We’re often asked whether or not we should be bidding on brand terms: “Aren’t they a waste of budget when we’re already in the number one spot organically?”.
Many campaigns we work on produce >50% of their conversions from branded keywords at substantially lower CPAs than generic keywords.
Your own brand terms are usually the best converting keywords so it’s important to capture as much of this branded traffic as possible. In this article, we will attempt to prove why it is worth bidding on your own brand terms and effective ways to do so.
1. Increase brand reach
When paid search is run in conjunction with #1 organic rankings, the combined share of clicks increases overall.
We’ve conducted a number of tests around brand bidding and they show the same result 99% of the time, here is an example of a recent test done on a single brand term.
| CTR Without AdWords | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword | Impressions | Clicks | Organic CTR | AdWords CTR | Combined CTR |
| Confidential | 500,000 | 60,000 | 12% | 0% | 12% |
| CTR With AdWords | |||||
| Confidential | 500,000 | 90,000 | 10% | 8% | 18% |
As can be seen from the table above, when organic listings are combined with paid there is a decrease in CTR from organic traffic, however, a larger combined CTR is achieved resulting in a 58% better combined CTR and 50% more clicks. Those clicks were previously going elsewhere. When combined across all brand keywords this increase is substantial.
2. Defend from competitors
Like it or not, your competitors will likely be running conquest campaigns whereby they bid on your brand keywords in order to gain market share and hijack competitor brand terms. It’s important to defend your brand from those competitors looking to grab some of your brands market share.
The example below shows one direct competitor (Nissan) and one broker (carsandco) bidding on the keyword BMW car dealership.
Had BMW not been bidding on that keyword they would be losing more branded clicks and potential new business than they currently are from those bidding on their brand terms.
The below screenshot is an example where Audi decided not to bid on the brand keyword Audi A4, as you can see a competitor (INFINITI) have taken advantage of that.
3. Increase credibility
Studies show (source) that appearing in the number one position for both paid and organic search helps to increase your credibility from a user perspective. As a result, websites stand to gain up to 50% incremental traffic.
4. Rapidly update messaging
With Google AdWords, you have near instant control of your brand messaging on search. This is important for a number of reason, such as integrating messaging with any above the line media, a last minute promotion or even an emergency announcement.
In conclusion:
There are many advantages to bidding on brand terms to those mentioned above. At the end of the day, your brand has value, this should be utilised and protected as much as possible in order to get the most out of it. If you don’t see value in bidding on your brand keywords chances are that someone else will.
If you would like more information on whether or not you should be bidding on your brand terms or want to increase your digital performance, please feel to contact us today.