PPC bidding on brand is a crucial strategy for businesses looking to maximize their online presence and increase their brand awareness. With the ever-growing competition in the digital landscape, it has become imperative for companies to not only invest in traditional marketing methods but also incorporate PPC advertising into their overall marketing strategy.
Pay-per-click (PPC) bidding on brand is a technique that allows businesses to bid on keywords related to their brand name, products, or services, and have their ads displayed prominently on search engine result pages (SERPs). This article aims to provide valuable insights and advice from the PPC Live community on how to effectively bid on brand and leverage this technique to drive traffic, generate leads, and ultimately increase conversions.
One of our PLU Chat WhatsApp group member asked the question below:
We had very interesting responses.
Treat Brand Search as an Acquisition strategy
For Paid Search, think about brand search terms more as an insurance than an acquisition channel.
If you see your brand terms as a part of your acquisition you are likely to significantly increase your cost of acquisition.
On the other hand, if you consider that this is simply a way to prevent your competitors from stealing your clients you are likely to allocate the right budget and then separate that spent from your acquisition.
Because most people typing for brand terms are either existing clients or people so advanced in your funnel of acquisition that they are unlikely (this is the probability to evaluate) to pick a competitor
Branded Search is Low Funnel
Is the brand new or does it have some presence? If it is completely new then I dont really think you can scale it. Branded search is pretty low funnel and if you dont already have search volume for branded terms TOFu sadly is the only way to build on it. Curious as to what others have to say
Also, if you have built strong negatives for your TM campaign then how about trying Broad Match with brand controls?
Focus on the absolute top to increase it from 33% to 80+% I would say. It is your Trademark term and I feel like that’s the only metric i can think of that you can improve upon
Move Down the Funnell
There’s not much you can do other than push that branded IS up closer to 100% then move down the funnel
Not sure what sector you are in but find the best way for cost effective awareness campaigns
my point is that if you stop spending on brand, you can do some of the things you say you don’t have budget for.
I assume you are no1 organically for your brand, nobody likes turning it off, but often you’ll find a large & of those leads will still come in and you just don’t pay for them
turn off brand and spend it somewhere else in PPC to drive more awareness that will lead to more branded search in general
Just let SEO take the credit for branded search
Focus on Top of Funnels and SEO traffic
If you want to increase the brand searches then you have to focused on the TOF campaigns and also on the Organic traffic too. The more people will know about your business the more brand searches you will get otherwise you have to stick with the existing search volume and that increase in slow speed.
In the other hand for the brand keywords you have to use brand keyword with all the different close relevant possibilities (Like services) through that you’ll also get more visitors.
And check how many compititoers actually using your brand keyword to het your traffic in that case you can’t pause your brand campaign
I also see a better improvement in the brand search volume when we use other paid channels so you can consider that too
When our competitors are not using our keywords and our organic searches are listed on top of the search results then i suggested to pause the brand campaign and start testing the TOF campaign
Manual CPC
Generally speaking, for brand KWs I would prefer to use manual CPC. It gives you control and static results. However, it turns out, Google tries to force advertisers to use Broad Match + automated bidding. I always suggest to go for maximise clicks or maximise conversions (depending on campaign KPIs) if you don’t feel confident enough to use manual biding.
Alba González. SEM and Paid Social Executive for EMEA Markets
Conversion bidding Strategies
In my experience, conversion bidding strategies usually aren’t the most effective for brand campaign. We already know the audience is qualified and don’t need special bidding to target the right users.
Assuming that brand campaigns have high ROAS or low CPAs, I often find that maximise clicks with a CPC cap delivers the best results.
I will usually test this with custom campaign experiment against the current bid strategy. Maximise impression share also works well (with CPC cap), but maximise clicks is lesser known and often wins.
Odi Caspi is the founder of EffectiveMarketing.uk
Conclusion
In conclusion, bidding on your brand in PPC campaigns is a strategic decision that requires careful consideration and a strong understanding of your target audience and competitors. While some may argue that it is unnecessary to bid on your own brand, there are clear benefits to doing so, such as protecting your brand’s online presence and capitalizing on potential conversions. Ultimately, the best approach will vary for each business and it is important to constantly evaluate and adjust your bidding strategy to achieve the best results.
