December 15, 2016
Paid search campaigns are extremely versatile. Whether you’re a university looking for higher enrollment numbers or an e-commerce site trying to move products out of your warehouse, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have something to offer.
Even though there is a large range of services advertised through search engines, there is one campaign no account should be without: a brand campaign.
Why do I need a brand campaign?
Essentially, a brand campaign means that you’re bidding on keywords that contain the name of your company or your products.
For example, the Perfect Search brand campaign would include the keyword “Perfect Search Media,” as well as other permutations.
It’s common for companies to fail to see the value in bidding on their own brand. After all, why should you bid on the name of your own company? Shouldn’t organic search results display your company for free?
While these are fair questions, there are many advantages to running a brand campaign that you might not have considered.
1) Create a SERP monopoly
When a user types in a query that includes your brand name, your company should be all over the search engine results page (SERP).
After all, they’re searching for you. When you pay for branded keywords, you get a link at the top of the page in addition to your organic listing. In this case, two is better than one.
The additional paid link just increases the odds that someone will be directed to your site. Control over the whole SERP makes your brand seem much more impressive to the user.
To a user, seeing multiple links from the same source boosts his or her confidence that the brand is a successful, major player in the industry.
2) Protect your brand from competitors
If other companies in your industry are utilizing paid search cleverly, they might start to bid on your brand name. This way, they can show up in the SERP and offer users a similar product.
This can be very problematic for your company because your competitors are trying to cash in on your brand name and siphon off clicks that would normally be directed towards your site. If you’re not running a brand campaign, your competitor will be able to appear ahead of your organic listing.
If you’re thinking “So what? If they’re looking for my brand, they’ll still visit our site,” you might have more confidence in the user than you should.
Just think of all the times you’ve gone to a store looking for a particular product with a specific brand in mind—and then you bought something similar from another brand. The same can take place with search results.
Bidding on your own keywords can protect your brand name and ensure all searches intended for you result in traffic to your site.
3) Get a bargain
In comparison to other generic product keywords that most companies bid on, brand keywords are very inexpensive. Oftentimes, branded CPCs are significantly lower than regular keywords.
This is primarily because there is little competition on your own brand. That’s why you shouldn’t worry about making a big financial investment in a brand campaign.
In addition to their affordability, branded keywords are extremely effective. Since conversion rates are very high for branded keywords, they’re a great deal.
The higher conversion rates are due to the fact that users are searching for a specific brand and are therefore further down the consumer decision funnel.
Check out the comparison between a brand and non-brand paid search campaign below. The brand campaign has a much higher CTR, a lower CPC, a higher average position, and a lower cost-per-acquisition. That's a win-win-win-win.
4) You can be specific
In comparison to organic search, paid search campaigns are much easier to customize and control. While SEO has a ton of value, you don’t have complete control over content shown in the SERP the way you do with paid search. This is especially apparent when determining landing pages.
For example, let’s say you run a clothing store called “Perfect Search Apparel.” If someone specifically searches for “perfect search blazer,” organic results could give you a variety of pages. It could possibly show links to your coats page or just your home page.
With paid search, you can create specific landing pages triggered by keywords. This way you could show a link to your blazers page with much more certainty. Specific ad copy and targeted landing pages will likely increase your chances of getting clicks and conversions.
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Have you changed your perspective on brand campaigns? We hope so.
Don’t forget to check out our guide to AdWords & Facebook conversions as well as our post about expanded text ads.