Do we have your attention? Sure, the title is clickbait-y. But the story behind it is true: Our client was buying branded keyterms and paying for sales they would already get organically. Let’s look at why that matters and how you can avoid making the same mistake.
The Root of the Problem
One of our clients wanted to increase sales on their site. However, the agency in charge of their paid advertising was spending a significant portion of the pay-per-click (PPC) budget on the company’s own branded keywords.
Now, when it comes to PPC, it’s all about maximizing the impact of your spend. This other agency was buying the brand’s name, immediately increasing the conversion rate relative to PPC and making SEO look bad. That particular contractor then boasted a very high sales attribute to PPC even though, in reality, it was just taking sales that were previously coming from organic traffic.
The Stats: By strategically shifting away from buying branded keywords, our client’s PPC sales may have decreased. However, with Google’s organic traffic up by 54%, overall sales increased by 170%.
What are Branded Keywords?
Branded keywords are search terms that include a company’s name, products, or other brand-specific identifiers. These keywords are used by people who are already familiar with a brand and are actively searching for it: “Adidas running shoes,” “Apple iPhone 15,” or “Culver’s menu.” While that may make sense, businesses often rank organically for their branded keywords, which means they don’t need to pay for those rankings.
What to do instead: Use that money to buy keywords that people who don’t know you are already using to search for what you offer. This is the best way to attract new leads and get new sales.
Maximize Your PPC Budget
First things first: stop investing too much into your own branded keywords. You don’t want to pay for sales that you could have gotten for free.
In many cases, people searching for your brand name already intend to visit your site. So, it’s safe to say they’ll click on your organic listing rather than a competitor’s ad. Paying for clicks on branded keywords means spending money on traffic you may have received for free.
Instead, allocate more of your PPC budget toward non-branded, high-intent keywords that capture new audiences and drive incremental growth. Simply put, put your budget towards finding people who need you but don’t know who you are!
As with everything, there is an exception: in highly competitive industries where competitors bid on your brand name, strategic branded keyword bidding may be necessary to protect your position. You can also specifically buy branded keywords when you’re looking to drive traffic to a specific landing page, say for an upcoming event that’s important to your KPIs.
“By reducing branded ad spend, organic search increased, picking up the loss in paid branded terms. We were able to push more of our ad spend into non-branded search, giving us a better chance of gaining new customers with the same budget.”
– Brandon K., Brandography’s Paid Advertising Manager
Talk to Us
Has something sparked for you about your paid marketing efforts? We’d love to hear about them. Tell us your roadblocks, and we’ll tell you how we can solve them. Reach out to our team, and we’ll get in touch.
