PPC for Branded Keywords and Terms

[jeff-sage]

What is the current thinking regarding including branded terms (full product names, brand name + keyword, etc.) in your PPC campaign? My company has good brand awareness, and key words and terms associated with them (i.e. Dell computer, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Nikon camera, etc.) are always #1 or in the top 2-3 organically. The agency we're working with claims that by buying the branded terms PLUS being at the top organically increases brand credibility and has been proven that the user is more likely to click.

I'm not convinced...seems like a waste of PPC spend if we're already at the top organically. Any thoughts or usability studies/papers that talk about this?

Thanks for your help with this question.

[MicahMMG]

It's certainly controversial, but some studies have shown exactly what your agency is claiming.

Buying terms for your own brand is inexpensive.  ~ 10 cents per click or so.  You will see some cannibalization from this, because some users will click the ad instead of the organic link just beneath it.

Just make sure they're also doing negative targeting to avoid job searchers looking for jobs in your brand.  They should really be doing this regardless of whether or not they're buying branded terms.

[StreamlineMetrics]

I get this question all the time from my clients and my answer is - Absolutely, you should bid on your brand name in PPC even if you are number 1 organically. Here are 5 reasons from a blog post I wrote about this very subject - http://streamlinemetrics.com/blog/top-5-reasons-why-you-should-bid-on-your-company-name-or-brand-name-in-google-adwords.php

**1. You will be able to control more space on the screen and more importantly, space that is above the fold. **Even if you rank number one for your brand name, having a sponsored pay-per-click listing above it ensures that anyone searching for you has to scroll a lot further to find someone who isn’t you. Getting your name to dominate like this should mean that you’re not just paying for clicks that would have been free; you’re actually increasing the number of clicks overall. This is especially important for ecommerce websites for well-known brands since their products are available on other major retail websites such as Amazon, Walmart and Target who all rank very highly in the organic rankings.

2. Your competitors can bid on your brand name anytime. If your company was not bidding on your brand name, those clicks and potential sales would go to the other major competitors that I listed above along with smaller direct competitors trying to take advantage of your brand name for pennies on the dollar.
3. It’s extremely cheap. Often less than a dime or even a nickel per click. Meaning you could get 1,000 highly targeted clicks a month for $50.
4. You can gain invaluable insights for keyword research. It’s impossible to predict every single different misspelling or variation of a brand name related keyword phrase that users search for, so by bidding on the company name we can look at the data to see all of the keywords the ad was displayed for and make changes as necessary.

**5. It gives you more control over your message. **With organic search results, Google usually picks up your meta description or the first bit of text on your page – but not always. With pay-per-click ads, you get to craft a bit of copy specially designed to increase click-through rates. Also, with pay-per-click ads, you have the flexibility of constantly testing new ad copy and seasonal promotions without worrying about losing your organic rankings.

[jeff-sage]

Thanks for your response. Good answer.

[jeff-sage]

Great response. Thanks for the thorough answer.