Why Bid On Branded Terms?
People who manage a pay-per-click (PPC) account are constantly searching for a new approach or technique to improve their performance. After all, it can be quite challenging for any business to achieve goals in the competitive PPC arena.
There are various strategies available today, and as the account manager, it’s in your best interest to choose the one that can give you the best results.
One vital yet controversial approach in the world of PPC is bidding on branded terms.
What Is Brand Bidding?
In the world of PPC, brand bidding is the practice of placing a Google AdWords bid on your own branded search terms. This can also involve bidding on competitor keywords. Competitors bidding on branded terms is actually more common than you think.
What makes this approach disputed is because some people believe that bidding on branded keywords is a waste of money.
However, numerous expert tests have shown over the years that brand bidding actually works. That is why more and more PPC specialists are using this method nowadays.
Reasons Why You Should Bid On Your Own Branded Terms
Here are the main reasons why you should start brand bidding on brand terms.
Reason #1: Control Brand Messaging Exactly as You Want
Potential customers are constantly searching for your brand and are expecting a branded experience every time they interact with it. When you depend only on organic search results, a person may only see information from the organic description supplied to them and not what you want to be seen. It could even take a few months for organic changes to happen.
Using paid ads, it is possible to make sure potential customers see the right message at the right time depending on what they are looking for.
PPC lets you put out unique value propositions and special features in your ad copy. You may even add extensions that have high-performing content.
Additionally, you can test what kind of messaging works best for your business, which is beneficial for your content marketing strategy. Using A/B testing on your PPC campaigns can let you see which messages are resonating the most with your customers. This knowledge will let you optimize your approach for search engines.
Reason #2: Influence The Search Results
Just because you are at the top of the organic search results doesn’t mean that you should forget about the other rankings below you. Being in the number one spot also doesn’t entail that you are prominent in other features of the search engine results pages (SERPs) such as in maps, shopping, images, and knowledge graphs.
Bidding on your own brand terms can let you secure more space on top of these other results. The more you can cover, the better it is going to be. This is especially true for mobile search wherein the highest spot (whether paid or organic) takes up most of the screen.
Reason #3: Because Your Competitors Will
Smart competitors will look for ways to sway your customers by distracting them from your organic results with other enticing offers.
In mobile search, a competitor that is in the highest-paid spot of your branded term search means that people won’t see your results until they start scrolling.
“Can I stop competitors bidding on my brand?” No, but you can prevent them from poaching your customers by bidding on your own brand terms. Failing to do this can result in your brand missing out on a big chunk of revenue that could be going your way.
Reason #4: Get Leads and Traffic From Both Paid and Organic Listings
Despite organic clicks being free, simply ranking organically for your branded search terms doesn’t mean you are going to get all of the traffic concerning these queries.
The reason for this is because organic results can appear below the fold when there are paid competitors above you.
When you bid strategically on branded terms, you can give yourself a boost by bringing more qualified traffic to your business.
Reason #5: Improve Your Quality Score
Using brand terms is highly relevant and is an easy way to bring up your click-through-rate (CTR) percentage. CTR percentage is a major factor that determines the quality score of your PPC account.
High-quality scores let you get better ad positions and also lowers CPC for your chosen terms.
Reason #6: To Promote New Products or Services
As you grow your brand, you’re most likely growing the number of products or services you provide to customers. Using brand keywords can let you bring attention to these new products or services you are offering.
Customers that use a branded keyword to find your brand are already familiar with your business. This means that they are potentially prime candidates who are interested in your latest offerings.
Your branded PPC campaigns can help you get ahead of search rankings that could take several months to do organically. Furthermore, this helps ensure that you’re putting your new products or services in front of your target audience while they are still interested.
Reason #7: Increase Conversions
The standard search engine ranking is designed to only direct users to your website and not necessarily to convert them into paying customers. Although you may already have a process that tries to funnel site visitors into converting, it isn’t always effective.
With a PPC branded campaign, you have more control over your conversion process. These campaigns are optimized for driving users to your landing pages or to accomplish desired actions. Both can be incredibly beneficial as they have a higher probability of turning site visitors into customers.
Branded search terms also attract people who are already within your sales cycle, which means that they are extremely close to making a purchasing decision.
When you have the right branded PPC campaign, you will be able to bring in more people to landing pages and convert them to the next stage in the buying journey.
Which Brand Terms To Bid On and Not To Bid On
The brand terms that you should bid on are your company name, company URL, and your product names.
Bidding on these will let you cover your main brand terms in all types of searches while protecting your brand against the competition.
You should run search query analysis regularly to ensure that you’re able to reach the right audiences. You can then use these analyses to learn any new relevant terms that you can add to your campaigns or identify irrelevant ones to avoid.
These are the brand terms you should avoid using:
- Login terms
- Finance/stock terms
- Job and career-related terms
- Products and services you don’t wish to promote
- Help desk/customer service terms
What’s The Difference Between Branded and Non-Branded Terms?
A branded search term is a query that incorporates the brand name of your website or its variations. It should be unique to the domain you are using.
For example, branded keywords for “mywebsite.com” will have queries like:
- Mywebsite
- Mywebsite tool
- Mywebsite com
- My website blog
- Is mywebsite good
Key terms that do not reference a brand name or any part of it are considered to be non-branded search terms.
The main difference between the two is their reach. Branded keywords address a possible audience that is already searching for your brand. It deals with a narrower segment of possible candidates compared to those searching non-branded terms.
However, analyzing non-branded keywords can also help you gauge your SEO efforts better with regards to targeting and driving visitors.
How To Find Branded Terms
Here are several ways that can help you identify your branded keywords.
Use Google Alerts
Google is always a good reference when talking about keywords and their relevance to your brand in search engine results pages. Fortunately, you can use Google Alerts to help you get the answers you need.
Rather than search for terms manually, you can use this free tool to inform you whenever your brand is being mentioned on the web. This will help you generate valuable insights that you can use later on for your PPC campaign.
Explore Social Networks
Another potential source for finding branded keywords is social media. One of the tools that you can start with is Twitter.
The platform’s Advanced Search capability lets you find just what you need. It is possible to customize your searches, such as finding the exact phrase, specific terms, or words that are in the same phrase.
Leverage Specific Tools
Besides the organic search methods for identifying branded key terms, you can also find these keywords by using specific tools.
Tools such as SEMRush and SproutSocial are great as they allow you to find the terms that are related to your business.
Conclusion
Although bidding on brand terms may seem like a controversial topic, you should keep in mind that your competitors are also doing it. Furthermore, the benefits that you can get from this approach outweigh the negatives.
When you bid on branded search terms, you can control the messaging that people see concerning your brand, you get to control the search results, and minimize the risk to your digital marketing strategies.
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