Today we're talking about brand terms within Google ads, and why it's important to spend money on those terms. This is something that comes up a lot with our clients so we thought it was time for a blog post.Why do clients bring this up so often?
Today we're talking about brand terms within Google Ads, and why it's important to spend money on those terms. This is something that comes up a lot with our clients so we thought it was time for a blog post.
Why do clients bring this up so often?
Clients are concerned about investing a portion of their monthly budget on their own brand terms (e.g Acme Anvil Company paying Google to show up when people search for "acme anvil company"). Clients often feel that people are going to find them anyway since it's their brand name, so why pay for that click?
Today we're going start with a massive brand. Porsche. Why Porsche? Because I love Porsches. That's all.
Let's dive into the first reason.
When someone searches on Google, we want to control the Google result. We want to control the interaction. The SERP, or the search engine results page, is the landscape upon which the results are placed. When you type or speak a search term into Google there are only so many results that are visible and what is visible depends on whether you're on a mobile phone, a tablet, or a desktop. By investing in brand terms in Google Ads you are most likely to show up in the first position. Since ads are at the top of the page, you'll be the first thing a person sees. If they're already searching for you, you have removed any friction and have delivered them to your website or landing page to complete the transaction. Mission accomplished.
Brand terms are considerably less expensive to bid on than generic terms (a generic term, in this case, would be "anvils near me"). The acquisition costs are lower. It's a wise investment.
Because if you don't appear right at the top, you're trusting the person to do the work of finding you on their own. And people searching on mobile, which is the majority of people for most search terms, have a small amount of real estate to navigate. They're on mobile. They're picking up their phone. You want them to get results as soon as possible. Why? They have a slew of potential distractions barreling toward them that will disrupt their moment and keep them from contacting you. They have texts, notifications, FaceTimes, phone calls, etc (Ok, maybe not phone calls so much).
The SERP has a lot is going on.
Depending on the keyword, you might have Local Service Ads, often referred to as Google Guarantee ads, at the top, followed by paid ads. Then you have the map with the three-pack of local results. Then finally the organic results appear which are followed by more ads. If you are banking, literally, on people making it down to the organic results you're throwing money away.
It's important to show up in the first position for another reason.
Extensions!
When you show up in position one or two on Google the extensions that you have enabled are going to appear. We always recommend having as many extensions as possible because your ad goes from primary text only to now have a direct link to the homepage, a promotion extension for your offer, site link extensions, location, extensions, and call extensions. All of these are super important for a lot of our client's success.
In the U.S., any company advertising with Google Ads can bid on your brand term or brand keyword. What this means is that Ferrari can bid on the keyword "Porsche" and show an ad to everyone who searches for Porsche. That ad could include, should include if they know what they're doing, a value proposition demonstrating why the person searching should choose Ferrari over Porsche. Wouldn't you want to be part of the conversation instead of having Ferrari poaching the people that you worked to earn their awareness? The answer is yes.
Again, your competitor might be using Phrase Match + your brand term and that might hit the person searching square in the forehead. "That's exactly what I need!". And off they go, holding hands with your enemy. If your competitor's ad is good then the user is not going to scroll down to the map or the organic results. They're going to leave you behind.
This also means that the other company, assuming they do a good job, is going to get the benefit of the lifetime value from this company. Now you've lost out twice.
The easiest way to see just what competitors are bidding on your brand terms is to log in to Google Ads and go to the Auction Insights tool. Here you will see the companies listed as well as data showing how often they show up for your keywords and how often they rank ABOVE you for your keyword.
If you view this report and see that your competitors are bidding against you and gaining a decent volume of impressions then you have to defend your territory.
Often, it's not your big competitors being the most active here. We often see smaller upstarts and up-and-comers bidding the most aggressively. They're using your brand name to build their brand awareness with your customers. Remember, no one, not you or your competitors, gets charged if the person doesn't click. So just showing up and getting zero clicks still benefits your competitors.
Remember, brand keywords are cheap for you. This isn't an expensive part of your campaign allocation. Defend your turf.
You might be saying, "Yeah, but does this work? Who would click on another ad when they're searching for me?". It's a reasonable thought. But it's wrong. How do we know? Because IMA does this same tactic on behalf of our clients.
That's right. We do this for our clients and bid on other competitors' keywords. And it works. It works especially well against other companies who are asleep at the switch. We can generate 50, 100, 500 leads a month using competitor keywords. These companies typically are not running Google ads or their budgets aren't properly allocated - or they haven't read this article :) - and our clients can capitalize on that. You don't want to be in that position.
If someone is typing your brand term into Google, their intent is likely very high.
Compare that to someone that types in a generic term without your brand. Something that fits within your service or product category, but is not explicitly you. For example, I'm looking for black shoes or I'm looking for a carpet cleaner. If that's the case, then the intent to purchase from you is not necessarily high.
They may not have any intent to purchase. They might be in research mode. After all, Researchers account for an estimated 20% of people in your marketing.
But if someone's going to type your brand name in, they likely have high intent to purchase now and that is easy money. That's low-hanging fruit.
You get an incredible amount of leads/acquisitions from your brand campaign at a very low cost per click (CPC), a high click-through rate (CTR), a high lead volume, a high conversion rate, and a low cost per lead or cost per acquisition. What's not to love?
Put simply, at IMA we recommend between 10% - 30% but your mileage may vary. A real-world example might help.
A current client is spending 22% of their monthly Google Ads budget on their brand campaign. For that 22%, they're getting leads at a $6 Cost Per Lead (CPL). Their Search Lost Impression Share, meaning the amount of impression we're losing on this brand campaign because of budget, is zero. We show up every time someone does a brand search and we're capped out at 22% of their budget.
The client spends around $6,000 per month. We track their revenue in their CRM so we have accurate data. They average $50,000 in monthly revenue from Google Ads. From a $6,000 investment. That is not an unusual ROI number for our clients. And they only spend $1,320 on brand.
Pretty, pretty good.
If you're looking for more information on how to manage your brand terms on Google Ads contact us for a free consultation. We're always happy to help small and medium size businesses figure things out and make the most of their digital marketing.
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