of your ads entering auctions for brand queries despite your keyword not containing your company name are high.
As with PMax (but a little easier to implement), you can remove your brand terms from your broad match campaigns with the use of negative keywords.
Alternatively, you could target brand queries through broad match with a comprehensive negative keyword strategy to ensure you are only allocating budget to brand.
The Semantics Of Your Brand Name
Let’s say your brand name contains a word + the product you sell, such as “123 designer handbags.”
When bidding on brand terms, you may see competitors in auction insights matching through broad and/or PMax for the term “designer handbags.”
This may impact your click costs, which can fluctuate over time depending on investment (e.g., brands increasing budgets across PMax during peak months).
Competitors may still bid on your brand terms directly, but others may pick these queries up through PMax or Broad, a key consideration for budgeting and planning.
So, Should You Be Bidding On Your Brand Keywords?
There isn’t a right or wrong answer, and claims that there is will likely be rooted in personal experiences.
Knowing which path to take ultimately comes down to context, and this path will change over time.
For agencies managing multiple clients, each brand should be treated on a case-by-case basis, and historical context is certainly needed.
For in-house marketing teams, the same logic applies but you likely have fewer brands to make the decision for.
The arguments for and against are there to guide you in your strategic decision-making.
The best place to start is by listing all considerations and questions, such as “What is our organic positioning like for brand?”, “How many resellers do we have and what brand terms are they bidding on?”, and “Do we have the budget?”
From here, whether you currently bid on brand and want to test incrementality, or if you’re interested in running a short stint and haven’t used this strategy before, ensure reporting is robust and that you are always testing.
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