Why You Should Bid on Your Own Branded Terms in Paid Search

One question that has haunted me since I entered the PPC realm in 2014 is, “Should we really be bidding on our own branded terms?” It’s normal to wonder why you should have to pay for clicks when users are already searching for your brand. I (obviously) have opinions on this question, so let this blog post serve as my response to the question above. 

There are some pretty common reasons businesses cite for being hesitate to bid on their branded terms. Most often, the reason is a combination of one or all of the three below:

  1. “People searching my brand will just click on our organic listing.” 
    1. Paying for traffic that you’d likely get for free seems unnecessary!

  2. “Paid branded traffic takes credit away from SEO.” 
    1. This can make it look like paid search is outperforming organic traffic, which doesn’t sit well if you’re putting resources into SEO.

  3. “It’s about saving money!” 
    1. This is the most common reason cited. I get it; cutting branded ad spend feels like the least painful way to save on marketing costs.

But as rational as these arguments seem, they simply don’t hold up in the real world of advertising on the internet here in the 21st century. 

Here’s why bidding on your branded terms is almost always worth it—and what happened when one of our past clients challenged this theory by turning off their branded ads. 

Why Bidding on Your Brand Makes Sense

  1. You Want to Own the Valuable Space at the Top of the Search Results Page (Instead of Your Competitors Owning it!) 

When people search for almost anything these days, they’re likely to see a results page filled with sponsored listings before any organic results. And despite the upsurge in AI eating up most of the space above the fold, this is unlikely to change any time soon. Why? Because Google makes too much money on sponsored listings to get rid of them or make them harder to click. Simple as that. 

This space at the top is premium real estate. People spend most of their time here rather than scrolling down, so if there’s a way to ensure your brand is front and center, why wouldn’t you take it? 

Think about it: if a competitor’s ad shows up for your brand name and catches someone’s eye—maybe it offers a discount or a similar product—that’s a potential customer lost before they even get to your site. And sure, your competitors may not convert every visitor this way, but they’ll likely steal enough traffic to justify the expense. By not bidding on your branded terms, you’re essentially giving away conversions to your competition.

  1. Our Data Proves You Cannot Rely on Organic Alone

If the idea of competitors stealing your traffic isn’t compelling enough, let’s look at some data. One of our clients back in the day was simply not convinced that paying for branded traffic was worth the cost. They wanted to see what would happen if they paused their branded search ads on keywords they were ranking number one organically for. Once their busy season was over,  we suggested pausing their branded keywords for a month and then comparing leads before, during, and after this period.

Here’s What We Found

In previous years, this client saw steady organic and paid search performance, so we had a solid baseline. But when we paused their branded campaigns, things changed.

As expected, leads from paid search dropped significantly during the pause, of course. What was surprising, though, was that organic leads did not pick up the slack.

Our client lost nearly 600 leads during that three-week span—a decrease of 10%.

In this case, organic search alone did not make up for the traffic and conversions that branded ads delivered. 

The Bottom Line

Is this anecdotal evidence? Yes. And sure, if your brand is well-known, has loyal customers, and your site is highly optimized, you very well might get away with pausing branded ads without a huge impact. But for most businesses, those branded ads are worth the cost. Don’t leave your brand’s visibility in search to chance, whether that’s to your organic rankings, or to your competitors.

Not convinced? You can certainly call my bluff and try the test yourself, but I’m pretty confident that branded campaigns are a key part of a well-rounded digital marketing strategy, and also highly skeptical that your Organic Search will make up for it in its absence. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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