Some advertisers believe that bidding on their own brand terms is foolish and translates to money down the drain. The rationale being that the user has decided to convert with the brand he searched for and it would make more sense if he did it by clicking on the natural listings. Brand terms almost always appear at the top of the natural listings. So why waste valuable budget on PPC?
But how much budget are you actually saving by cutting out brand terms? And what about customer fickleness?
By not bidding on your brand, you have a whole new set of issues to deal with :
1. Affiliates: Affiliates love bidding on brand terms as this mean lots of commission for almost no hard work. And this means that the advertiser ends up paying a lot more for his brand than he would, by simply bidding on it. Affiliates can be difficult to control and often stealthy. They might bid out of office hours and geo target very cleverly not to get caught out. These are just some of the known tactics. Bidding on your brand can mitigate the effects of "direct-to-site" affiliates.
2. Google’s broad match algorithm: Bidding on your brand terms reduces the possibility of the more expensive generic ad appearing for brand + generic searches as a result of Google’s broad match algorithm.
3. Time Sensitive Promotions: Paid search ads will allow you to tailor your messaging which you cannot do so easily on SEO. Use SEO for broad company information and messages that will survive for a prolonged period and use paid search ads for opportunities to promote key tactical campaign offers including time sensitive information, pricing and calls to action.
4. Competitors: Competitors will not miss out an opportunity to bid on your brand and steal your traffic! Although you might have a customer searching for your brand, a hard-to-resist offer in a competitor’s ad can change the customer’s mind at the last minute. Make sure you protect your brand by bidding on it.
5. PR: Due to the nature of social media, the possibility of negative stories and reviews rising up through natural search is very high. Bidding on your brand has the added bonus of pushing these stories down the page and hopefully below the fold.
6. Universal Search: The increasing instance of universal search, such as map results or images, is also pushing natural search listings down the page. To ensure your brand is still visible it is important to bid on your brand.
7. Last but not least: CTR should be so good on your own brand that what you pay should be minimal.
But how much budget are you actually saving by cutting out brand terms? And what about customer fickleness?
By not bidding on your brand, you have a whole new set of issues to deal with :
1. Affiliates: Affiliates love bidding on brand terms as this mean lots of commission for almost no hard work. And this means that the advertiser ends up paying a lot more for his brand than he would, by simply bidding on it. Affiliates can be difficult to control and often stealthy. They might bid out of office hours and geo target very cleverly not to get caught out. These are just some of the known tactics. Bidding on your brand can mitigate the effects of "direct-to-site" affiliates.
2. Google’s broad match algorithm: Bidding on your brand terms reduces the possibility of the more expensive generic ad appearing for brand + generic searches as a result of Google’s broad match algorithm.
3. Time Sensitive Promotions: Paid search ads will allow you to tailor your messaging which you cannot do so easily on SEO. Use SEO for broad company information and messages that will survive for a prolonged period and use paid search ads for opportunities to promote key tactical campaign offers including time sensitive information, pricing and calls to action.
4. Competitors: Competitors will not miss out an opportunity to bid on your brand and steal your traffic! Although you might have a customer searching for your brand, a hard-to-resist offer in a competitor’s ad can change the customer’s mind at the last minute. Make sure you protect your brand by bidding on it.
5. PR: Due to the nature of social media, the possibility of negative stories and reviews rising up through natural search is very high. Bidding on your brand has the added bonus of pushing these stories down the page and hopefully below the fold.
6. Universal Search: The increasing instance of universal search, such as map results or images, is also pushing natural search listings down the page. To ensure your brand is still visible it is important to bid on your brand.
7. Last but not least: CTR should be so good on your own brand that what you pay should be minimal.
To conclude, an advertiser should consider very carefully whether they have the time and the resources to monitor their brand 24/7 before they stop bidding on their brand terms. There is also significant research that using PPC and SEO together can actually increase CTR, conversion rate and total revenues.
Rekha Patil, UK Account Manager
In my experience bidding on brand terms is a no-brainer. In my PPC program, I track every keyword down to the amount of business we close from the conversion. Our ROI on brand terms is huge based on the low CPC's on these terms compared to generics. My only question is how we can invest *more* in my brand term campaigns, and that's more a question of brand recognition in the markets we serve since the search volume is constrained by the awareness our company has in those countries. Now where's that PR guy I've been meaning to talk to? ;)
Posted by: Mark Stanley | October 01, 2009 at 02:55 AM
Good post! A lot of companies have a hard time seeing the logic and benefits of bidding on their brand terms. The reasons you give above should be compelling enough, but for anyone still on the fence, I encourage them to run their own tests and measure the impact these keywords have on their conversions and bottom lines. From what we've seen managing a variety of small and large brand campaigns, brand terms never fail to produce optimal results.
Like you mention, there have been several studies showing that a combined presence in both SEO and PPC on brand terms result in incremental traffic and conversions - in some cases double of what an advertiser got with only one strategy.
I'm hoping more companies will begin to realize these benefits exist and rely on proof and facts rather than on gut feelings or faulty logic when it comes down to bidding on their own brand terms.
Posted by: Xurxo Vidal | October 02, 2009 at 06:03 AM
Great post ! I'm going to bookmark this page.
Posted by: Easy IM Profits | January 19, 2010 at 02:25 PM